In college, a nurse at Binghamton University’s Student Health Services once recommended that I drink plain pineapple juice whenever I suffered from a bout of laryngitis or a sore throat. She explained that pineapple juice has a lot of vitamins but low acidity, so it was better for a sore throat than high-acid orange juice. The nurse had heard the advice from a vocalist, and had been dispensing it to suffering college students ever since.

Who treasures their voice more than a singer? I figured the advice had to be legit, and it was.

Since then, I always keep a six pack of pineapple juice cans in my refrigerator. Recently, I’ve found a combination that works even better than pineapple juice alone: pineapple juice and green tea. I drank a glassful of it the other night when my throat felt like the Great Chicago Fire and I could barely talk. I headed straight to bed after downing a glass of this mix, and woke up with my voice back full force and no sore throat the next morning (unfortunately, the rest of the cold still had a hold on me full force.) Coincidence? I think not.

I mix a can of pineapple juice with green iced tea. Trader Joe’s makes an excellent unsweetened green and white tea mix, and that is what I’ve been using for this mix.

I fill my sports glass of the moment with ice (today’s selection: a 1980s Buffalo Bills – Coca-Cola glass), pour in the entire can of pineapple juice (you don’t have to use the whole can, but try at least half), and then top off with the green tea.

Volia! Down this, and you’ll be chatting up your friends, significant other, or in my case, your cat, in no time.

Tuesday afternoon, I received an email from Billy Baldwin, Binghamton class of 1985. Not exclusively to me, of course, but to me and thousands of my fellow Binghamton alums. Billy, who is the lesser known Baldwin by far (at Binghamton, when anyone would ask what he had been in, the stock answer always was, “the guy that dies in Backdraft“), has taken quite the shine to his alma mater as of late. His biggest contribution of note was when he led a successful campaign to save the wrestling program when America East stopped sponsoring the sport.

Now, Billy “Backdraft guy” Baldwin has emailed his fellow alums to lobby us to give to the Binghamton capital campaign. (Video wasn’t embeddable, so here is a linked screenshot.)

My first reaction: shouldn’t he be lobbying for himself? You really don’t see him in much anymore. Then I realized his more famous brother probably helps him out.

My second reaction: Paul Reiser wasn’t available? Tony Kornhesier? Heck, Progressive Insurance Flo? (Yes, all Bearcats.)

But that being said, it’s a good cause, given the dire straits outgoing NY governor Patterson has left the SUNY system in. Kudos to Backdraft Baldwin.

On Wednesday afternoon, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Twitter account shared a blog post about the new Wegmans (the greatest grocery store in the history of mankind) commercials, starring…30 Rock’s Alec Baldwin.

According to the Democrat and Chronicle, the Baldwin-Wegmans collaboration came about when Baldwin mentioned to late night talk show host David Letterman that his mother refuses to live anywhere without a Wegmans close by, and then went on to pontificate about the wonders of the store.

This is a big get for the store so wonderful it was my baby brother’s first word. (You think I’m joking.) But the way this week is going, I half expect to get a video of Stephen Baldwin asking me to buy Buffalo Bills tickets next.

Not the Binghamton Chuck-a-Puck, but I imagine it'll be similar. (Photo: Ryan Treat's blog)

What would you do for a brand new car? For one Texan, he’ll travel all the way to Binghamton, New York to compete in a Chuck-a-Puck contest.

In a press release today, the AHL Binghamton Senators announced that Michael Supulski, of a town outside of Austin, Texas, will be making the 1,700 mile trip to participate in the finals of their season long Chuck-a-Puck competition, with a brand new car at stake. Supulski won a game’s Chuck-a-Puck contest during the Senators’ New Year’s Eve game, qualifying him to face all of the other home game winner’s in their last regular season home game.

Odds are, the majority of those individual game winners are from the Triple Cities. But the odds that one of participant would be from Texas, and even be able to return to Binghamton for a random weekend in April, were much higher. When you have the chance to win a brand new car, however, I guess the outlay in plane tickets and accommodations is worth it – especially if you have excellent aim. Best of luck on Saturday, Mr. Supulski.

I am not exaggerating. I have lived in Boston for five years, and only twenty percent of those I run into have actually heard of Binghamton University, the State University of New York branch I graduated from. That is, until the university hired men’s basketball coach Kevin Broadus, and his prize recruits started finding themselves in the back of police cars.

The first two times the Binghamton athletic program fell astray this past year, I didn’t wince, chalked it up to coincidence, pointed out to those who brought it up that other Division I schools had much worse discipline and academic problems. The New York Times profiled my alma mater, claiming that it had compromised academic achievement, was actively recruiting students from “diploma mills” and was taking chances on players other schools had given up on. I defended the school against the Times report in a blog post, claiming that the Times had cast the magnifying glass unfairly, and that the rapid growth of the Athletic program had brought a spirit and identity to campus that had not existed prior.

Then Wednesday night, several media outlets reported that Binghamton guard Tiki Mayben had been accused of being in possession of and distributing cocaine. His hometown police in Troy, NY arrested him of such after a three month investigation. Mayben pled not guilty on Thursday.

“I did all I could,” the New York Times reported Broadus as saying about the situation.

My initial reaction was that I had done all I could, that I could no longer turn a blind eye to the troubling situations at my alma mater. I could no longer carry the perspective that if larger, more successful Division I schools have similar problems, then Binghamton must be doing something right. I just could not, morally, support this basketball team anymore. The ribbing and commentary of those whose teams were either keeping their players well-disciplined, or just covering everything up much better, was going to get old quick.

As much as athletics can be a motivating and unifying factor on campuses that have previously lacked an identity, there is a threshold. A school just can not sell their soul to the devil just to have a good athletic program. Sometimes there is a good reason why a student has been dismissed previously from an institution. A school probably should not give a student-athlete his or her sixty-fifth chance, proclaiming that this good deed is being done because they truly deserve it, not because of the real reason – because he or she is a great basketball player that will make the rest of your mid-major conference look like 10 year olds.

After reflecting on the situation, however, I become a tad more tolerant. These disobedient basketball players are three student-athletes of maybe 300 in the entire school – in any sample of young adults, a small percentage is going to run into trouble, be they athletes or not. I also understand, more so than some due to my full-time work, the political factors that have led to this point. Broadus, the maligned coach at the center of recruiting all of these disruptive student athletes, came from Georgetown University with high recommendations. When making large athletic program decisions at mid-majors, the academic status of other schools are considered just as much as the athletic status, and Georgetown is a school Binghamton looks up to in both fields. Georgetown is where Binghamton wants to be, and is always striving to be – of course they saw no significant problems with bringing Broadus on board just about three years ago. If Georgetown – a school ranked 57 spots ahead of them in the US News and World Report College Rankings, as well as a school known for basketball prowess – had no problems with Broadus, than he couldn’t be that bad. Right?

Late Thursday evening, however, it seemed that Binghamton – with enough poor publicity to last the next sixty-three years – had actually had enough. It publicized that it had suspended Maybin from the basketball team, and mentioned the judicial sanctions he might face via the school’s judicial affairs office in said release. And it sounded like my alma mater was now going to look at Broadus’s decision-making much more critically. “We appreciate that Coach Broadus has given second chances to athletes,” Binghamton President Lois DeFleur stated Thursday, “but our program cannot take these risks.”

When my father used to drive me to Binghamton at the beginning of a semester, he would approach the gray, depressed city and wonder why the city or the school – both of which he was quite fond of – wouldn’t just take some risks to get their name out there and reenergize both the campus and city communities. A few years later, Binghamton took his advice – and, well, it did get their name out there.

"Even SUNY Programs Need 2 Dance" (Photo: Pressconnects.com)

Now the rest of the country knows my little school. Binghamton University won the America East Men’s Basketball Championship yesterday, securing their first NCAA Tournament bid. Over 5,000 fans packed into the Events Center to watch the game, and the ESPN2 announcers couldn’t heap more praise onto my trusty little alma mater that could.

“I’ve covered a lot of games,” said one of the announcers. “But this has to be one of the most electric atmospheres I have ever seen for a game.”

The photos from the Press and Sun-Bulletin support the announcer’s statement. You had President DeFleur in the stands in one of the special give-away shirts, then cutting down the net at the end of the game. You had the students with signs aplenty, then storming the court after the win. Students had pictures of Tony Kornheiser in his Binghamton jersey from Friday’s Pardon the Interruption. Watching it on ESPN2, the crowd came across as so loud and buoyant that you couldn’t help but want to join them.

This game meant a lot to this school, and you couldn’t really deny them this, a conference tournament win, a place in the NCAA tournament, on their home court – a court built specifically for such a day, no less. Unlike many other America East schools, who have football or hockey, all Binghamton has is their basketball.  A few years ago, basketball was obviously made a priority by Athletics and the rest of the school, and Saturday was the result.

I get shivers at a lot of fan bases – mostly whenever Boston University wins the Beanpot – but watching yesterday’s game on ESPN2 made me shake. I believed that someday Binghamton would be a contender for a NCAA berth, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. This school has been waiting for this for years, and now, Bearcats have something to aspire to and believe in. They could very well get crushed by Duke on Thursday, but this year was just the beginning.  This is a program to be reckoned with for the foreseeable future.

Fun fact: If Binghamton somehow made it to the Sweet Sixteen, they’d play at the TDBanknorth Garden here in Boston. Just saying…

To kick off our series, I am reposting an oldie-but-a-goodie I wrote about Senior Day for the Binghamton University men’s basketball team in 2004. I was a senior about to head off to Boston University for graduate work, and the Bearcats’ opponent that day was the Terriers.  The original post – edited to take out the non-basketball stuff that followed the original post – is after the jump.

If you are interested in contributing a piece to the series – be it about senior days for your team or about this year’s Terrier seniors, email me at sportsgirlkat@gmail.com.

The Battle of the BUs–A Senior Day In Every Sense

Today’s men’s basketball game at the Events Center was not only the last home game of the season for the men, but also senior day. And I found it fitting that the senior day game opponent was Boston University.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to my away messages, profiles or who haven’t spoken with me in the past…oh, year, I am currently in love with Boston University. Sure, I applied to five graduate schools, but since I decided I was going to go to grad school, Boston University has been one of my top choices. They were the first school to accept me (the letter was waiting for me two days after my birthday in my school mailbox). They might not have the best program in Higher Education, but they have tons of opportunities for internships and assistantships (especially in new facilities management–they‘re in the process of building the “Student Village,” a huge building project for athletics, residential life and student affairs, which working with would look soooo good on a resume), and they are just such a cool school in general. I walked around there in August and just couldn’t believe how much I liked it–I didn’t want to come back to Binghamton for another year. I was tempted to finish up my credits at Binghamton in the fall and start at Boston University in January, but I was talked out of it by a lot of people, seeing that I wanted to try for Harvard and Boston College as well. But the more I think about it, the more I want to go to Boston University. But I have to wait and see what happens.

So I attended today’s game and couldn’t decide who to cheer for–my current school, who I’m becoming increasingly disenchanted with knowing that there’s so much else beyond Binghamton, or what very well may be my new school. Well, seeing that I had student tickets and didn’t feel like being beat up (which could happen, as evidenced by what occurred at last week’s Nazareth/Fisher basketball game), I put my Boston University shirt away and wore the green Binghamton hoodie and went along with the “Let‘s Go Bearcats” chants.

The Terriers (Boston University) are currently #1 in the America East conference, and this game showed why. Marsha, Jamie and I were watching the warm-ups when Marsha remarked, “They just don’t miss,“ gesturing to the Terriers’ free throwing. They don’t–they only missed once that I recall during the game. While the first half was close, with Nick Billings being the whole Binghamton team as usual (it’s not that he can play, or that the others can’t, it’s just that he’s seven feet tall), the Terriers dominated in the second half, working with leads between 10-20 points most of the time. The final score was 69-53, but if our two seniors hadn’t been inspired to get in there and make the best of their last minutes on the Events Center floor, it probably would have been more like 75-50. The Bearcats turned over the ball constantly, and their shooting was way off most of the game. They couldn’t make a free throws at all in the second half, and easy points weren’t made because they were over-shooting the net. They announced that the official attendance at the game today was 4,823 at the end of the game. However, the end of the game lacked so much hope that people began to leave in droves after the 8 minute mark. I turned to Marsha. “Official attendance, 4,823. Official attendance after the 5 minute mark: 1,000.”

It had been noted all week that the Bearcat men had never defeated the Terriers since joining the America East three years ago, and I think the pressure of trying to overcome that in the new building on senior day was a bit too much for them. There are so many expectations for this team to do well so early on in their Division 1 career, seeing that we just built them this new venue, and we moved into a conference that caused us to eliminate one of our traditional sports (wrestling). They’re growing well, but to expect them to have beat the number one team in the conference right now wasn’t really feasible.

On another note, the Events Center is a bit…small? I was disappointed somewhat, and I don’t know why. I imagined an arena…which to me congers up mental images of the Blue Cross Arena up in Rochester. This was on a much smaller scale–the BCA holds 12,000 for concerts and the Events Center, when completed, will seat 8,000. Right now a sell out for basketball in the Events Center is 4,823. The Center is pretty sterile right now, more than likely due to the fact that they’re not really done with it. I fear that it’ll become out of date quickly, but I could also see how it could be easily renovated if that did happen. I don’t know. Did I expect more? Yes. Do we need more as a mid-major D1 school with more student apathy than the Yankees have money? No. On a semi-side note, one of my biggest fears as I leave Binghamton is that the backlash from students and faculty about the alleged “overspending on athletics” is going to deter any more growth in that area–we need more athletic opportunities because unlike what most Binghamton students think, athletes do possess brains. Also, with the local community being as stubborn as it is, I think athletics is going to be the school’s only way to make its point that we are now the economic center of the Broome County area, and therefore, should be accommodated as such.

As the crowds left the Events Center this afternoon, I felt like this was the beginning of the end. It was Senior Day for the two graduating players, but it was Senior Day for me as well–watching my last Binghamton basketball game, having what could be my new school defeat my current school. The next time I’ll be in the Events Center will more than likely be 77 days from now for Commencement. Binghamton may have been where I spent the last two years, but I’m ready to move on.

As the car prepared to turn into the gym parking lot, artsy girlfriend said to us all, filled with self-importance, “I wish people wouldn’t go to the basketball games. Binghamton doesn’t need sports.”

I took the bait. “Oh, of course we do. It puts the university on the map to the general public.”

“I didn’t hear of Binghamton through sports, ” huffed artsy girlfriend.

“Well, neither did I, but we also live in New York State. What about those in other parts of the country? They don’t know Bingo from Adam.”

“Well,” she pointed to me. “I don’t want those people, people that only find out about colleges because of their basketball teams, to come to my university. They don’t contribute anything.”

Not about to tackle how, how…just plain weird that statement was, I decided to tackle the argument from another point of view. “Think about the students that get to attend Binghamton that wouldn’t be able to otherwise due to athletic scholarships. Just like we give out merit scholarships and scholarships for the arts, here’s a chance for even more students to attend school who might not have the money to.”

“Well, they shouldn’t get money for playing sports. Arts are fine, but sports just aren’t.”

Luckily for me, we had just pulled up to the gym. “Look, it’s my stop!” I thankfully announced. “See you all back in the room.”

The sports versus arts versus intellectual pursuit debate has dogged me my entire life. When you grow up the daughter of a part-time musician and science fiction writer and attend a performing and creative arts high school, but have a lifelong dream to be a sportswriter, your stances on that debate become mighty convoluted. Sure, I think the arts are undervalued in our current American society. Sure, I have studied the horror stories at big Division I football programs with students having bogus SAT scores and taking classes that don’t amount to any degree at all. Sure, I understand professors who are angry when a hockey or basketball team receives more media excitement than their important research.

But I always look at it the way my father always explained things to my sister and I. My sister was a gifted athlete and a gifted artist, but not necessarily a gifted intellectual. Academics bored her, not because she was bad at them, but because creating and moving and kicking and acting inspired her more than math and reading and the periodic table did. And, according to my father, that was okay. “There are some of us in this world who will be blessed with athletic talent,” he would nod towards Megan, then put his hand to his chest. “Just like those of us blessed with artistic talent.  And there are those of us blessed with smarts,” he would nod towards me. “And the world needs a little bit of everyone, and everyone needs exposure to people with all of these traits. So to say that our schools shouldn’t have opportunities for all of these pursuits would be wrong.”

And with that explanation always echoing in my head, I chose to attend a university fighting with its identity. What was Binghamton going to be? When I transferred there in 2002, it has just gone Division I, it had just started to build a new arena for basketball and new technology and engineering buildings, and it was starting to get the credit it was due for being an amazing research university in the social sciences. The school was so young compared to other institutions – it was founded in 1946 – and lacked distinctive spirit and points of pride.

Because of this, you had students on campus who were gung ho about the school spirit sports would bring, and those who saw the sports as ruining the good thing that had been going – this high caliber incubator of creation and research – albeit under-the-radar to most of the East Coast, let alone the country. Debates such as the one between me and artsy girlfriend happened all over campus, and eventually manifested itself into a New York Times “expose” last weekend on Binghamton.

Titled “At Binghamton, Division I Move Brings Recognition and Regret,” the Times interviewed professors angry with student-athletes missing classes for competition, and zeroed in on the criminal digressions of two members of the basketball team this season. What the article lacked to mention was that unlike some other institutions, the school quickly and swiftly continues to take action against student-athletes who miss class, miss assignments or act out of line.  But the damage was done – there were some truths to the article, and the article did concrete damage to a university who has received very little bad press over its 63 years of existence.

Finally, the intellectual argument had its ammunition to win the never-ending debate. The New York Times, the newspaper for true intellectuals, had given that side its giant rocket to finally muffle those who saw the need for athletics on the campus. Athletics was ruining the university, not giving it an identity or spirit.

And then, mere days later, a standing-room only Events Center witnessed the troubled and emotional-roller-coaster riding men’s basketball team win their first America East regular season championship in their six year history in the conference. (They share the regular season title with the University of Vermont Catamounts.) This secured the school its first men’s basketball NIT bid ever.
(Binghamton fans storm the court Thursday evening to celebrate a Bearcat regular season championship.)

Those 5,500 or so members of the University community jumping onto the court after the final buzzer had their say, just days after the Times decided to blast the school and it’s decision to go Division I. These attendees see the need for athletics at the institution.  – to unite.  On Thursday night, for one of the first times ever, Binghamton University was united. After years of searching for its idenity and spirit, over 5,000 students found it – at a basketball game. The debate will continue,  in the halls, in classrooms, in offices and in cars coming back from a Denny’s brunch on the Parkway, but for one night, sports showed that they had a place on the campus.

Or maybe I will.

So in an effort to ignore the silly annoying Bills (really guys, you had to go lose to the Dolphins?!), I will devote this evening’s post to the amusing search engine phrases that my blog comes up as referencing. The best, of course, being from two weeks ago:

“Being a Jets Fan in Binghamton Sucks.”

Well, then. I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Google User. I imagine it does suck, seeing that everyone there is either a Bills, Giants or Eagles fan. But from what I remember, there still is a bunch of Jets merchandise in the stores in the Southern Tier. Plus, you have to remember that the Giants are just super popular at the moment because they just won the Super Bowl. Eventually, people will jump off the Giants bandwagon quicker than spedies are sold at Speidie Fest. It may be more tolerable as a Jets fan in Binghamton then.

The most random recent search engine phrase that resulted in the searcher visiting my site is the inexplicable “fabiola my father girlfriend.” I can only imagine that Fabiola is the searcher’s father’s girlfriend, and the searcher doesn’t like her. The searcher wants to dig up some dirt on Fabiola, and started searching Google – without realizing, of course, that the last name might be somewhat helpful. The girlfriend’s last name isn’t “Your Dad’s Girlfriend.” I think that search was somewhat unsuccessful, unless the searcher wanted to find out that my Confirmation name is Fabiola, which I chose because she is the patron saint of travel, and fourteen year old me really wanted to take a vacation like all my friends did.

Then I get a lot of search phrases about hockey players and music, especially because I obsess over the whole “hockey players like country music” thing. It still makes no sense to me, but heck, I find myself listening to Carrie Underwood more often than not lately, so I shouldn’t be allowed to pass judgment. So to all of you searching for what type of music hockey players listen to, my educated guess is country music.

In the more normal realm, I get a lot of hits due to my post Obviously, Massachusetts Schools Neglect to Teach Geography of Areas outside of New England (or No, Western New Yorkers are not Yankees Fans.) Most of them being for “NY maps” or “maps of Poughkeepsie, NY.” That post is the most hit, the most commented and the overall most popular. People really disagree with me on that post, but that’s okay. I’m down with that. The only thing that matters is that you’re reading.

And today, I’ve gotten a hit due to the search phrase “I need the names of the best hockey players.” One, that someone typed a sentence into a search engine like that is amusing. I feel like my mom, the woman who thinks AIM is an e-mail, (typical Mom IM: “Hi Katie. I was online and thought I’d say hi. It is cold here. The Bills lost again. Oh well. Your brother says hi. I made pizza tonight. Oh no, have to go, dad is stuck in the attic again. Love, Mom.”), may have done that. She might think she has to ask Google to look up something nicely.

Well, Ms. Polite Searcher, you want the names of the best hockey players? Two of my faves are mentioned in the brief nuggets below:

***************

- Everyone’s Favorite Goalie, John Curry, finally returned to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins lineup Saturday after a week off due to a back issue. The Penguins lost, 5-4, to the Portland Pirates, ye of little Gerbe. (I have mixed feelings on Gerbe. If you like a team that he plays against, he’s absolutely miserable. If you take a minute and appreciate his speed on the ice though, you realize that the kid has some crazy wheels, and his sometimes dirty play is just to make up for his lack of size.) I hope that Everyone’s Favorite Goalie was just rusty, and that he doesn’t get sent down to Wheeling, the Penguins ECHL affiliate.

- In my first season of serious fantasy hockey, I have been doing pretty well. I have some solid goalies, and my early trade for Phil Kessel (my favorite NHL player) makes me look like a genius. But then, an injury befell Manny Legace, one of my goalies. And just not any injury, according to ESPN:

Legace tripped on the carpet laid for Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s ceremonial puck drop as he was coming onto the ice to start the game. He was screened on the first goal and gave up the second to Patrick O’Sullivan, who was unmarked in the slot on a Blues turnover, so we don’t think the injury was to blame for either goal. Ben Bishop relieved Legace at the beginning of the second period in what was his first NHL appearance.

Yep, Sarah Palin inadvertently injured my fantasy hockey goalie. The only good that came from this was former Maine goalie Ben Bishop (who should have played for the Maine basketball team, he’s so tall) getting the start for Legace on Saturday. Bishop was the only highlight for the Black Bears last year, who are already in trouble without him this season.

- Um, so the FWNICM is kinda a big deal. His photo graces the front pages of both College Hockey News and USCHO.com tonight. He scored twice last evening against Michigan, had the only goal last Sunday at New Hampshire, and leads the team in goals. Everyone’s jumping on the FWNICM bandwagon, and that’s okay. I’ve been keeping the seat warm for the past three years. I told my partner in crime (the fiance) today, “This is like watching Steve Young finally put it all together in 1994, except I’m older, a tad less obsessed, and I get to see the FWNICM’s games in person.” Okay, so it’s not even that close, but let’s pretend, shall we?

- I just started reading Prohockeynews.com, and I was amazed at the number of small professional leagues that no one realises exists. For example, the Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL)? Who knew? I recommend reading Prohockeynews.com because of the random hockey knowledge you can learn.

- In my first “I am seriously frightened of the wedding industry” report of my engagement, I have barely been engaged a month, and I’m already sick of getting emails from The Knot. When I registered for The Knot, they wanted to know personal information about my fiance, which I was totally not down with. So I registered as an “other” instead of a “bride.” Registering signed me up to get bombarded with their e-mails about “heart themed favor sales” and honeymoon specials. The worst are the e-mails I have received regarding the Disney Princess Wedding Gown collection. Seriously? No. I wanted to be Belle when I was eleven, not twenty-six. Between the insane The Knot emails and adding blogs like WeddingBee to my Google Reader, I think I’m ready to head for the hills and elope. I would much rather elope on our scheduled February sojourn to Orono, Maine to cross another Hockey East arena off our list than deal with the wedding industry. But, don’t worry all – I’ll suck it up.