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.

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.

Jon emailed me earlier this week with a comment too lengthy to be posted as a comment, and I thought it was cool enough to be my first sorta, kinda in a way guest post ever.  I’ll also link to this in the comments section of the original post as well.

Thanks, Jon for such a well thought out response to the article, and for another view into being a Western New York sports fan. The comment, which includes one of the best descriptions of why Western New Yorkers tend to flock to Boston, after the jump.

Jon:

Being a fellow WNYer almost all of my life, your Binghamton post caught my eye as I might be leaving Buffalo to go to school there. I’ve visited only a handful of times but it’s strange that my uncle who I’ve never seen as a sports fan whatsoever (more of an outdoor type) follows the Yankees quite regularly. Maybe it is because they are on TV there.

I agree with your posting about WNY/CNYers having a disdain for NYC, but not to the point where we would never visit…just not the place to live. I am more drawn to moving to Boston too. I think it’s just about being labeled Upstate. It is like feeling completely ignored. Oh well.

To Pravin: I’ll try to break it down the best I can.

In WNY I see Baseball interest as waning. but among the teams you will find the Yankees have a slight edge but that could change with the Mets being now affiliated, also both YES (Yankees) and SNY (Mets) are both on the basic cable packages. Coupled with the fact that the University at Buffalo (30k students) of which i’d estimate 15-25 percent are from the 5 boroughs + Long Island with a sizeable portion from areas within an hr of NYC. The point is the Mankees/Yets fans in Buffalo are influenced by those downstaters.

I don’t even think there are Pirates fans in Pittsburgh let alone Buffalo, but I think you can get FSN Pittsbugh in the south western NY counties, see the map here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FSN_Pittsburgh

Indians- now that the affiliation is over you will see less and less. Blue Jays are only the team you go see when you want to see your other favorite teams. There are not on any over the air Canadian TV networks and their radio signal is weak in Buffalo which may contribute to the lack of interest.

As for the Bills, the Dolphins rivalry fluctuates depending on how bad they are (but we’ve been bad for a decade too). most of the older fans would put them as the biggest rival because of Kelly/Marino but if i had to rank the rivals I would say…

Tier 1- Jets slightly above the Dolphins

Tier 2- Patriots. but they’ve been just plain better than everyone in the AFC East. still there is hate, but it’s a different kind of hate than the 2 above teams.

Tier 3- Jaguars (have faced them a lot in the past decade), Titans, Browns.

Sabres rivals (for me I have only a dislike for the Habs and not the hate brewing for the below teams) but for other fans it could be different

in this order

1. Senators

2. Maple Leafs

3. Bruins

4. Flyers

5. Islanders/Hurricanes

some fans might put the Canadiens either below or above the Flyers.

Basketball

General NBA interest in the City of Buffalo, Knicks are on TV, some Raptors games on CBC. and proximity to Cleveland, those would probably be the 3 biggest draws but it’s probably a mixed bag.

But we are a big college basketball city.

Depending on where you go/went to college you could be a ‘Cuse fan, UB Bulls, Canisius, Niagara or St. Bonaventure fan.

from my experience traveling around WNY it’s like this…

1A. Bills/Sabres (probably more Bills than Sabres interest in Southtowns, areas closer to Orchard Park)

1B. Sabres/Bills (Sabres get the edge in the Suburbs, North of the City)

2.Bisons (families, baseball players, people who live in the city)

3. College Sports

UB Football, “Big 4″ Basketball, Syracuse FB/BB

4.Bandits (Lacrosse) college students, popular among the Bills crowds who don’t go/can’t afford sabres tickets, popular with the Natives (who live south of the city)

then…

Major League Baseball

College Hockey

High School Sports

NBA/Nascar (about even)

]]> http://www.sportsgirlkat.com/2008/11/15/weighsin/feed/ 0 http://www.sportsgirlkat.com/2008/10/27/search-engine-fun/ http://www.sportsgirlkat.com/2008/10/27/search-engine-fun/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:46:38 +0000 Kat http://katherinehas.wordpress.com/?p=365 Let’s ignore the Buffalo Bills lost to the freakin’ Dolphins today, shall we? I was having a glorious sports weekend, which included the FWSNBN becoming the star of the season thus far for the Boston University men’s hockey team, and then – bam, the Bills had to go lose. Unacceptable, Mr. Edwards, just unacceptable. I will not be buying your jersey t-shirt anytime soon.

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.

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