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Something to cheer about: While the Yellowjackets were enjoying their "winningest" season ever, their rootin' tootin' fans were enjoying the
opportunity to give vent to a newly revitalized attack of school spirit.
end of the schedule couldn't dampen
spirits-or destroy a winning record.
The]ackets finished with a 20- 7
record, the most wins ever by a
Rochester basketball team. And, if
they ended up in second place in postseason
playoffs, the Yellowjackets and
their rootin' tootin' fans could glory in
their first-place standing in two other
tournaments: the Lincoln First Tournament
in Rochester in December,
which included victories over Roberts
Wesleyan, Geneseo, and Nazareth,
and the Washington and]efferson
tournament in Pennsylvania, in which
the]ackets defeated Washington and
Lee and Swarthmore.
The result ofall this winning was an
attack ofbasketball fever that, as the
season progressed, raised temperatures
inside the Palestra to dizzying heights.
Fans with long memories were put in
mind ofthe palmy days when Lou
Alexander used to ambush Division I
opponents confident they would have
the Yellowjackets for lunch and when
Lyle Brown, his successor, won the
Downeast Classic by beating out Division
I Columbia for the championship.
For Mark Wadlinger, a six-foot six
engineering major who has lived
through the lean years when the
basketball program was being rebuilt,
this season was redemption. "Now I go
into Wegman's next to the campus and
I hear people say 'nice game.' They
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know me! Before, I'djust get remarks
like 'Hey, you know you're tall enough
to be a basketball player. ' "
Captain Dave Bence, a senior guard
majoring in political science, suffered
through 6-18 and 8-13 records during
his first two years at Rochester after
starring on his high school team. "It's
nice to hear people saying 'hello'
again," he says. He lays a lot ofthe
credit for Rochester's current success
to his team's "sixth man"-the fans.
"They really help us," he says. Ryan
Russell, ajunior who combines basketball
with a studio arts course, concurs.
"When I feel all that support behind
me when I'm playing, I really get
pumped up. It's great."
Winning has turned it all around for
coach Mike N eer. "Basketball success
gives us something to hang our hat
on," he says. "Now we've got bragging
rights. "
Now in his fifth year at Rochester,
Neer has always believed that
Rochester wasn't receiving the
recognition it deserves. This year's
basketball success has begun
generating some of that recognition,
both in the polls and in the press. In a
story that was picked up nationally by
the AP wire, for instance, Democrat and
Chronicle sportswriter Greg Boeck
wrote:
"In the desert offalsified transcripts
and recruiting scandals that has
become, sadly, big-time college
athletics, I offer a welcome oasis-the
D niversity of Rochester basketball
team.
"These guys are different, and not
only because they aren't playing with
the big boys in Division 1. The
pressure to win-financially as well as
artistically-may not be the same at
the Division III level, but even in their
own family, the scholarship-based-onneed-only
family, this team is
something, a step above even its own
Division III brothers.... This team
has so far combined athletic excellence
with academic achievement, so often
the exception rather than the rule these
days....
"The players aren't, to be sure, the
reincarnation oftwelve Bill
Bradleys-none is Rhodes Scholar or
National Basketball Association
material.
"But there are no physical education
or recreation majors among them­
DR doesn't even offer the majors. Instead,
on this team, you have
mechanical engineering, political
science, history, math, and economics
majors, some with higher grade point
averages than scoring averages....
"Ofcourse, academic excellence is
nothing new at DR. This is the school
that has steadfastly refused to go Division
I in basketball mainly because it
wants to keep athletics and academics