2010 Milestones

[sagegrouse]

As the basketball season approaches, it is germane to mention that a number of Duke folks will celebrate milestones in the 2009-2010 season:

For one, Coach K will coach his 30th season at Duke.

For two, Sage Grouse will celebrate his 50th season as a card-carrying Duke fan. I enrolled as a freshman 49 years ago this month (yes, the math works). And, as excited as I am about the upcoming season, I observe that the years are going by pretty fast and the supply may not be not inexhaustible.

The first Duke game I remember was in 1960, when I was visiting campus as a HS senior (Angier Duke weekend) and Duke beat St. Joe's in the NCAA regional semis. The first game I saw in person was against Penn State, which showed up wearing long socks with vertical blue and white stripes and was the source of merriment in the student section.

sagegrouse

[Olympic Fan]

The first Duke game I remember was in 1960, when I was visiting campus as a HS senior (Angier Duke weekend) and Duke beat St. Joe's in the NCAA regional semis. The first game I saw in person was against Penn State, which showed up wearing long socks with vertical blue and white stripes and was the source of merriment in the student section.

sagegrouse

I go back a little further -- my first Duke game was the 1960 ACC Tournament semifinals a week earlier, when fourth-seeded Duke upset top-seeded UNC (then beat Wake to win the title).

I was also at the 1960 East Regionals the next week, played in the "new" (at that time) Charlotte Coliseum (the silver-domed cupcake on Independence Blvd).

That Duke-St. Joe's game had a screwy ending. Duke was up 58-56 when Johnny Frye, whose deadly FT shooting was so vital in the ACC Tournament, missed a free throw that would have clinched the game. St. Joe's rushed the ball up the court to try for the tying basket, but with about 10-12 seconds left, Howard Hurt knocked the ball out of bounds.

Under the current rules, the clock would stop and the Hawks would have had a chance to set up the game-tying shot. But at the time, the clock didn't automatically stop when the ball went out of bounds ... it was up to the ref to stop it if the ball was lost in the crowd or hard to retrieve. In this case, a fan tapped the ball right back to ref Max Macon, who quickly handed it to Paul Westhead (the future Lakers coach). Westhead was holding the ball over his head, looking to make a good inbounds pass when the final buzzer sounded.

St. Joe's coach Jack Ramsey was livid, but Macon -- a former Major League pitcher with the Cardinals, Dodgers and Braves -- defended his decision, explaining that the end of the game should not be officiated any different than the rest of the game -- and the clock wouldn't have stopped at any other point.

Duke lost the East championship game the next night to NYU and their great forward Satch Sanders.

Great time to become a Duke fan ... and right to remember now, since we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of that season (Duke's first ACC championship).