I Made It To The Palestra

  A whole heck of a lot has happened in the past week. College football crowned a champion. The NFL regular season has ended and the playoffs are on the horizon. Golden State plus the Los Angeles Lakers are making it harder to extricate themselves from horrible records and play. And the Dodgers and Braves, two already talent-rich clubs, made themselves better. 

I will get to most everything I want to discuss. But for now, as I hear the not-so-gentle patter of raindrops from a large storm moving up the East Coast after wreaking havoc in the South, I turn to college basketball. Specifically, a bucket list item. 

Growing up in Central Jersey, I was mostly privy to the New York market and the teams in it. I grew into being a Knicks fan early; ditto with the Rangers, Giants and Yankees. 

The airwaves were shared by college basketball. New York was once the Mecca of that sport, with so many colleges in the area. I knew of St. John’s; Manhattan; NYU; LIU; Fordham; Columbia; and I had heard of Seton Hall. CCNY had de-emphasized its program after the point-shaving scandals in the 1950’s. If I didn’t see the teams on television, the print media covered them with gusto. 

Moreover, Madison Square Garden was the focal point of college hoops (basketball  wasn’t called hoops when I first took notice). Doubleheaders involving local teams and some of the bigger names in the sport happened regularly. The National Invitational Tournament, held at the smoke-filled building on 8th Avenue and 49th Street, with the larger-than-life theater marquee dominating the building’s entrance, was actually more important than the NCAA Tournament. 

Sure, I had a steady diet of college basketball from various gyms in New York City; Rutgers was merely a backwater small college not known for anything other than beating Princeton in the first collegiate football game. Yet, there was another place, not too far away from Highland Park, which prided itself as its own focal point for college basketball. 

That city was Philadelphia. Which had its five college basketball powers—La Salle, St. Joseph’s, Temple, the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova. The fans called it the Big Five. 

With the miracle of Channel 17 somehow reaching our house, then through cable, I watched with great interest the fierce rivalries between the schools. The crowds were so large that one venue was the home for the games. That building was The Palestra, located on the campus of the Ivy League powerhouse and nearby legendary Franklin Field. Penn’s gym was the largest one of the schools and even larger than Convention Hall, where the Warriors played before moving West, and the Sixers were born. 

Between the Big Five games and the Princeton-Penn contests, which included Bill Bradley, Princeton’s greatest player, who would become an NBA Champion with the Knicks and then the U.S. Senator from New Jersey, I was smitten with the atmosphere, perhaps more so than even the Garden, where I witnessed games in the old place and now the area which sits atop Penn Station. 

I always knew I wanted to go to a game at The Palestra. Just like I wanted to go to a Celtics game at the Boston Garden, see the Cubs in Wrigley Field or the Dodgers in Dodger Stadium, or merely walk into the buildings at North Carolina, UCLA and Duke; Green Bay’s Lambeau Field and Notre Dame Stadium, Michigan Stadium or Ohio Stadium simply to feel the echoes of what had transpired in years past. 

One thing for certain is that I am not getting any younger. I knew I had to act on my long-standing desire to go to this Cathedral of College Basketball, as it has been called. 

While I would have preferred a Big Five tussle, The Palestra now only hosts those contests when Penn is the home team. Yet The Palestra was the home to so many Ivy League and other games (the DIII Landmark League is taking over the building next weekend to give its member schools the opportunity to feel some history) that I selected the January 4 league opener versus Dartmouth as my chosen game.  

My wife is a saint. She indulges my desire to see sporting events—mainly because, as  I learned when we met 42 years ago her father took her to games. She loves to go with me on my frolic and detours as I call them; she says they are adventures and she is much more accurate than I. 

Once she was in, I hatched an idea to involve two Franklin and Marshall buddies who love basketball. One is a junkie who saw many a Maryland game and attended the ACC Tournament. The other is a Penn Medical School graduate who actually has a small season plan this year. They said yes. 

With some small hiccups regarding seat purchases and the weather—it began as snow but turned to heavy rain in Philadelphia but was much more snow in North Jersey—we met on Saturday. We went for Dim Sum as our pre-game chow and four of us strolled through the elements to the arena while the other women went to a museum. 

When I walked in, I immediately felt the history eminating from the rafters of the building built in 1927. So many pennants signifying Penn’s dominance in the Ivy League hung from the ceiling. I admired the radiators on the walls, signifying that it was a relic from another era. 

A lot had been modernized. As it should. Still, the bleachers at one end seemed to be out of another time, frozen in in place and conjuring up ghosts off times past when The Palestra was in its prime.  

The game was a blowout. We sat not far from one basket, so we had a great view of the action. Not too many were there on that wintry Saturday and the pep band was weak given that the student body remained on break. 

None of that mattered. For nearly two hours I was in basketball heaven. When icy weather canceled our trip to Allentown to see F&M play Muhlenberg, it hardly mattered that my exercising prudence cost me a chance to see another game in person. I had completed a long journey on Saturday. 

As to the other sports, Michigan was a deserved winner of the College Football Playoff. The Wolverines toyed with the Huskies. Embattled Head Coach Jim Harbaugh once more denied the cheating rumors for which he now had redemption. He can coach, like his father and brother, the latter the head man for the top AFC team, the Baltimore Ravens. Whether he stays or goes, he is one of the best coaches of all time—whether you like or respect him.

Buffalo won the AFC East, dropping a depleted Miami team to travel to enigmatic Kansas City for the first round of the playoffs while the Bills host Pittsburgh, which rallied to claim a playoff spot. Cleveland, with oldster Joe Flacco at the helm, meets upstart Houston in the other AFC game. 

A reader reminded me that the Philadelphia Eagles losing was reminiscent of how the 1964 Phillies failed to hold a lead in the National League race. Should the Eagles not fly high in Tampa, Nick Siriani’s job may be in jeopardy. Do I hear the name Bill Belichick bandied about if there is an opening and he and Robert Kraft part ways in New England?

It is an interesting twist that the Los Angeles Rams and QB Matthew Stafford, take on Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions in the Motor City. Stafford is the all-time record holder in Detroit while Goff had starred in LA. Dallas seems poised to make a run in the playoffs; Head Coach Mike Mc Carthy needs to defeat his former team, the Green Bay Packers to keep the pressure off of him. Baltimore and San Francisco wait in the wings. 

The Atlanta Braves landed perennial star but somewhat injury-prone Chris Sale to add to their superb pitching staff. The Dodgers get slugger Teoscar Hernandez to add to their potent lineup. These two teams should meet in the NLCS. 

NBA bigwigs have to be concerned that the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers are not currently in playoff contention. To not have Steph Curry or Lebron James on national TV would not sit well with the suits in New York. Even if the Knicks are relevant again, the Sixers and Celtics are really good, and a number of other teams can make a run at the NBA title. 

For now, all that is trivial. I made it to The Palestra.