Delaware Football Pics, 2005

I could've sworn I posted my photos from the Holy Cross game at Delaware held September 24, 2005, but as I'm in catchup mode here, I went through the archives and couldn't find any pics from that game. Delaware won that game 35-23, but Holy Cross made them work for it. It was 7-7 at the half.

I had fun at that game. It was also "Band Day," so after the game we were treated to a show by area high school bands and the UD band. Good times at Tubby Raymond Field.

There's nothing overwhelming here, but it's interesting to see the excitement of the player intros for the Delaware team, along with the stat progression in the last quarter of the game (seen on the scoreboard with a breakdown in passing, rushing, and total yards). Specifically, UD ran for 94 yards in the 4th quarter, Holy Cross only 18.

The first four pics were taken during pre-game. And how can I forget, the fifth photo features Holy Cross basketball center Tim Clifford on the very right, wearing his homemade hat with the Steve Silva cutout. Gotta give Tim credit, he stuck it out and wore his hat long after his buddies discarded theirs.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Hope Doesn't Float

Ok, so maybe hope isn't enough. Execution, luck, and other factors are at play. I'm back home from my second Bucknell road trip in the last two months, and once again, the good guys lost to the Bison. Fun trip, though. I'm glad I went. Holy Cross played tough, as they have all year, and KHam had a phenomenal game. He gets praised (and occasionally attacked) on Crossports, but the praise isn't enough. He's awesome, and came to play yesterday. Thanks, Kevin, for showing your teammates what it means to play Holy Cross basketball. You'll be missed.

We arrived at BU around 2:30pm. As I've told a few people, the Bucknell campus smells like money, but yesterday, it smelled like cows. Seriously. We picked up our tickets at Will Call and made our way into Sojka. I was expecting a pumped-and-jacked crowd, something reminiscent of the Hart Center for the PL championship game against American in 2003, but that's not what we found. Less than two hours before the game, Hart was packed and LOUD that year. Yesterday at Sojka, less than two hours before the game, the place was empty and quiet. Disappointing (although I thought it was a good sign for Holy Cross). Fans gradually trickled in, and by 4pm, there was a decent contingent of orange shirts. By 4:15, it was finally beginning to feel like a championship game - a whole 15 minutes before the previously announced start time! (I found out around 4 or 4:15 that the start time had been pushed back to 4:45.)

Oh, here's something for you: You want contrived? The Sojka PA guy had a countdown to the live national telecast, starting at 10 seconds out. So when ESPN2 cut into Sojka, those of you watching at home heard a crowd that was about 5 times louder than it was only 10 seconds before. Hart has never needed that kind of ridiculous countdown for a PL championship telecast. What would be next, rally monkeys on the main scoreboard? We wouldn't have heard the PA anyway at Hart, with the crowds as loud as they were! (Or maybe that's an indictment of Hart's PA system. But that's not what I'm getting at.)

We had dinner in Scranton after the game. We ate at Stirna's, which has in recent years become a shrine to Syracuse guard Gerry McNamara. As luck would have it, we arrived at Stirna's with less than a minute left in the Syracuse-Georgetown Big East Semifinal game. The place was going crazy, although it wasn't as jam-packed as you might expect. Next year, we're lobbying for that restaurant to convert over to Pat Doherty. It's not as if the Doherty family doesn't have a presence in Scranton: Pat's uncle is the mayor!

Hope wasn't enough for the men's hoops team, and it wasn't enough for the ladies either. I watched that game on CSTV and it looked like a tremendous atmosphere. Our team had an excellent shot at stealing a PL title from the top-seeded squad from Army, but instead, a last-minute steal turned the game for the Black Knights. Jess Conte, I'll miss watching you. Thanks for everything you've brought to the program. And thanks to the rest of the graduating seniors on both the women's and men's side: Shannon Bush, Sarah Placek and Kevin Hyland. Enjoy the rest of your senior year at the Cross!

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.)

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!

Bonus Pictures: Baseball HOF

A few weeks back, I posted photos from my visit to Colgate University in May. I was in the vicinity of Hamilton, NY, because of my trip to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY.

I greatly enjoyed the Hall. Was it perfect? No. I think they could have done a better job with the movie at the beginning of the exhibit, for instance. But for the most part, this Hall lets the sport's historical artifacts speak for themselves. And for me, they spoke volumes.

It wasn't all "old stuff," either. Current major-league teams and players were featured, including one whole room with "lockers" displaying jerseys, bats, gloves, baseball cards, scorecards, photos and various memorabilia for up-to-date rosters of each team.

One of my favorite rooms was the "Sports Illustrated" room, featuring enlarged shots of each Major League Baseball SI cover. I especially liked two covers: One with a young Mickey Mantle, and another with former MLB umpire and current Umpire Supervisor Steve Palermo, pictured on the cover standing with canes. Palermo is my cousins' uncle, and he was shot while trying to break up a July 1991 robbery outside a Dallas restaurant. Doctors told him he'd never walk again. He proved them wrong. (Steve's brother John frequently refs women's hoops games at Holy Cross.) Unfortunately, my photos from this room didn't come out too well.

Overall, I loved the Hall!

Here are just a few of my photos. Click a photo to enlarge it.:


Ty Cobb display. The HOF has wonderful displays like this for many of the "pantheon" Hall of Famers. Babe Ruth even has his own small room.


The famous Ted Williams gridded strike zone. I thought it was really cool to see it set up in a display case like this.


Wall of no-hitters, color-coded by year. This photo captures the section of the wall from a particularly fruitful era of no-hitters, with thirteen no-hitters from 1990-91. Where have you gone, Andy Hawkins?


"Swing and a ground ball, stabbed by Foulke. He has it. He underhands to first. And the Boston Red Sox are the world champions. For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won baseball’s world championship. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?" (Radio call by Colgate alum Joe Castiglione.)

Colgate pictures, May 2005

Here are the photos from my trip to Hamilton, NY, in May of this year. I was "in the neighborhood" to visit the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, which is about an hour from Hamilton. How often am I going to be that close to the Patriot League's remote outpost in upstate New York? So I decided the detour would be worthwhile.

I visited Colgate on a beautiful Saturday morning. It was "move out" day for many students. Parts of the campus were buzzing with activity, but obviously not the parts shown in these photos! I don't think there's one person in any of my pictures.

Colgate has a nice campus, built into a hill, but the hill is nothing like Mount St. James. As for Hamilton, it's a small, remote town in the middle of farm country. I think mattb was a little harsh, though, when he called it a "dump of a town." There's not much there, but it wasn't too bad as far as small towns go. Matt visited in the dead of winter, though, and I was there on a warm spring day. Weather can make an enormous difference when forming an impression of a town.

(By the way, that mattb road trip article is the same post where he gave his three key elements to Holy Cross's 2001-03 PL hoops domination. Very interesting, considering Holy Cross is executing NONE of those elements right now.)

Some of these pics have scan blemishes. Sorry about that. Not sure what's causing that. Click on any photo to enlarge it.


The interior of one of the student centers on the top part of the campus.









Quad in the upper campus area.





Part of lower campus, nearer the university's entrance. The houses across the pond are on one of Hamilton's main drags. I'm guessing they are frat houses. Typical farm country pictured in the distance. It looks like that for miles around.

The enticing entrance to the Reid Athletic Center, which includes Cotterell Court (basketball). The Hart Center at Holy Cross puts this building to shame. I tried a few doors, but couldn't get in (unlike Non Alum Dave, who, while visiting the campus once, "accidentally" caught a few moments of a Colgate men's hoops practice! We know you were scouting, Dave.)


Football stadium.






Visitor's grandstand, and press box.






Home grandstand.







Entrance to the lacrosse field. Expand this one to read the plaque explaining the field's name.







There was discussion on Crossports a while back regarding the lax fields and grandstands at various PL schools, so here's Colgate's.


Looks like they have a "mini" ski hill directly adjacent to their campus. Maybe a Colgate reader can give a little more background on this.

Dartmouth Game, 2004

I scanned in a bunch of photos the other day, many of them relating to Holy Cross athletics. They cover various events from the past year, so I'm going to post them in chronological order.

This picture is from the Holy Cross vs. Dartmouth football game, held on October 16, 2004. (Click photo to enlarge.) This is the game that broke the 15-game losing streak. It was a crisp autumn day up in Hanover, NH, and the Crusaders played an excellent game. It was a pretty emotional scene on the field afterwards. Our guys are 9-8 since then (counting that game).

I also have pictures from my visit to Colgate in May, the Delaware football game from September, and a couple other games.