This is the first of a two-part series examining the life of a UB men's basketball player. Next Wednesday's issue will deal with the topics of 'Student-athlete or Athlete-student' and 'After the Glory.'
Before getting into the bulk of this article, it's important to understand one thing. "We're going to win the MAC Championship," says UB men's basketball junior guard Davis Lawrence. That being established, it's a long arduous road to get there, fraught with pitfalls and landmines.
What is 98 percent of the student body doing at 6:00 a.m. on a weekday morning? The appearance-obsessed may already be up, brushing their hair and picking out their clothes. A few hardcore partyers are just now winding down from last night's high. Maybe you'll have a few caffeine-dependent architects and engineers still slogging away in their respective studios and labs.
However, through most of the dorms and off-campus apartments that encompass our university, not a creature is stirring.
Then there is the UB men's basketball team, who are doing bench presses and squat thrusts before the sun has even considered coming up over the horizon. This begins a day in the life of a UB basketball player
The Daily Grind
After the team pumps iron from 6-7:30 in the morning, they all attend "Breakfast Club," which is mandatory - like the lifting - and runs every Monday through Friday. Breakfast Club is where the team gets together in the dining hall for their first and most important meal of the day. Like most of their day, this is monitored by the coaching staff.
"We don't see what they're eating every meal, however we do see what they're eating many meals," said Assistant Coach Jim Kwitchoff.
Kwitchoff came over with Head Coach Reggie Witherspoon midway through the '99-'00 season from Erie County Community College. A native Buffalonian who played football at Boston College at the very end of the Flutie era, he is in charge with many of the team's administrative duties and mapping out the team's daily routines, as well as his responsibilities on court.
"We are very pleased with the eating patterns of our players at Breakfast Club. But if a player sneaks back four doughnuts on his tray, we are going to make sure they don't get to his mouth," said Kwitchoff.
The team's nutritional and fitness needs are also aided by strength and conditioning coach Phil Ryan. Ryan meets with players individually to sit down and offer dietary advice.
"Phil does a tremendous job with our players. He is very knowledgeable in the field of nutrition," said Kwitchoff. The players are also required to keep diaries of their daily eating habits
From there, the players all have early morning classes, in order to keep their practice window from 1-4 p.m. open.
After grabbing a quick bite to eat, they go through a grueling practice, followed by film sessions in which they rehearse plays from the previous game with the thoroughness of actors studying their lines for a Broadway musical.
By this time, it may be around 6 or 7 p.m., and time for dinner.
After their final meal of the day they go home, do their homework, and study. By the time they are done, players barely have a moment to turn on the television before it is time to get some sleep and do the whole thing all over again the next day.
What would happen if, in this demanding schedule, a player understandably hits the snooze button one time too often and arrives a fashionable five or 10 minutes late to practice or to the early morning weight sessions?
"Late to practice!" Lawrence stated incredulously, as if told to show up in only his underwear to a conference game. "Oh it's over. The whole team runs for your individual mistake. Then you get guys like this big guy right here coming after you (motioning to 6'10", 265-pound center Kevin Swoffer). Rarely does that happen. And if someone does come late, the players get on them for that; the coaches don't even have to. The players are going to kill him."
Days off are also a rare phenomenon for the team. Although NCAA regulations require the players to get one day a week off, the team usually takes it on themselves to practice their shooting or conditioning on their supposed day of rest.
Pressure
Every college kid deals with his or her fair share of pressure. The difference is, if a non-student athlete goes out and flunks his exam, 6,000 people won't be looking over his shoulder when it occurs.
But if a player misses a big jump shot near the end of the game, that is exactly what happens. Not to mention the local news media, who may re-air broadcasts of the crucial mistake time and time again. They will be reminded of it again the next day when they pick up the sports section to check out how their NBA team did last night and see their miss on the cover.
"I think our players put more pressure on themselves than anybody else can. Student athletes that are driven to succeed are going to put pressure on themselves," said Kwitchoff. "When you add to that, the fans and alumni have high expectations. The faculty, staff and general populace of this campus have high hopes. All of that combined make it very challenging on our players. But that's what makes them successful."
Of course, it is not all doom and gloom for our basketball players. Many kids dream of playing in large arenas with thousands of fans showing their support, but very few actually get to live them out at the Division I-A college basketball level.
"Sometimes it's like we're living a dream. We get to travel to interesting places, get our meals paid for, we get some money for clothes. But everything we get, we work hard for. We're soldiers. We call this the barracks," said Lawrence, gesturing towards the locker room after a long day of practice and film study. "I don't know what day of the week it is right now, whether it's sunny or snowy outside. We sweat, eat, we cry blood. We have to be tough because a lot of teams are doing what we're doing."
Lawrence, a 5'10" junior from Brooklyn, N.Y., is in his third year at Buffalo. He is one of the many cogs the Bulls need to fulfill his role if they are to vie for a MAC championship. As a key role player coming off the bench, Lawrence knows he has to make the most of his minutes, just as the whole team is making the most of their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play under the national spotlight of big-time college basketball.
But all that hard work mingled with blood, sweat and tears do not guarantee anything, not a MAC championship, nor even a winning record. As Lawrence stated, "we work for everything we get." Such is the life of a men's college basketball player.
