Joe Knight Apologist?

Has Holy Cross play-by-play man Bob Fouracre emerged as an unlikely apologist for Lehigh University senior Joe Knight? Twice during last night's WTAG broadcast of HC's tough loss to Lehigh, Fouracre ranted on about how "poor Joe Knight" was a victim of a "screw up" by the Lehigh athletic administration.

Knight, of course, missed the first half of his senior season because of eligibility questions surrounding his transfer from High Point to Lehigh, with a questionable stop at a Texas CC along the way. And I'll admit that the incompetence in Lehigh's AD in this case is glaring and unacceptable.

Maybe Fouracre read Tom Housenick's story blasting the officials at Lehigh. It's a worthy read, and a contrast to the Lehigh U. defenders out there.

But Bob, "poor Joe Knight?" Call me a PL elitist. I don't care. I'm not willing to absolve Knight of guilt in this matter. He had to know what he was getting into when he began his journey after High Point. If he wasn't a hoops player, there's no chance he'd be matriculating at Lehigh. None. So can we please stop with the Joe Knight pity parties? Thank you.

And for the record, Bob, there's no "Fisher" or "Gilliam" on the Lehigh men's hoops roster. I'm guessing you meant Fischman and Gilfillan. And Joe Knight didn't play at Delaware prior to arriving at Lehigh, even thought you stated that about three times. It's okay, everyone has an off day now and again.

Pearl of Wisdom #6

"That was one of the best periods we've played all season. Two mistakes (two goals allowed). I told them to just keep working hard and continue to do what we do."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from the January 29 edition of the Sunday Telegram, describing the first period of Holy Cross' 5-2 victory over AIC at the Hart Center on Saturday.

The men's hockey team now holds a record of 17-6-1, and 13-4-1 in the AHA. Linemates Blair Bartlett, Tyler McGregor and Dale Reinhardt are playing very well. Keep it up, guys, and Go Cross!

Trivial Pursuit

Last weekend, I was playing "Trivial Pursuit: 20th Anniversary Edition" with some friends, and the following question came up:

What New Jersey university's basketball players sued their coaches for forcing them to run wind sprints in the nude?

The answer, of course, is Rutgers University. And there's a Holy Cross connection, as former HC center, 2001 PL tournament MVP and shot-blocker extraordinaire Josh Sankes was a player at Rutgers while that was going on. Josh subsequently transferred to Holy Cross.

I can't recall, though, if Josh was part of the lawsuit against the Rutgers coaches. I'm pretty sure he was forced to run nude, but for some reason, I don't think he was part of a lawsuit. I'm not sure, though. If someone out there remembers more details of Josh's involvement in this, please leave a comment.

And no, I wasn't fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of that trivia question!

Trains in Scranton

If you're reading this blog, chances are you also read Annie's "Sader Hoops" column on Crossports. Annie, her father, and I went to Bucknell two weeks ago for the HC basketball doubleheader. The men lost, and the ride home was awful, so it turned out that a highlight of the trip was a visit to downtown Scranton on the morning of the basketball games.

Annie said this in her column:

On Saturday morning, I woke up around 8:30 ish, early for a Saturday…too early, so I could go into downtown Scranton to see a train. We met up with my Dad’s classmate, Dominic Keating, who is an avid train lover. After we took pictures in front of the train and received a mini lecture, we went up onto this bridge and watched the train pass underneath us. Well, this was something because the noise was unbelievably loud. The train station is right near a mall, so the noise from the train just bounced off the surrounding walls. So loud, it was awesome.

I have to concur with Annie. It was an amazing show, a real treat, and one of those unique travel experiences you'll never forget.

Some background: It was a gray, dreary morning, and this old-time steam engine was making its once-a-year round trip from the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, southeast to Tobyhanna, PA (where they have a traditional Ice Harvest festival).

Here's Annie's outstanding photo of the train departing Steamtown. This photo captures the gray weather along with the working-class feel of Scranton, PA. The photo is included along with her game photos, linked off her column, but I wanted to post the picture here because my pictures of this are still in my camera. (No, I haven't gone digital yet.)

Mr. Ed Skinner

A coach is a coach, of course, of course,

And no one can whine like this coach of course

That is, of course, because the coach is the famous Mr. Ed.

WoMag found this blog!

We made the newspaper! No, not the T&G. It's the local alternative weekly, Worcester Magazine. Veteran Crossports readers will recall that WoMag published a cover story on Holy Cross football, entitled "Goodbye, Glory Days" in its November 13-19, 2003 issue. WoMag, meet Tom Gilmore.

Anyway, I discovered during a phone call this evening that there was some "big news" relating to yours truly. How big could it be if I didn't know it myself? Well, we're excited to report that WoMag has listed us in this week's edition of its Blog Log. They picked up our "Ice Storm" post which detailed my harrowing journey home from Bucknell to Worcester.

Maybe this news isn't at the same level as knowing Kevin Bettencourt is reading your blog (or more accurately, Boxman's Blog), but it's still pretty cool. I haven't seen the print edition yet, but hope to pick up a copy tomorrow. To any readers who've surfed over here after reading about us in WoMag, welcome aboard!

Pearl of Wisdom #5

"No question - that was a turning point for us. Then he comes back a couple minutes later and scores, which was only fitting."

-Coach Paul Pearl, from Telegram & Gazette of Friday, Jan. 20, discussing the outstanding play of senior forward Blair Bartlett in Thursday's 5-2 victory over the UConn Huskies at the Hart Center.

According to Bill Ballou's game story, the Crusaders held a 3-0 lead late in the second period when the Huskies gained a two-man advantage:

Bartlett controlled the puck along the right boards and took off in the direction of the UConn net. Normally, the plan on a two-man disadvantage is just to clear the puck and get ready for the next assault, but Bartlett kept going, checked only by a tired Connecticut defender. He finally got off a couple of shots on Huskies’ goalie Brad Smith, who stopped them both, but was able to draw a charging penalty in the process.

That took the life out of the Connecticut power play and less than two minutes later, Bartlett made it 4-0 with a goal from a bad angle on the right side.

Good hustle, Blair. And congrats to Coach Pearl on his 167th career win at Holy Cross, tying current women's coach Peter Van Buskirk for first on the school's all-time men's hockey win list.

Like Crossports poster "Ignatius Loyola," I also heard the HC score announced on WEEI's "Sports Flash" updates last night. I'll admit, I haven't listened much to Boston's top-rated sports radio station recently, as my iPod has greatly altered my radio listening habits. But I used to listen almost every night (yeah, I put up with Ted Sarandis), and I never heard a Holy Cross hockey score reported. So what if it was the only Division One hockey game played last night in the nation. WEEI didn't have to report the score. They did, though, and that has to be considered progress.

Sojka Pavilion

I already posted a few of my thoughts on the men's loss to Bucknell in this thread on Crossports, and the women's win in this thread, so I'm not going to duplicate that here.

Instead I'll talk a little about Bucknell University's gorgeous new Langone Athletics and Recreation Center, which includes Sojka Pavilion. The Langone Center has in its center the Kinney Natatorium (featuring an Olympic-size swimming pool), abutted on one side by a fitness center, and on the other side by the basketball court. Floor-to-ceiling windows are prominent throughout Langone. Sojka's concourse overlooks the swimming pool. Across the pool, the two-story fitness center has a wall of windows, also overlooking the pool.

After the men's basketball game, the BU players held an autograph session for the fans. The players' tables were situated in the aisle atop the bleachers in the natatorium, just through the glass in Sojka's concourse. I briefly considered making my way thought the autograph line, while killing time before the women's game, but thought better of it. Maybe that was a mistake. I probably missed out on some prime autograph opportunities:

• "To Boxman, thanks for the continued support, your friend John Griffin"
• "To Kevin Hamilton, HC made the right decision, Kevin Bettencourt"
• "To Bob, it's McNAWton, not McNORton, from Chris"

Overall, it was a fun road trip. The men's game was disappointing, and the ride home was difficult to say the least, but it was fun being there. I also had a chance to talk to Hoop Time for ten or fifteen minutes before the game. I told him that if I'd known further in advance, I would have brought him a HC hat from the bookstore, but he said he purchased one, albeit navy blue, from the link someone provided on Crossports. He may have been fibbing, but I don't think so. He also seemed unaware of this blog - maybe I need to order some free "We Are Crusaders" business cards to hand out to people?

Ice Storm

The things we do for Holy Cross Athletics.

We drove down to Scranton, PA on Friday evening, through patches of dense fog. Little did I know that those foggy conditions would pale in comparison to the conditions I'd face on my return home Saturday night.

In hindsight, the smart play would've been to stay in PA another night. But I wanted to be home on Sunday. We figured I could "get ahead" of the slick road conditions. So after picking up my car in Scranton, I headed east on I-84 through blustery, snowy conditions. The conditions were dreadful, just terrible. The cold front generated a blast of heavy wintry precipitation, and lots of wind. I-84 through PA and into New York was snow-covered with white-out visibility.

Across the Hudson, pulling ahead of the cold front, the snow became sleet, and roads were no better. East of Waterbury, CT, the heavy sleet was still pounding down, but the roads had yet to deteriorate too badly. Finally, in Southington, the sleet changed to rain, and the roads were safer. Ahead of the ice and out of the woods, right? Wrong. Climbing the hills east of Hartford, the pouring rain once again turned to sleet, and the interstate slickened up. Reaching the Mass Pike in Sturbridge, it was back to rain, and the roads were fine for the remaining 20 miles or so.

Accidents? Oh, I passed plenty of them. One-car accidents. Multi-car accidents. Accidents in every state in which we drove. Around Danbury, on the westbound side, I saw a multi-car wreck that caused another multi-car wreck. Those poor drivers were speeding from rainy conditions into ice, and I wish I could've told 'em about the pileups they were heading into a half-mile ahead.

So I'm thankful to have arrived home in Worcester, safe and sound. I sincerely hope that our players, fans, and families all got home safely.

Bucknell Road Trip!

I'm leaving for Lewisburg Friday afternoon! I've heard from people who've been there that Sojka is a beautiful arena, and that Bucknell has a nice campus. So it's a road trip to Bison country. I didn't make it to the PL final at Davis in 1993, and have never been to Bucknell, so this will be fun. I can't wait for the game on Saturday!

Go Crusaders! Beat the Bison! Sweep this doubleheader!

It's probably too late to ask for sign suggestions, or is it? I doubt we'll even have a sign, but it's fun to think of ideas anyway. CSTV...

Can't
Stop
Torey!
Victory awaits!

Or how about this one:

Cru-
Saders
To
Victory!

Ed SihDET versus Lew Alcindor

Thanks for asking, Root. I now know how to pronounce "Siudut." Each year when I receive the hoops media guide, I ask myself, "How do you pronounce that name?" So it's good to know the answer - seriously. Only on Crossports.

And only on Crossports would a thread go from Greg McCarthy to Lew Alcindor! Talk about extremes! Ed Siudut, and many others discussed in that thread, fall somewhere in between, I suppose. Photo below courtesy the media guide.

Zach Paterick

Good find by Crossports poster hchoops, who linked to a story in the St. Augustine Record. Holy Cross 6'2" recruit Zach Paterick is pictured, playing for his Nease Panthers. I registered for that newspaper back in the fall, but hadn't checked it in weeks. I'm glad I'm not the only one googling and surfing my way around the 'net, looking for possible scraps of HC-related information.

Maybe one day we'll have a "Paterick's Day" headline for a PL Championship victory!

Here's Zach:

From the Newspaper Archives

This afternoon, I happened upon my small collection of newspapers and clippings, mostly kept for watershed world events or important sports milestones. It's pretty subjective, but there are some HC stories in the pile. I scanned in some of the winning Holy Cross headlines.

From the March 13, 2003 Telegram & Gazette. Maggie Fontana pours in 23 points as the HC women's team defeats Army 78-65 to win the PL championship. They advanced to face Penn State, getting crushed on Penn State's home floor (a beautiful arena, by the way.)


From the March 15, 2003 T&G. Big Pat scores 21 points and pulls down 8 boards as the Crusaders beat a steady club from American U., 72-64. American started Draughn, Cresnik, Stokes, Miles and Rodriguez, all very good PL players.


From the March 10, 2005 T&G. Seniors Caitlin Agostinacchio, Lisa Andrews and Maggie Fontana lead Holy Cross to a 79-70 victory over Colgate, capturing the Crusaders' tenth PL title and netting a 16th 20-win season for Coach Bill Gibbons.


Thanks to Non Alum Dave for providing me with this March 16, 2005 copy of the South Bend Tribune, featuring Holy Cross's most recent postseason victory, a 78-73 win over Notre Dame in the first round of the 2005 NIT. Great headline, too.

I loved the Holy Cross coverage in the South Bend Tribune that day, but there's something else that caught my attention. You know those mini-headlines, the one listed in smaller print above the name of the newspaper at the very top of the front page? Usually it says something like, "Weather: Storm Brewing Offshore /Back Page" or "Towns cry foul over budget process: B1." Well the one on the front page of this edition says, "Local: Beach Boys Surf Into Town on May 22 / B2."

Don't get me wrong. I love the Beach Boys. One of my all-time favorite groups. But things must be awfully quiet in South Bend if a Wilson-less Beach Boys tour date, two months away, gets that mini-headline on the front page!

Keeping Score

Bob Fouracre. He's an institution at HC. He is Mr. Entertainment. And for sure, his continuous name mixups are part of that "entertainment."

Let's tally some of his recent misnomers:

• Shannon Brush (a personal favorite)
• Keith Dixon
• Carl Cruze
• "The freshman" (said multiple times during a broadcast of the men's basketball game at Dartmouth during the 2003-04 season. Kramer? Simmons? Thomas? Young?)
• Alex Vander Bomb (destined to be a classic)
• Keith Hamilton

And as of Saturday, according to Crossports poster "Root," we can add two more to the list:

• Colin Cummings
• Victor Valva (reminds me of a famous Seinfeld episode...Mulva?)

I'm missing some, I know. Please drop a comment if you can think of others.

Pearl of Wisdom #4

"I thought Ben played a terrific game. He and Tony have been going Friday and Saturday night for a while, so it's good to see Ben step up when we need him to play more. They're a good team; Sacred Heart's as good as anyone we've played this year."

-Coach Paul Pearl, quoted in the Jan. 8 Sunday Telegram, after his team's 3-2 win over the SH Pioneers at the Hart Center Saturday evening.

That was Pearl's only quote in the game story. Tony Quesada was scratched with an illness, but is expected back for the next game (Army, on Friday).

I met senior goalie Ben Conway over a year ago, and had a chance to hang out with him for a while. I was very impressed with him. He was personable, thoughtful, goal-oriented (no pun intended - obviously!), and overall, the kind of student-athlete of whom we can be proud. He has a direction in his life and a good head on his shoulders. I've rooted for him ever since I met him, and I'm happy to see him having a great senior season.

11 points not the fewest

In a recent post on his informative site, Hoop Time wondered if the 11 points given up by HC in the first half at Northeastern were the fewest HC has allowed in a half.

The answer is no. In the homecoming game of Feb. 7, 2004, Holy Cross held Army (surprise!) to 10 points in the first half of a 78-38 win. And if memory serves, discussion on Crossports at the time revealed that the ten points were not the fewest ever allowed by HC in one half of play, but it was the lowest total in something like 60 or 70 years.

Here's scoreboard proof. The above photo was taken at halftime. (The time shown is the time remaining in the intermission.)

And here are a few more of my photos from that game. Some of these are still displayed on one of the "Fan Photos" pages on Crossports:

Pre-game team huddle. Josh Kramer is the player sporting the headband. Josiah "Joe" Young is on the left in the second huddle picture.












Halftime sumo wrestlers. This entertaining feature lasted about three games that season.




John Hurley showing his free-throw shooting "form."






Hurley was awarded the Holy Cross Club of Greater Worcester Homecoming MVP trophy. Frank Mastrandrea is snapping the photo from the front, yours truly from the back, and poster "Tom" is presenting the trophy to John.

Congrats Bob Foley!

Congratulations to St. John's High (Shrewsbury, MA) basketball coach Bob Foley, who recently became New England's all-time winningest coach! Foley, from the Holy Cross Class of 1963, passed Durfee High coach Skip Karam, and as of Monday had 660 high school wins to his credit.

Bob Foley played basketball at Holy Cross, and was a co-captain his senior year. Incidentally, his senior-year squad stumbled down the stretch, losing six of its last eight games to finish with what had to be a disappointing 16-9 record, after beginning the year 14-3. This is just something I noticed while perusing the media guide. I don't mean to diminish Coach Foley's recent accomplishments.

And I should probably mention that Coach Foley is known to me as "Mr. Foley" because he was my history teacher my junior year at St. John's High. He's a regular attendee at the Hart, sitting under the hoop closest to the HC bench.

"I don't mind getting poked"

Following up my previous post about the T&G, I won't post the full game story from the men's basketball victory at Northeastern. But there were some quotes too good to pass up. From the Saturday, December 31 edition of the T&G:

“I’ve been on four Holy Cross teams, and I’ve never seen a team that paid so little attention to detail as we did in the second half of that game,” Hamilton said. “And me and (senior co-captain) Kevin Hyland were the biggest culprits. The last two days we punished ourselves. We ran. We did extra conditioning work. We had to punish ourselves after giving that kind of effort.” The Crusaders also made a vow to coach Ralph Willard that they would hold their next opponent to less than 40 percent shooting. George Mason connected on 55 percent of its shots.

Simmons spent yesterday morning in the hospital receiving intravenous fluids. “I don’t mind getting poked,” Simmons said. “(Intravenous fluids) is the approach they’re trying now. I’ve had one before the last three games. Today I felt good.”

Holy Cross had prepared — a lot — for Barea, who is averaging 22.8 points and 9.5 assists. “We were planning for him for the last three days,” Willard said. “We got here and found out he wasn’t playing, and we had to change our whole game plan around. But I’m happy there was no letdown.”

“This is a good step, and I’m proud of our effort,” Willard said. “We still have to get a lot better, but if we can defend like this, it will be a key to the season.”

From the Saturday T&G

The Big Purple Dog swats away a rebound! This is the photo Boxman was referring to in this thread on Crossports. The print edition of the Telegram & Gazette gave photo credit to the Boston Globe.

And speaking of that thread, prolific poster hchoops asked for the T&G game story of the Northeastern game. The story was written by Jen Toland, whose "permission to post" was one of the subjects of an enlightening and worthy discussion of copyright laws in this thread on the message board. Some posters wanted to "kill" that thread, but I thought it was a valid topic.

Poster "Tom" wrote: "A few other posters and myself had this conversation with Jennifer Toland (a T&G sportwriter) some time ago, and she graciously explained the copyright issue and also gave us verbal permisison to copy her articles to this forum. As an agent of the T&G, her permission was good enough for me."

I'm the guy who first spoke with Jen Toland about this. We talked at the NCAA basketball tournament at the DCU Center last March. Tom was nearby and I quickly filled him in on that part of my conversation with Jen. She did give us verbal permission to copy her articles, but as far as I recall, we didn't get into any substantive discussion of copyright laws.

I'm confident she doesn't have any problem with us posting her stories on Crossports, but I'm not going to post her articles in full for now. I will try to speak with her again soon, perhaps tomorrow at the BU game (the "other" BU) at Hart.

CROSSPORTS himself had this to say: "I ask that all posters to CROSSPORTS respect the copyright laws. It is fine to link to an article and to post excerpts under the "fair use" doctrine but wholesale copying of articles should not be done. Thanks for your cooperation and GO CROSS!"

Have we seen the last of fully-copied stories on the message board?

Pearl of Wisdom #3

"Having played them before, we felt that, the way we were going to get some opportunities and try to limit theirs was in transition, and I thought we did an excellent job of it."

-Coach Paul Pearl, in the Telegram & Gazette from Saturday, December 31, discussing his team's second downing of the season of RPI, a 4-2 win in the consolation game of the Ohio Hockey Classic in Columbus, OH.

Bubba Sixsmith scored two goals in the game, and was named to the all-tourney team. Congrats, Bubba!

Pearl of Wisdom #2

"Thirty-three minutes in penalties, you just can't play like that. You're not going to get any offense going if you're constantly in the box. We don't usually take a lot of penalties. We've got to fix that quickly."

-Coach Paul Pearl, in the Telegram & Gazette from Friday, December 30, after his team's 4-0 loss to No. 19 Ohio State in the Ohio Hockey Classic in Columbus, OH.