Passion and Patience

Last Saturday marked what will be the beginning of yet another long and painful season for Fordham basketball when they opened their season vs. St. Francis College (NY) at home in the Bronx. The motto for this year's awful, but slowly improving team is "Passion and Patience" which I think is the first time that those two words have ever been put together. Even though this season will be a test for even the most diehard fan, St. Francis was a team that could be beaten by most high school girls teams. As a result, Fordham blew them out by 21 points, and this is probably the last time I'll ever write a sentence like this in my lifetime. Pretty soon they'll be back to losing to teams by 40 points (like some other teams I know) but I'm going to enjoy this victory until that happens. The story with this Fordham game though was that the school was retiring Ed Conlin's number 11 jersey. Ed Conlin was a large headed white man from the 1950s who is the school's all-time leading scorer and rebounder. Lucky for him, he was still alive to see the school honor him 50 years after he graduated. It was a ceremony for the ages. Everybody was there from some short old white guy, to some taller old white guy who could only have dominated the sport in their day. These ex-players from that era, along with other ex-players and staffers (myself included) from other eras were invited to come and celebrate. When I went to get my ticket before the game, the guy running things asked me if I still wanted to be introduced at the halftime ceremony. I, of course, had no idea what he was talking about. I thought this was all going to take place at a pregame reception so I never thought that I would be introduced at halftime among other things. After I thought about it for a couple of seconds I realized that it would be a little weird if I was introduced as an ex-manager from just a couple years ago, while everyone else who were going to be introduced were all ex-players from the 1950s and 1960s. If I knew that another manager was going to be there with me than the story might have been different. Since this was the way things were though, I kind of respectfully declined, took my free ticket, and headed off to the bathroom.

MORE ON ED CONLIN: Along with the pleasure of watching the halftime extravaganza, each fan who attended the game were given these nifty Ed Conlin buttons to wear both during the game and also in real life if they felt like it. Unfortunately, I'm not able to show you this button, but I'll try my best to describe it to you. The button is rectangular and it has an action shot of Ed Conlin from his playing days. In the picture he's driving through defenders and has his left leg bended in the air like a pitcher has during his wind-up. What makes this so hilarious is that his shorts are shorter than you can imagine, even for the 1950's and you can see clearly the size of his thigh. I don't think I've ever seen a larger, or brighter thigh in my lifetime. The players surrounding him seem to be blinded by his thigh and they are looking away so their eyes don't burn. Brian and I were fascinated by this button and it didn't wear off for the whole game and still probably hasn't days after. Since we normally act like a five year old when we both think something is funny, we kept making Ed Conlin thigh jokes throughout the night, even during the ceremony. It never got old, and it never will. Not only was Ed Conlin one of Fordham's best all-time players, but he had thighs that can't be compared to the thighs of any other person alive or dead. If only you guys could see this picture.

FROM THE RANDOM QUOTE DEPARTMENT: I was flipping through the channels yesterday and I saw that Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was on so I watched it for a couple of minutes. It didn't take long for him to say the following:

"You can only imagine how hungry someone must be to steal someone else's garden."



Mr. Rogers, if you're not dead already, you will be missed.

SMUSH PARKER WATCH:



11/23/04 @ Charlotte: In 13 minutes Smush scored 3 points, had 0 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 turnover.

11/24/04 @ Cleveland: In 11 minutes Smush scored 3 points, had 1 rebound, 1 assist and 0 turnovers.

RANDOM THOUGHT: In my experience, it's been hard for me to call someone else selfish without sounding unselfish that I'm not being called selfish.