1968 Princeton – NYU Basketball Excerpt

Text: Edward Labowitz ’70

[Download Princeton / NYU Basketball Excerpt, 1968] (19.5mb MP3 File)

Gregg [Lange] and I broadcast the (Men’s, as there were no Women’s) Basketball games on WPRB during our years, 1966-1970. During freshman year, ’66-’67, the team was ranked third in the nation and was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. However, as fledgling freshmen, we did not broadcast many of the games, but watched and listened to our mentors, John Barnard ’69 and Hal Pote ’68.

We were the regular broadcasters in ’67-’68, ‘68-‘69, and much of ‘69-‘70, until senior theses began to occupy our time and our successors took the mic.

I recently found a ¼ tape of the last 18 minutes of game time of the NYU-Princeton game, in early December 1968. I transferred the tape to digital, and it is a good thing I did, because it was beginning to deteriorate. The first 1:15 is a bit garbled, but the rest is fine. I am doing the play-by-play, Gregg does a bit of color toward the end of the game, and John Barnard does the post-game wrap-up. Our engineer was either John Bongiovani ’70 or Tom Kendrick ’72. This was the sixth game of the season, which Princeton won, making it 3-3 at that point. The Tigers went on to a 19-7 season, which was Pete Carril’s second year at Princeton. NYU, of course, eliminated its intercollegiate basketball program many years ago. This may be the last extant recording of any NYU basketball game.

The players on that team were: Bruce T. Adams ’70, John R. (“Arbo”) Arbogast ’70, John D. Borgia ’70, James R. Bright ’71, H. Thomas (“Tom”) Chestnut ’70, John R. Hummer ’70, Dominic F. Michel ’70, Eric P. Neuman ’71, Geoffrey (“Geoff”) H. Petrie ’70, K. William (“Bill”) Sickler ’71, Edmund Stanczak, Jr. ’71, and Chris Thomforde ’69.

Several of those players went on to successful pro careers:  In the Spring of 1970, Geoff Petrie was the first draft choice of the expansion Portland Trailblazers, where he had a marvelous first year and was named Co-Rookie of the Year, along with the Celtics’ Dave Cowens. I saw him play against Golden State in 70-71, when I was in law school in Berkeley, and he scored 51 points. When he retired at an early age due to injuries, Geoff became a broadcaster for the Trailblazers, then their General Manager, and then, for many years, the GM of the Sacramento Kings, where he brought in Pete Carril as an assistant coach. John Hummer was chosen by the Buffalo Braves expansion team, which eventually became the LA Clippers, and John played in the NBA for nine years, before becoming a successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist.Tom Chestnut was President of the Cleveland Cavaliers and CEO of the Philadelphia 76’s.

I loved broadcasting the games and wanted to be a professional sportscaster. Alas, the Army, which had commissioned me through ROTC, did not think that was a good use of my talent. I was deferred to attend law school.  Then, the Vietnam War wound down, and I was not needed on active duty.  The call of the law – and a real job – trumped my desire to be a sportscaster.

From 1982-85, I was Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs of ABC Motion Pictures, a division of ABC, where my former WPRB partner, Gregg Lange worked, though I was in Los Angeles and he was in New York. Nonetheless, we saw each other regularly when he traveled to LA or I to NY for ABC business. Gregg was the greatest student sportscaster I ever heard; his knowledge of Princeton and Princeton basketball history was prodigious, even at the age of 19 – which explains why he writes Rally ‘Round the Cannon for PAW Online and has four hours of material to read to the assembled dignitaries at the end of the P-Rade each year.