Feb. 22, 2008
This Is Our (BIG EAST) Country
To see a photo gallery from John's two game BIG EAST road trip, click here.
I'm standing at the end of Long Wharf in Boston, staring out towards Logan Airport. A few yards away is parked a sailboat named "The Chronic".
It's cold. I still haven't seen the sun since I left Arlington on Friday afternoon. On the plus side, the snow stayed behind in Syracuse.
My group of eight Hoya fans on the hump day in between the Syracuse and Providence games is heading home for the night, a few hours earlier than planned. The very first thing we did upon arriving in Beantown was walk across the ice sheet blanketing the top of the Boston Public Garden Lagoon.
Four people fell through the ice.
So we walk back towards Faneuil Hall (the "Cradle of Liberty") past Quincy Market, where there is a satellite location of Cheers (the "Cradle of NBC's 1980s Prime-time Lineup"). In the distance, I catch a glimpse of the TD Banknorth Garden, site of the 2009 NCAA Basketball East Regional (the second of three future venues I'll see this weekend--the 2010 Road to the Final Four for one eastern team will likely run through Providence and Syracuse).
Somewhere around the statues of Red Auerbach and Samuel Adams it hits me:
How in the world is this place now considered ACC Country?
Meanwhile...somewhere out in the suburbs, the Boston College Eagles are closing out a 79-74 loss to the Virginia Cavaliers. Imagine that--a team from the "Cradle of Liberty" playing a conference game against a school 70 miles away from the capital of the Confederacy.
It occurs to me--didn't BC play Providence at the Garden earlier this year? In fact they did on December 9, a nine-point overtime victory in front of a packed house of 18,007 in the front end of a doubleheader featuring the undisputed New England titan of the BIG EAST--UConn. By comparison, only 7,154 fans turned up at Conte Forum to see BC-UVA, leaving some 17 percent of the seats empty.
The saga of Boston College's 2005 defection to the ACC along with Miami and Virginia Tech need not be retold here. But at this moment, though I am quite literally standing within site of the Atlantic Coast, there isn't a darn thing that says "ACC" to me about this place.
And that's really what should characterize a good conference more than anything else. Not a certain type of school, a demographic, or a style of play. You should ideally be able to look around at the collection of cities you have represented--the cultures that combine and sometimes clash--and say: "this feels right."
The BIG EAST feels right to me--at least the older members. Industrial--the coal miners of Morgantown, the steelworkers of Pittsburgh, the...ummm...air conditioner manufacturers of Syracuse. Post-industrial--the gritty charm of New England cities like Hartford, Providence, and yes, BOSTON. Gargantuan--the east coast anchors of New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.
This is why I'm a skeptic when it comes to the new members of the BIG EAST. It's not that I have anything wrong with the city of Chicago, the tradition of Louisville basketball, or even Cincinnati's working-class credentials. Still--something doesn't feel right.
It must be the music. Wisconsin has a thriving polka scene. Louisville is squarely in the middle of the Blues Belt. Chicago is at the crossroads of both musical traditions.
The BIG EAST's musical tradition meanwhile--like its basketball history--is firmly rooted in the 1980s. If the patron musical saints of the ex-Conference USA schools are Frank Yankovich and Muddy Waters, the BIG EAST pays homage to Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen (for goodness sake, The Boss even has a banner at the Wachovia Center!). Marquette and their college basketball brethren have sold their soul to techno music, pumping fans up with an ungodly mélange of Zombie Nation and Sandstorm. Tomorrow, at a key moment in the second half, the sound system at the Dunkin Donuts Center will blast Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Relax...we'll be back in BIG EAST Country in no time.
A mere Jessie Sapp halfcourt shot away from the Dunkin Donuts Center is our first stop in Providence--the Trinity Brewhouse. A good sign--a pub with a dingy downstairs and some sort of skeleton theme--I'm firmly in the BIG EAST. The last time I traveled this far for a conference game, I flew to Tampa to watch the Hoyas play South Florida two years ago. I ate a pre-game lunch at a tiki bar listening to a soundtrack of Jimmy Buffett hits. No wonder we lost.
No time for food here though, as we're racing upstairs and across town (okay, four blocks away but it might as well be across town in Providence) to McCormick and Schmick's for the Hoya Hoop Club Pre-Game event.
McCormick and Schmick's is easily the classiest establishment I've been in the entire weekend (this must explain why I'm wearing a necktie). My culinary journey since Friday has included not one but TWO trips to Sbarro, a late-night Wendy's excursion, a three-side order barbecue dinner, and a visit to that great BIG EAST institution, the Irish pub.
Fittingly, I'm all over a tray of buffalo chicken fingers.
Early in the second half, when Patrick Ewing missed a transition layup, I couldn't help but feel like I was watching the same movie all over again. The same problems that had plagued the Hoyas on Saturday in the Carrier Dome were present, albeit on a (fittingly) smaller scale in the 12,000-seat (give or take a renovation) Dunkin Donuts Center--poor transition defense, a hot opposing shooter left open too often, a puzzling inability to execute against a 2-3 zone defense, and even a missed bunny to go with Ewing's monster jam into the side-rim on Saturday.
But as quickly as you could say "Fix It Jon!"--he did. Jon Wallace and his senior running mates Ewing, Hibbert, and Crawford keyed a 17-2 run--highlighted by five three-pointers, each bringing a progressively louder explosion from the strong Hoya contingent in the "dark" sections of the visiting end zone at the Dunk. If the HOYA SUXA sign paraded around Section 317 by an enterprising Syracuse fan ruled the day earlier in the weekend, today it was the countless queries from Providence fans as to what this mysterious "HOYA SAXA" cheer ringing back and forth across the 200 level meant.
Most of the 11,000 or so Friar fans in attendance made a quick exit for the parking lots with a few minutes to go in the game. While one might be tempted to attribute this to fair-weather fans--indeed, the most controversial moment of the game was ESPN broadcaster and Providence alumna Doris Burke's assertion that PC fans only cheer for their team when they're winning--I soon discovered it to be a veteran move by a group of fans who've obviously been doing this "beat the traffic" thing for a while.
It seemed so simple to us "southerners"--grab the first available parking lot (right across from the arena!) and spend the next few hours loitering about the finer eating establishments of Providence. For our troubles, we were boxed in--quadruple parking is apparently a go-to strategy in Rhode Island--and compelled to turn our post-game traffic jam into an impromptu tailgate party in the shadow of I-95.
Providence is hosting a First and Second Round site for the NCAA Tournament in 2010. I can guarantee you two things if you are a fan of a classic BIG EAST program: (1) win the BIG EAST Tournament and you'll be spending the next week in Rhode Island; (2) you WILL be boxed into the corner of the parking lot. Probably next to a fan from an ACC school.
408 miles until home, and nothing but pristine BIG EAST country ahead--our road runs south of Hartford (UConn), through New York (St. John's) and past the Izod Center and Newark (the past and present homes of Seton Hall), Exit 9 on the Jersey Turnpike (Rutgers), and the outer reaches of Philadelphia (Villanova). I've now been to road games at each of those schools...been coast to coast, if you will, in the original BIG EAST Country.
I like what I see.
As we descend the ramp onto I-95, The Dunk fading in the distance, I cue up the next song on my IPod's playlist.
Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA"
This is our (BIG EAST) country.
John Hawkes (SFS '04)
Proud Member of Generation Burton
