Hang his jersey

A letter to the editor, in the Davidsonian last month, written by William E. Jackson ’57, a former political science professor who still lives in Davidson:

On Feb. 5, The Charlotte Observer proclaimed in a front-page story in the sports section: “Davidson Great Dies.” It referred to the death in Austria last week of three-time basketball All-American Mike Maloy-heralded by Coach Lefty Driesell as “the best player [Davidson College] ever had.” He “was the most consistent player I ever had. He never had a bad game.”

Maloy led the Wildcats to back-to-back NCAA regional tournament finals in 1968 and 1969. He remains the school’s all-time leading rebounder; and seventh leading scorer (1661 points) with a 19 points per game average.

But today’s students would never know who Lefty was talking about if they looked for his retired jersey (# 15) hanging above Belk Arena, or checked the list of athletes in the college’s Hall of Fame. Mike Maloy was a sharp and joyful student from Bryant High School in Long Island City (Queens). Coach Terry Holland accurately remembered him as “one of the most enjoyable human beings that I have ever been around.”

Mike was in my course on "Southern Politics” -- that’s right -- at a time when the student body was overwhelmingly white males from southeastern states.

Despite the fact that he did not graduate from Davidson College, Lefty is absolutely right when he makes the case that Mike should be in the college’s Hall of Fame. It gives me “the blues” to read about Mike’s passing.

(Hat tip: Rob Hooker.)

Better than Hoosiers

From a Q&A about the book that I did for Sidebar, the in-house newsletter down here at the St. Pete Times, with deputy managing editor Rob Hooker, Davidson ’69:

I continue to think about those 16.8 seconds, and that message board post, and what they might mean. Bob McKillop, the Davidson coach, has been at Davidson for 20 years, and Jason was a senior who hadn’t played much his first two years in college, and Stephen was a sophomore who hadn’t been recruited by any big schools, and so there was something very, very anti-get-rich-quick about the team’s tournament run last March. That last moment, watched by so many, was created by so many people at Davidson doing so many things well for so many years, while being watched by so few -- and here was the reward.

In the end, though, the reward wasn’t Hoosiers.

It was more interesting than that.

If that shot had gone in, I probably wouldn’t have written a book -- you’ve read that book before, you’ve watched that movie -- and I definitely wouldn’t have written this book.