Filed under: Strange Days | Tags: Fordham University, graduation, the new yorker
As some of the paper’s best friends graduate, many of them past paper contributors and editors, the paper would like to say happy graduation. Take a look at this May 31, 1969 cover of the New Yorker, which maps out the possible future for college grads. It’s hard to see some of the words on this page, but if you click on it you can take a closer look…it’s pretty beautiful.
Wherever you go, remember: the paper loves you all.
Filed under: Sports
Off In The Woods
Oh what could have been.
Just BGin' Around
It was the last go-round for many of these seniors; what started so long ago as a ill-fated masturbation pun has evolved into the culmination of four years of hard work, grit and determination—the strenuous training of lifting beer to mouth and back to table every Tuesday over the last 208 weeks—laid on the line for one last opportunity at the glory of a free, over-sized, gray T-shirt emblazoned with the immortal words of “Intramural Champions.” (more…)
In an interesting piece from this week’s New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell (author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference and Outliers: The Story of Sucess) leaves us with one more tidbit about perseverance: In order to win the battle with Goliath, David doesn’t play by the rules.
Gladwell’s example? Basketball’s full-court press.
Bring the pain.
Like our biblical hero, who–rather than awaiting the advance of the lumbering Philistine–engaged Goliath on his own terms, undermanned basketball teams can prosper through their use of the full-court press. By attacking even superior opponents over the full 94 feet of the floor, underdog teams are far more likely to emerge victoriously than those who retreat into a half-court defense, ostensibly playing a game that favors the more talented opposition.
Take for example, your 1971 Fordham Rams (as if you were really expecting a reference to a Fordham team assembled during our lifetime):
In January of 1971, the Fordham University Rams played a basketball game against the University of Massachusetts Redmen. The game was in Amherst, at the legendary arena known as the Cage, where the Redmen hadn’t lost since December of 1969. Their record was 11–1. The Redmen’s star was none other than Julius Erving—Dr. J. The UMass team was very, very good. Fordham, by contrast, was a team of scrappy kids from the Bronx and Brooklyn. Their center had torn up his knee the first week of the season, which meant that their tallest player was six feet five. Their starting forward—and forwards are typically almost as tall as centers—was Charlie Yelverton, who was six feet two. But from the opening buzzer the Rams launched a full-court press, and never let up. “We jumped out to a thirteen-to-six lead, and it was a war the rest of the way,” Digger Phelps, the Fordham coach at the time, recalls. “These were tough city kids. We played you ninety-four feet. We knew that sooner or later we were going to make you crack.” Phelps sent in one indefatigable Irish or Italian kid from the Bronx after another to guard Erving, and, one by one, the indefatigable Irish and Italian kids fouled out. None of them were as good as Erving. It didn’t matter. Fordham won, 87–79. (more…)
