Because I am a lawyer, I am allowed to tell “lawyer jokes.” One of them is: “What is the definition of mixed emotions? Answer: A bus half full of lawyers going off a cliff.” The joke is that the bus is only half full.
I raise that tired old joke because I have very mixed emotions about the latest news out of San Antonio: Draven Duncan, the son of the best Spur player ever (so far), will be going to college here in Southern California and playing basketball for the Pomona College Sagehens.
Spurs fans
know that Gregg Popovich’s last head coaching job before becoming coach of the Spurs was at Pomona College.
I am thrilled that young Draven was such a good player and student while in high school. As described in the article, Draven was second team all-district his last two years in high school, helped his team make it to the state championship game as a senior, and earned TAPPS 6A Academic All-State honors twice. If that is not enough, he is also a member of the National Honor Society and National Spanish Honor Society. Very impressive academic accolades.
I am also thrilled that Draven chose to continue his athletic and academic career at a Division 3 school with excellent academics. I did the same at a similar small school in Pennsylvania, though my basketball skills were significanly less than the son of the Great Duncan. After graduating college and law school, I also coached basketball at a D-3 school, Claremont McKenna College, for eight years. As someone who both played and coached D-3 ball, I recommend it to anyone who is good enough to play at that level, which is very high indeed. When we were recruiting high school seniors, they often told us that D-1 schools such as Stanford were offering them the opportunity to “walk on” to the varsity. We always told those recruits that they would have a much more rewarding experience by actually playing at a D-3 school for four years than to ride the bench and be practice fodder for the starters for a year or two at a D-1 program. Several of our best players turned down or left “higher level” programs to come play for us. One of those was Henry Albrecht, who spent a year at Rice, than came to Claremont to become our league’s player of the year during his junior year. Ironically, Henry’s son is now playing football at Pomona, living in the same dorm as Draven Duncan!
The enhanced college experience of a D-3 athlete is even more true now. At a D-3 school, your teammates will most likely be with you for the full four years, and many become lifelong friends. D-1 athletes, on the other hand, seem to have a revolving door of teammates. An athlete will play one year at this school, two years at the next, and another year or two at a third – or will have other players transferring into “your” school and possibly taking away playing time you thought you had earned.
For all these reasons, Draven Duncan’s choice brings me great joy. So why the mixed emotions?
As mentioned above, the eight years I coached were at Claremont McKenna College – the Stags. While I was coaching, and since then, the Stags have consistently been one of the best teams in the league, winning the title more times than any other team. As described in the very first piece I wrote at Pounding the Rock, all the way back in the fall of 2014, the Stags-Sagehens rivalry is unique in college sports:
“Pomona-Pitzer and Claremont are so close that on game nights the basketball teams simply walk down 6th Street in Claremont that one tenth of a mile to get from one school’s gym to the other. For two of Pop’s last years, when Pomona’s new gym was being built, the Pomona team practiced (at 6:30 a.m. most days) and played their home games in Ducey Gymnasium [Claremont’s gym].
Before the season, the players from the schools often play pick-up ball with and against the other team’s players. Players at the schools take classes on both campuses, and most of the best players were recruited by both schools. The two teams are traditionally among the best in the league. As one can imagine, the rivalry between the teams, and the fans, is crazily intense. The games were so loud that we had to call in plays and defenses by holding up pieces of cardboard with different colors or numbers on them because the players didn’t have a chance of hearing us over the crowd.
And because Ducey Gymnasium is so small, the players, coaches, officials, and fans are literally on top of each other for the standing room only during these rivalry games. We all remember Game One in San Antonio in last year’s Finals, with no air conditioning. Anyone who attended a Pomona-Pitzer vs. Claremont McKenna game in Ducey Gymnasium knows exactly what that was like.
Nowhere else in the country do two college teams inhabit virtually the same campus, have players in class together and then play against each other that night, walk down the street from one gym to the other for the rivalry game, have the outcome of the rivalry game determine not only bragging rights among fans and players, but often the league title for that year — and hold the contests in a classic small-college gym in which the coaches would routinely sweat through their suits, all with the fans breathing down their necks from the row behind.”
I began that article with this quote:
“When asked about his most intense experience as a coach, Gregg Popovich answered, ‘Hands down, Pomona-Pitzer vs. Claremont McKenna in Ducey Gymnasium.’”
So while I am thrilled that Draven Duncan selected a college that I am extremely familiar with, did he have to choose Claremont’s long-time rival? I get the Popovich connection behind his selection, and I don’t blame Draven from honoring Pop in this way. And I bet Pomona gives him uniform number 21. When I attend the Claremont-Pomona game again this year, for the first time ever, I will be rooting against a player with “Duncan 21” on his back. Draven can score 30 per game against Redlands and Whitter and Occidental and the other teams in the league. Indeed, I hope he does. But I also hope he goes 0 for his career against my Stags.
