Fond Memories from the another NIT...

In 1973 the NIT was still big stuff...

1973 NIT Program    Cost $1.00

     I'm not sure that any single season of basketball was ever better for me than 1973. Those were salad days for me. I was 26 years old and immortal. '73 meant grad school at the Capstone. It also meant playing a lot of pick up games with some buddies. Georgia Tech had offered me a chance to become a Yellow Jacket in 1965. A knee injury and an inability to do math doomed that chance. But I had some game left. It was a lot of fun playing pick up with some guys named Leon Douglas, Johnny Dill, and Charles Cleveland. For a kid from Cleveland, Alabama this was a close to paradise as you could come. Like I said salad days.

     I believe the '73 team was 22-8. When the Tide got the call from NYC I got my map out. Found a list of Alabama grads living in the NYC and bummed a free room for a few nights. I had this 1970 Subaru that got about a million miles a gallon. The drive took 20 hours. That included a breakdown on the New Jersey Turnpike. The mechanic who worked on my car was not into basketball but he was into gambling. I suggested that Alabama would beat Manhatten. He snorted and made a wager. He'd go ahead and repair my ride for free if Bama won. If Bama lost I'd have to pay him double. Considering I didn't have the money to pay him anything it seemed like good bet. Glenn Garrett, the most unlikely person to even try to make a game winning shot, much less make one, drilled one from the corner. The Jaspers, the hometown team from Manhattan, was out of the NIT. And Alabama was on their way to being to bigger and better things.

       New York in the spring of '73 was equal parts Afro hair cuts and bell bottoms. I wore these crimson and white striped bell bottoms to the game. My attire was resplendent with Crimson colored patent leather boots. My buddies and I had the worst (not to mention cheap) in the Garden. We were so up high up they needed Sherpa guides to show us our seats. By tip-off we were court side. The usher asked  us if we had tickets to the seats. Nope. Just a little moxie. He laughed and walked off.  Last thing he said was to try not to offend the mayor.
    
     When I close my eyes there goes Ron Brewer flying into the Minnesota band. Brewer a hall of famer in baseball was also an All-American basketball post player. As Brewer picked himself out of the trombone section there was Leon Douglas standing on the baseline announcing to the world there was a new sheriff in town. All in all the NIT was a memorable trip. I'd never been to NYC before, and have been there a hundred times since. None of the subesequent trips compared to the first one. Rather than fly to NYC for this NIT I'm going to retrace the trip made in 1973.  Now, if I could just find those boots...