If you haven't read part I, click here first.RPI is world renowned for its engineering and science faculties and is a perennial contender on Princeton Review’s list of “least happy college students.” The reasons are intuitive; aside from having a guy-to-girl ratio that warrants an urbandictionary.com entry, Troy, New York isn't the most quintessential college town.
Myself not included, Friday nights at the ‘Tute were largely spent hacking dot-com start-ups or trying to break the transmission speed of the Local Area Network (authentic picture below saved from freshman year). Athletes and Management majors were relegated to a disparate Greek life, including 32 fraternities and 4 sororities. You do the math.
Anyway, back to basketball.
After hanging up my high tops in March of 2000, I worked a few basketball camps the ensuing summer and then went into complete exile from the game. The cumulative total of on-court time over the next four years would pale in comparison to one summer month during my obsessive playing days. Don’t get me wrong, the urge was there; however, the countering anxiety kept me away from the game.
In September 2004, I faced another set back. Confronted by an overwhelming financial burden to attend graduate school, I decided to drop out of Columbia University (only a week into the program) and made the humbling move back home. A choppy job market led me to a third-shift stint at the local ShopRite, mindlessly stocking shelves well into the early morning.
The 4am lunch break offered adequate time to reflect and think about the future.. My thoughts quickly shifted back to basketball. I pondered a way to get my head back into the game and did some soul searching—on Google that is. I looked up a trusted source in the basketball world; a man that has dedicated his life to the game and to helping high school athletes become known prospects to college coaches, Tom Konchalski.
Tom, you see, is a self-proclaimed “technophobe.” He doesn’t own an email address, and at the time, he refused to carry a cell phone. I was able to get Tom’s snail mail address from his brother Steve, a legendary coach in Canada, and wrote a letter requesting his guidance. About a month later, Tom replied with a telephone call.
His advice was simple and straightforward: “Why don’t you ring up your high school or AAU coach and ask to volunteer? If you want to get back into basketball, there’s no substitute for experience.” Sure. Why didn’t I think of that? Tom’s word being gold, I jumped on the horn with my AAU coach (also varsity coach at S.S. Seward) the next morning and I was at practice that following Monday.
A love was reborn.
The high school season turned out to be a true success. The seniors all went off to college after producing a 21-3 record (8-0 in conference play), good enough to garner both Divisional and Sectional titles. A week before the State quarterfinal game (ultimately where our season ended), I was offered a full-time job at the same place I dropped out of five months earlier, Columbia University. Only this time, I went back with waived tuition.
Part III - the conclusion - coming soon...
