Remembrance: 1978 Intercollegiate Final by Guy Cipriano On a cold March Saturday afternoon in
1978 I was playing soccer with my ( by then former) teammates on
E floor in Jadwin Gym on the dirt area behind the tennis courts.
It was my senior year. I was playing
winter indoor ball for two teams: Friday nights for
North Elizabeth Calabria at Paterson Armory and Saturday nights
for the Elizabeth Germans.
After we’d finished we tried to catch the
elevator to leave. The perpetually pathetic lone elevator in
Jadwin was moving at its usual glacial pace, so we decided to
walk up the back stairs to A Floor and out.
When we got to C floor I heard a crowd
yelling, cheering and clapping. I’d literally never been on
C floor in four years. I had never seen the squash
courts or the fencing area .
Being curious as to what was going on I
walked onto C floor and into what was the extremely steep gallery area
behind what I ultimately realized were the two exhibition courts.
The concrete stairs were absolutely packed
with fans yelling. I looked into the court and I recognized one of the
players as a guy with whom I’d talked a few times in Victor’s
Pizzeria.
His name was Tommy. He had pretty long hair
and we’d talked about soccer and some of the pretty girls on the field
hockey team, some of whom he knew, and none of whom would ever talk to
me.
I didn’t know his last name . I asked the
guy sitting next to me in the top row what was happening and he said “
Tommy” was winning 2-1 against some Mexican guy named Mario
Sanchez. Tommy needed one more game to win.
The match continued and Mario won the
fourth game in incredibly exciting fashion. It didn’t take me too long
to realize that this game of Squash looked like a hell of a lot of fun,
and that it was the perfect training regimen for a soccer goalkeeper.
Eventually “Tommy” won in the fifth game to
thunderous applause and when I asked the man next to me said that
the final was Sunday morning at 11 am.
He said “Tommy “ was going to play against a Canadian guy named Michael Desaulniers who he thought was pretty damned good.
I decided to show up at 10:30 am to watch the final because I wanted to be in the front row dead center .
When I got there I was the first person in
the gallery. I parked myself front in the best seat. I was
looking down into the court and pretty soon people started to
filter in.
Two men came down to the front row .
One of them carrying a pad and pencil asked me if I could slide over
because he was the referee and he needed to sit there.
I slid over and started talking to the man who I eventually came to know as Treddy Ketcham.
His friend I later realized was Stewart
Brauns. Pretty soon random people came over to say hi to these
two guys including a skinny old guy they called Jack .
I don’t remember much but I do remember he was wearing a tweed jacket and he smelled of cigarettes.
All these people knew each other . I
figured out that Jack was Michael Desaulnier’s coach, and that Michael
went to Harvard.
About five minutes before the match Tommy ( Page) and Michael walked into the court and looked up into the gallery.
Tommy said “ Cip , Hey mate!” and I said “Good luck, Tommy . “
They started to warm up . They were both wearing track suits that said “ BOODLES BRITISH GIN” on the back of the jacket.
Tommy’s was power blue and Michael’s was white.
The gallery was soon absolutely packed and it got LOUD fast.
The referee introduced the players, appealed for good sportsmanship in the gallery, and then said “ PLAYERS READY, PLAY. “
I don’t exactly remember much about the
match, but I do remember that they both were fantastic players and that
Michael won 3-0 in about a half hour.
Frankly it was a blow out. I didn’t wait
around to watch some Harvard guy pick up a trophy after the
handshakes, so I split.
The next week I saw Tommy in Victor’s and we sat down and I peppered him with questions.
He said “ Rather than answer the Spanish Inquisition why don’t I just take you into the court and show you how to play . “
Which we did the next afternoon. He
ran me around , showed me what to do , how to hit the ball , why to hit
it hard and deep, how to hold the bat, and explained the
rules.
Then he left to play with a JV soccer player I knew named John Nimick. I was totally hooked.
For the past 47 years I’ve been playing and loving every minute of squash. I quit soccer in 1980 and never looked back.
I started in the NY C league and three years later I was promoted to the A league in NYC.
Every minute of my basically mediocre A level career, and now playing as a veteran, has been a joy.
Tommy died about 15 years ago . I’d see him
at tournaments in the 80s and it was a pleasure to spend time
talking with an old friend.
He was a great player of both singles and doubles and his passing was a tragic loss to the community.
I”d see Michael Desaulniers training with pros at the Lincoln Squash Club in NYC to which I belonged for a while.
I”d also see Mike playing pro tournaments until around 1983.
When he was healthy he was the most exciting player in the world. I miss watching him.
He was lightning in a bottle. He volleyed
everything, hit the ball with incredible precision, and when he shot
the ball it was instant death.
There were very few attritional rallies
like today with the same boring softball patterns repeated
over. And Over. And Over. And Over.
Good luck to the current men’s and women’s intercollegiate singles finalists.
Was somebody in the gallery at Grand Central inspired the way I was ?
Maybe. I’ll always remember that Saturday afternoon, that Sunday morning.
I’ll always be grateful to the late
Tommy Page, Mike Desaulniers, Treddy Ketcham, Stew Brauns, and Jack
Barnaby for completely inadvertently hooking me on the game of a
lifetime.
Post Script:
Eventually the Princeton field hockey captain did talk to me….
A post script to my despair in 1978. It worked out rather well.
