Going to See Dave
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Allen: Going to See Dave Published by SURFACE, 1994 1 Syracuse University Magazine, Vol. 10, Iss. 3 [1994], Art. 5 GOING TO SEE DAVE 0 By l11el R. Allen Some g amed you ne~er forget. BecaUde of what happenr1. BecaUde of who you're with. know it was in November they had not lived. And because I can into the nig ht, the seniors grinded for 1966 w h e n we drove west not remember about the sky, the car, A 's. A 's m eant grad school, another from Syracuse, straight out the landscape we passed, I trust what y ear deferred . May be the war would I Route 90, head ed for D etroit, remains, the memories that have sur e nd. M eanwhile a n ew record had 600 miles distant. But I do not vived more than 27 years. bee n set for American casu alties in r e m e mber w h eth e r the sun It was a t im e when the w o rld Vietnam, n early a thousand d ead and shone or w h ether it rained . I do not beyond Syracuse University seem ed wounded in September. In that time, remember the car we rode in, though ringed with ba rbed w ire, ready to trip in that place, we drew com fort from in that car I watched morning turn to us up. T hat fall I li ved in a fraternity sports. These were the days of Floyd night. Bernie doesn't remember any house, Sigma Alpha Mu, Sammy. The Little and Larry Csonka . And though thing about the car either, except h e house faced the dy ing e lms in D ave had graduated in June, in that knows it wasn't his; h e ha d no car . Thornden P ark a nd was low -slung, house we continued the day s of D ave N either did I. That leaves P au l a nd modern, institutional, feeli ng curiously Bing , our fra t ern ity broth e r, our C la ude, a nd I can ask neither for both like a motel with two floors of rooms friend. have died. Perhaps, if they had lived, running side-by -sid e down ha ll ways. In O ctober D ave p layed his first w e could h ave seen each o ther from Inside that house, anxiety clung to the regu lar season basketball game as a time to time, and told this story, told it seniors like mist. The University was D etroit P iston. I nside the h ouse, we often enoug h so there would be nei sending grad es and class rankings to could not pick up radio reception of ther need nor d esire to write it. But d raft boards; behind closed doors, late t he game against the Cincinnati Royals 19 https://surface.syr.edu/sumagazine/vol10/iss3/5 S PRIN G 1994 2 Allen: Going to See Dave SU'.J 1966 team photo included Jtudent mana,qer Bernie Fine (back row, far left) and p!ayerJ Da11e Bing (22) and Jim Boeheim (35). and its great star, Oscar Robertson. So we sat in darkened cars, e ngines off, radios on, the an nouncer's voice drifting in and out as if, from time to time, a pillow covered his microphone. Whe n the game ended, car doors opened, their lights flash ing quickly, like fireflies, then the doors shut, and we stood unbe li eving in the dark. Dave Bing had scored no points. On winter nights whe n Dave played for Syracuse we had trudged through the Ia ugher w hose laughs quickly snow and the slush, crowd- strong, that s upple, to be so turned to thigh-slapping giggles. His ing into Manley Field House, 5,600 of enriched by a talent he could enrich face was round and his forehead, high u s, squ eezing elbow to elbow on everyone watching. He seemed to float and w ide, protruded just a bit and he bleachers, so close to the players we above the rim. And he took us with wore his glasses on a strap because he saw b ruises turn purple w h e n an him. couldn't see w ithout t h e m and h e elbow landed. This was long before the When he left Syracuse, Dave held always wanted to be ready to leap into Carrier Dome and its 30,000 fans, the SU records for most points in one a game. before the Big East and ESPN and so season, career points, points in a game, They met in the early fall of 1963, many years of televised games and so and most assists. In his senior year we Claude's freshman year. Though not many tournaments the games pile one had watch ed him average nearly 30 on scholarship, he had tried out for onto the other, losing their shape and points a game. Standing in the dark freshman football, w here he suffered a texture, their capacity to stir memory. parking lot, our radios clicked off to head injury during practice. H is play But if you saw Dave Bing play, you the Detroit announcer, we asked : How ing days, except for touch, had ended. remember. He stood 6-foot-3. His skin could such a player be so humbled? Claude and Dave had roomed togeth was smooth and brown, and he played H ow could Dave Bing score no er. Claude was t h e son of Buddy at Syracuse for th e most part with points? We thought: If his transition Young, a great a nd famous football w hite players from small cities and beyond the University could b e so player. Growing up, C laude had small towns. His game, formed on the painful, w hat, then, would become of known too many famous athletes to be playgrounds of D .C ., forever changed the rest of us? in awe of D ave; he jostled and needled Syracuse basketball. As a collegia n, his him and they grew close. hair was cropped close, almost shaved; la ude Young said we Basketball practice h ad not yet you could see sweat gliste n on his would go a nd see started, so Cla ude and Dave tossed a s ca lp beneath t h e lig hts . He wore Dave. Claude was a football across the grass, Dave the pic number 22. Later, as a professional, he year younger than ture of athletic elegance, Claude know grew an Afro and mustache and side Dave, but as Dave ing he was not, his eyesig ht so poor burns, but t his was the young Dave, later said, "This was a he'd not pick up t he ball's flight until it his features d e licate, almost pretty, time w hen black students noticed each was nearly upon him, a nd his hands with a long , lit h e , muscle d body. other." It would have been impossible would fly ope n, as if s natching a t a Before we had heard of ha ng time, not to notice Claude. He stood maybe bird. They shared religion: Both were Dave showed us, a nd we could only 6 feet and his hair was cut close to the Methodists w ho worshiped together imagine w hat that felt like, to be that scalp. He was a talker, a teaser, a on Sunday s in H endricks C hapel. And 20 Published by SURFACE, 1994 SYRACUSE UNIVERS ITY MAGA Z I N E 3 Syracuse University Magazine, Vol. 10, Iss. 3 [1994], Art. 5 DaPe :1 father to/{) hi(~ tiO/l to reJpect e''er!JOile; they shared geography: Claude lived in in Maryland or D.C., Claude coaxed Baltimore, Dave in D.C., and in those three or four of his fraternity brothers cities each left a sweetheart. They sat into driving south; his mother fed them up nights listening to Motown. And, in it ll'a,l people, grits and sausage. a way that is hard to measure, they That fall Claude roomed w ith Paul were destined to be friends by up Wandner, dark-haired, quiet, shy, a bringing and temperament. In a racial thinker, a reader, who, though he ly slippery time when Stokely Car lacked the skills, loved sports. Yes, michael thundered "Black Power" at Paul would go to Detroit. college rallies, both men possessed the not race, tluzt Bernie Fine, my roommate, would gift of seeing you from the inside out. go, too. Bernie was president of the This was when interracial rooming was fraternity , and he seemed older than rare in colleges, but Dave Bing, who the rest of us, a father superior, dishing had seldom played with or against out fines and reprimands when we whites in D.C., roomed with a la nky 1nattered. spoke out of turn a t m eetings. He white boy from Lyons, New York, expected the house in order, he wanted named Jim Boeheim. to win awards for highest academics, Dave's father, Hasker, worked con he wanted to win intramurals. He was struction. He told his son to respect strong and powerful, toughened in everyone; it was people, not race, that play er's number for the first time: Brookly n, a prodigious blocker on the mattered . He told him nothing came Buddy Young's 22. He said, "All any house football team, giving the quarter easy .