This is the second of a two-part series examining the life of a UB men's basketball player.
In Buffalo's last game, they were the victims of a controversial call that cost them a critical conference tilt and prolonged their slump. It was a devastating loss, but the next day was back to business as usual for the team.
Professional athletes live in a land of glitz and glamour both on and off the court. The Bulls, however, have to make the transition from playing in the limelight in front of 2,000 people on Saturday to the seclusion of a booth in the undergraduate library the following day.
Playing Division I-A college basketball isn't equivalent to holding down a full-time job; it's more like two jobs with all the travel and physical wear and tear that it entails. Combined with the rigors of a full course load, it begs the question: are these guys student-athletes or athlete-students? What is their first priority?
Student Athletes or Athlete Students?
Every year, it seems, at least one basketball player is deemed academically ineligible or simply walks off the team, unable or unwilling to put in the amount of hard work and sacrifice required to excel at both basketball and academia. This year is no exception.
After the end of Head Coach Reggie Witherspoon's initial campaign, in '99-'00, several players, most notably Mike McKie and Brian Keenan, ended their playing days at UB. They were either unwilling or did not want to put in the extra effort or the extra hours that Witherspoon expected of his players.
All players, from the day they step through the Alumni Arena doors and into the program, have mandatory study hours. Underclassmen have six hours a week where they must be in the computer labs behind the basketball offices, while seniors have five. These study hours are as mandatory as practices, and are monitored by assistant coaches who randomly pop in to ensure their players are where they are supposed to be.
Tutoring is also available for any player who desires it. Assistant Coach Jim Kwitchoff had this to say about the system set up to increase his players' chances of success in the classroom:
"We have a wonderful academic advisor in Tyra Goodgain. We have a great rapport between Tyra and Dr. [Stephen] Wallace, the head of the academic advisement department of student athletes, as well as between our entire coaching staff and all our players. Our players know there are a number of people who are watching their every move in the classroom and in study hall."
Kwitchoff stressed that such checks are not to try and catch the guys doing something wrong, but rather to see them doing something right. If someone is caught missing in action, however, the whole team gets up early the next morning to run three miles.
"Usually it happens one time in the fall, early in the school year. It's usually a freshman. Then our upperclassmen have a little talk with the freshman, and it doesn't happen again," said Kwitchoff.
There are times of the year when the basketball season is in full swing and the workload is heavier than in other weeks. Finals week in the fall is the most typical example, but far from the only one when the pressures of both basketball and school coincide.
"Sometimes it's hard when you are in a game or a practice, and you're thinking you need to be home studying for an exam. Or if you're taking a test, you're thinking about a big game you have tonight. It's hard sometimes to stay focused, because one gets in the way of the other," said UB junior guard Davis Lawrence.
Balancing the two trades and still having time to fit in a social life - something no college student should go without - is a hard task indeed, and not for everyone. One example is Jason Robinson, one of the more talented players to play at Buffalo, who did not come back to the program or school this season for academic reasons.
After the Glory
If players in Division I-A basketball are the best of the best, the players who go beyond that level to the NBA or Europe are the best of the best of the best.
That being said, with the globalized popularity of the sport, brought on almost single-handedly by the dominance of the Jordan era, there are many leagues in distant lands where a player can make a decent living applying his trade in front of legions of rabid fans. While basketball is quintessentially American, there are some countries in Europe and South America equally passionate about their hoops.
It is hard to imagine there is not a place past college ball for the athleticism of Louis Campbell, or the smooth shooting of Darcel Williams. But for the majority of the Bulls, their days in competitive big time basketball are numbered, ending at a MAC Arena, or if they are lucky, a trip to the NCAA's.
Davis Lawrence sums up the attitudes of thousands of college players, the non-Jason Williams or Juan Dixons. These are the players who don't have agents flashing Rolexes and NBA scouts taking them out for lobster dinners.
"When I was younger I had dreams, but now I'm starting to think realistically. I'm 5'10". There's about a billion 5'10" dudes, and about two of them make it," said Lawrence. "I have career goals. I'm going into counseling and coaching. . But I still dream about it."
Ten years from now, many of these players will be our co-workers, working at desk jobs; their playing days just a distant memory; something to tell their children about with a far off look in their eyes. Others never really walk too far away from the hardwood, pursuing coaching jobs at either the high school or college level. They may continue to walk the halls at Alumni, either as personnel in the athletic department, or as a member of the Blue and White alumni club.
The best part about being on a team is the camaraderie and friendships that develop from the sharing of hopes and dreams, of blood and sweat for an entire season. But those days will end, just as this season will soon end.
In many ways, athletes will be more prepared for the daily grind that the working world will throw at all college students. The players are used to a nine to five schedule; in fact, they are used to being on duty from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. They know the value of hard work as well as any lawyer putting in 65 hours a week, trying to make partner.
Unfortunately for a few, they struggle, unable to find happiness in the relative anonymity and monotony of wearing a shirt and tie every day to work. Some of them are at their best when they are being double teamed, trying to get up a shot with hands in their face, not when they are reading memos and doing paperwork.
A few years from now, the names of Louis Campbell and Darcel Williams will still occasionally pass through the halls of Alumni Arena, but they will be somewhere else, pursuing goals like the rest of us - after the glory.
