By Mikael DeSanto
Sports Assignment Editor
This Saturday, St. Bonaventure University will honor the 1976-77 men’s basketball team, which finished the year at 23-6, winning four straight games to end the year en route to an NIT Championship. The school will also be retiring the jersey of Greg Sanders, a member of the championship team and the program’s all-time leading scorer.
“Back in ’77, the NCAA began to take over as the basketball tournament, but the NIT was still a really big deal,” Tim Kenney, the university’s athletic director, said. “In fact, if you go back a little bit, a few years before that, there were teams who would prefer to go to the NIT, like Marquette as an example of a team that would do that. So I think it is huge that you can go on a run against national competition and win the tournament overall, and to do it at Madison Square Garden is very big.”
Steve Mest, associate athletics director for external relations at the university and a 1991 graduate, said the team’s success still resonates with the community today.
“Any time you can say your program has won a national championship, that carries a ton of weight,” Mest said. “When these guys were playing the NIT was very prestigious and so, to me, it is something we can’t underestimate how important it was for the program, not only them but forever, really. This school has one national championship to its credit, that is something you cannot take away, and something this program, the alums of the program and the alums of this school can always be proud of. It is a rallying point.”
Mark Schmidt, the current head coach of the men’s basketball team, said he and his team see the team as a prime example of the history the school and program have.
“Bonaventure has had great tradition here. Other than going to the Final Four, it is probably the greatest accomplishment that Bonaventure basketball has had,” Schmidt said. “It is the first time they will all be back, Greg Sanders is the leading scorer in this school’s history; he is a great player and deserves to have his number retired. It should be a great evening.”
Mest said a majority of the team will be in attendance, as well as the staff, for the ceremony.
“There is only one player from that team who we have not been able to identify or find and that is Barry Atkinson. No one seems to know where he is,” Mest said. “He’s a Canadian guy and everybody I’ve talked to has said they think he moved back to Canada, but they have no idea where, and none of his teammates have kept in touch with [him]. Other than that the entire team will be here, including both assistant coaches and the three managers.”
The process of making the decision to honor the team and retire Sanders’ jersey began last year, according to Mest.
“It was something that was on our radar for quite a while. We knew the anniversary was approaching and there is only so many opportunities you get to do something like that,” Mest said. “We decided to do it in December because we wanted to do it before the weather took a turn for the worse potentially; you never know around here. In talking to some of the guys on the team, some of them have busier schedules after Christmas; Jimmy Satalin (the team’s head coach) is an analyst for Syracuse and once they get into ACC play it would be tougher and tougher for him to miss a game. We also wanted to make sure we did it when the students were here.”
Kenney said the ceremony will have a major impact on the entire Bonaventure community.
“I think it will just instill more pride,” Kenney said. “I speak with people and they talk about the glory days with Lanier, the NIT team and, more recently, in 2012. I think a lot of people have an identity with the basketball program, and so by celebrating great eras on Saturday, we are giving a forum for them to relive that time frame.”
Following the ceremony, the Bonnies will take on the State University of New York at Buffalo Bulls, beginning at 4 p.m.
desantmj13@bonaventure.edu
