The Cave

The Cave, the fortress, the dungeon or the hole, all names apply. It is where I spent the majority of my days the past three years. It is where I drank swill, aka the coffee from the business office, with Brad Jones in the morning to start the day. The cave almost wasn’t even my home. Brad pulled me out of the Sports Information office, seeing that it was already cramped and would become even more cramped once students arrived, and into his newly converted storage closet that would serve as command central for the newly created Duke athletics video department. On day one, all that existed in the room was a long desk that was mounted on the wall stretching the length of the room, a Dell laptop, a Mac Desktop and two Penn State graduates. A recipe, if not for disaster, but the potential for a lot of hilarity, both ensued.

In a blink of an eye all the space that existed would become engulfed by cameras, racks, towers, bags, monitors, switchers, audio boards, lights, tripods, cables and just the general clutter that two people who grew up in Western Pennsylvania generally amass over the course of a few weeks. A filing system was non-existent. Once a day a notepad would exist with scribblings from a meeting written on it, the next day that same notepad would be long gone. Flash drives, forget about it, they never stood a chance, countless were lost, but never forgotten.

“Have you seen the blue junk drive?”

“Not in weeks.”

But somehow it worked. Before long the new video board in Cameron Indoor Stadium was installed and with it a rack of equipment would be stationed in the back left corner, taking up more space. Another monitor. A switcher. A TV mounted on the wall. An Aja digital conversion box, a beta player, external hard drives, firewires, old cups of coffee, bottles of water that were now half way filled with chew spit, a Mac laptop, a box of donuts, all of this now filled the room, the desk, the work space, and essentially, the storage closest that was emptied to house the video department became a storage closest once again, but yet, it was still so much more.

This was only the beginning of the mess that would be created, over even more time Croc Pots would be used to keep beer cold, five pound bags of Mike & Ike’s, Reese Cups and peanut M&M’s would live on the desk, if only briefly. A shot clock, yes that’s right, the backup shot clock for Cameron Indoor Stadium would make The Cave its home, of course with its buzzer disabled, but other than that fully functioning. Another desk would be added, pulled from the hallway because Brad would have rather kept it in the office than have it thrown away. The desk just added another location for us to pile coffee makers, clothes, whisky and paper.

Since shelves were not in the budget, we improvised. Finding an old basketball rack in the hallway, along with some wooden planks, and before you knew it we had ourselves a shelf. Quickly it was covered with DVD’s (Seinfeld, Dumb & Dumber, Gladiator), a giant stuffed lobster, a Pittsburgh Maulers helmet, a bottle of Aleve that had an assortment of different colored pills in it, Blowpops, trophy’s, books, media guides, papers, everything, simply, we had everything but somehow we never could FIND anything.

That first year, with The Cave still evolving into what it would fully become, was my favorite, and my proudest year for what Brad was able to accomplish and pull off with zero budget. Things might not have always looked great. Cables may have been hung off lights and through ceiling tiles. The Fire Marshall may have given us fearful looks, but everything worked. It functioned in a way that the people out enjoying the show in Cameron, watching the videos on GoDuke.com, would have thought everything was roses behind the scenes. In reality, we were rushing. Software and hard drives were crashing. Video boards were freezing, but somehow, and I give all the credit to Brad, it worked when it needed to.

And in a way that is the best way to describe The Cave and us. It worked when it needed to and we had things done when we needed to. When the chips were down and the deadlines were upon us, we got things to work; we finished projects, exported files, filmed games, created highlights all when it needed to be done, even if we had went home at 3:00 a.m. the night before or were going on our seventh game in ten nights. So what if occasionally we spent an hour on YouTube laughing at videos, or Facebook, or making an extra coffee run, or taking a little bit longer at lunch, or simply just driving around Durham, because as much as we needed The Cave to be our place and feel like it belonged to us, there were times when we needed to be anywhere else but that room.

I’m sure I’ll never work inside an office like The Cave again. It was its own animal. It was not for the weak minded. It was our brainchild. It functioned how we thought… scattered in 10 different directions. But it was home, through the good times and the bad, the one constant was that office. It was always there, ready to house whoever wanted to stop by, to talk about work, to complain about their boss, to vent, to cry, to laugh, it served as something for everyone that stepped into it… If only those walls could talk….

Three years later the room has come full circle. Brad is gone. Chad is fully situated as the new director of video operations. He tried to clean up The Cave. He succeeded for about eight months. It is back to being a mess now, despite some slight changes. I fought Chad's need to be organized and brought the room back to its rightful clutter just before walking away. It looks good.

Short Story (Part II)

…. And now at 9:00 a.m., while Erin was sitting in class, sipping on a tepid cup of coffee she grabbed quickly from the common’s of McCabe Hall, Chad was rolling over, shutting the buzz of his alarm clock off and rolling out of bed, emitting a sound more often heard coming from a family of grizzly bears than people.

In triumphant fashion, Chad’s day had officially begun.

He managed to grab his toothbrush and tube of Crest as he wandered out his dorm and across his hallway to the co-ed bathroom. His first sight was a female student, one that he saw often spending way too much time in the bathroom applying her makeup and meticulously grooming her hair just so. Paying little attention, he made his way over to the sink, splashing water on his face to help the wake-up process. Then, placed a generous portion of toothpaste onto his toothbrush as he gently massaged the bristles along his teeth and gums. Two spits later and he was back in his dorm.

He pulled a pair of grey sweatpants with a Clemson Tiger paw logo embroidered on the left leg just below the pocket out of a pile of clothes on the floor. Checking for any noticeable stains, Chad decided they were suitable for the day ahead. He then removed an orange Clemson t-shirt from a hanger in his closet. His closet doors doubled as mirror, mockingly, to nobody in particular, Chad gave a quick once over of his appearance in the mirror, checking that his hair, which couldn’t have been longer than an eighth of an inch was in pristine condition.

It must have been because Chad whipped his black Nike book bag over his shoulder and locked the door behind him.

Clemson University, located in Clemson, South Carolina and founded in 1889 is home to 15,346 undergraduate students. When the school opened over 100 year ago, it was educational institute to just 446 students and 15 faculty members. Now Chad was one of those 15,000. Erin was another. Both had arrived in South Carolina via different paths. Currently though, the only path that mattered to Chad was the one to Harcombe’s Dining Hall.

He exited through McCabe’s Hall North exit. In front of him, just a few hundred feet of quad separated him from his destination. To his left was Holmes Hall, just up ahead of that was Student Government Building and to his right was the Edgar Brown University Union. Resting between all that was Harcombe, the dining hall Chad frequented daily. The building was located on the corner of Union Drive and Alpha Beta Circle.

Twenty of so students milled around the quad between the buildings, some returning to their dorms, other just leaving, some on the same path as Chad. One though happened to catch Chad’s eye. A female student, wearing a black dress and her heels in her hands, was walking toward him. He recognized her. She lived in his dorm. He had seen her in the laundry room occasional. It was obvious she wasn’t returning from class. She was performing the ‘walk of shame’ for the 20 or so students in the quad. She was still 100 feet in front of him, but Chad could see the embarrassment on the girls face. Her eyes focused on the ground just in front of her. Two male students, wearing Chi Psi fraternity t-shirts asked, “fun night?”, as they passed her on the sidewalk. If their comment bothered her it didn’t show. Her focus never left the concrete.

The frat boys comment actually bothered Chad more. While his initial reaction to spotting the girl on the ‘walk of shame’ was smirk at the situation, the slight smile was quickly removed. He thought about Erin rushing out of the dorm earlier that morning, late for class and fumbling with her shoes as she hopped out of his room. How was she feeling about having to run out of his dorm and to her first class this morning in the same clothes she had the night before? Her difference though was that she was wearing tennis shoes, jeans and a long sleeved shirt that morning. Still, it bothered Chad. If somebody were to make a comment, like the frat boys to the girl who was now passing Chad on his left, to Erin, Chad wouldn’t have liked it. So whatever desire existed to laugh at the humorless comment by the frat boys at first was completely gone and filled with thoughts of Erin and if she has ever been harassed that way.

He would ask her later.

His attention turned back to Harcombe Hall, which was just a few feet in front of him. He hurried up the 10 steps that led up to the door, taking them two at a time. At the door, he paused, took one long last breath of the crisp November air, and then entered.

Short Story (Work in Progress)

I'm working on a short story about a college student who spends his whole day in the school's dining hall talking with classmates instead of going to class.... This is the beginning, be kind, it's a work in progress.

8:00 A.M.

8:02 A.M.

The incessant buzz of the alarm clock had been beeping for two minutes. Finally, Chad rolled to his left, his girlfriend Erin’s sleeping face stared back at him, her eyes still closed, her mind lost in a dream, maybe about the life they would one day have together, the three kids, the house, the white picket fence, the golden retriever that would guard the house at night from intruders or the monsters that inevitably haunt every child’s nightmares while they sleep. Or maybe she was simply dreaming about the day ahead, the English midterm that afternoon, the meeting with her advisor afterward to plan her final semester’s schedule of classes, the dinner she would have with Chad in Harcombe Dining Hall that evening.

Chad on the other hand smiled as he looked deep into the back of her eyelids. Any moment he would see her bold green eyes in the morning sunlight that was creeping through the slits in the blinds. He reached his left arm over her body gently grazing her right shoulder with his elbow. His fingers, extending fully, reached the alarm clock, his index finger pressing the button to stop the buzzing. By the time his arm was back by his side Erin’s eyes were open, already gazing back at him. She blinked four times in succession, focusing her vision, then smiling, then leaning forward, then parting her lips slightly giving Chad a kiss on his forehead.

“Good morning”, sung from her voice. “What time is it?”

“Just after 8”

“Shit,” she shrieked, the moment completely gone. “I’m late for class.”

Leaping our of the bed, Erin fumbled for the hair tie that rested on his desk, in the process knocking over a Styrofoam Bojangles cup that once was the home of sweet tea, but now just housed the remnants of crushed ice that hadn’t melted yet.

“Shit. Sorry. I need to go. Love you. See you tonight.”

And as quickly as she woke up she was out the door and headed to her first class, the ice from the Bojangles Cup scattered across the hard-wood floor.

Chad, unfazed, reset his alarm. His first class of the day, HIST 400 - Medieval History with Caroline Dunn would take attendance in 27 minutes. Chad would not be there. His 9:00 a.m. wake up call would buzz precisely 30 minutes after Dunn would have called his name. He resigned himself to his bed until at least 9 o’clock, with his first class of the day being breakfast at Harcombe Dining Hall.

For Chad, Harcombe Dining Hall was a short walk. Living in McCabe Hall, a five-story building that houses about 290 Clemson students, the trip over to the dining hall took Chad no more than eight minutes. For Erin on the other hand, the trip to Harcombe’s dining hall was much longer. She lived in Smith Hall, an all female dorm on the opposite side of campus. Her commute was much longer to the favorite dining destination of her boyfriend, who would graduate with her in just less than three months.

Final Duke-UNC Game

It’s 2:00 a.m. and I am just leaving Cameron. I’ve just watched my last Duke-North Carolina basketball game at Duke. This time next year I will be in Chicago, hundreds of miles away from one of sports greatest rivals. Tonight’s game was special. The Blue Devils overcame a 14-point halftime deficit to win by six. It was Duke’s largest second-half comeback win over UNC in the series history. And while I know I am ready to leave Duke and experience something new in Chicago, Duke will always a hold a special place in my heart. I will remember today. I may not remember the specifics of the game, but I will never forget that Duke won. It’s funny, but the moment I may remember the most about tonight doesn’t involve Duke or North Carolina. It will be that I spent 10 minutes (at 1:15 a.m.) watching former Atlanta Brave Kevin Millwood playing a game of H-O-R-S-E with his buddy and filming it on a flip cam. I will remember his Marvin the Martian t-shirt and thinking, this guy once led MLB in ERA and now he is air balling a 16-foot jumper. It’s the obscure things that I will remember. Those moments behind the scenes that only a select handful of people have seen. So while 9,000 plus people watched Duke win, I rather remember that I watched Kevin Millwood take jump shots long after everyone else went home.

My Sauce

Every so often, when something happens to jog my memory, I take time to think back and remember everything I can about grandparents. My cooking caused it to happen this time. I have done this probably once a year every year since this one night during my junior year of college when I decided to try and find if there were any military records of either one of my grandfathers on the Internet. I failed to find anything, but ended up sitting at my desk crying as I recalled various memories from my childhood involving my grandparents.

At the time, only one of them had passed away. My Grandpa Tomko, who I am sad to say I have the least memories of, died when I was in third grade from cancer. It was difficult to remember things about him, but I will always remember him driving me to his house on Friday’s after school. The bus would drop me off at my house and there he would be, waiting in his car to take me to his house until one of my parents was finished with work. We played a game each trip. The goal was to reach his house without hitting any red lights along the way, nearly an impossible task. We probably never accomplished it, but he would cheat and slowly creep up to the stop line until the light turned green. This way we could say we never hit a red light. It was stupid. It was perfect. It is my most vivid memory of him. I wish I had more.

This weekend, as I was preparing my homemade spaghetti sauce, my mind naturally wondered to memories of my Grandma Alongi. It is her recipe that was passed down to my mom and then on to me. I laugh because we all follow the same recipe, yet when the finished dished is served on the table they all taste slightly different, none of us fully duplicating the same flavors that the other one created. My Grandma made the best meatballs. My mom had the best sauce. I’m just trying to keep up. My grandmother never got to taste my version of her sauce. I think she would have liked it.

She passed away during my senior year of college. She had suffered with Alzheimer’s for many, many years, then a stroke. When she finally went, it was truly the best thing for her… She was the one who taught me poker. I couldn’t have been more than five years old when she sat me down and explained how a flush beat a straight and a full house beat a flush. I don’t think many five year olds knew how to play poker, but I did. I like thinking I was the youngest poker player. It makes me smile. Other five year olds were playing Uno or Old Maid. I was playing five-card draw poker, one-eyed jacks wild….

I remember my grandmother pre-Alzheimer’s and post-Alzheimer’s. It’s sad but she was two different people. The only good that came from the disease was that she finally quit smoking and that was because she couldn’t remember that she smoked. I used to steal her cigarettes and hide them from her in an attempt to get her to stop smoking. I never realized that she had more packs at home or that should could go to the store and buy more. Naïve kid. She was great. She hated board games but would always play them with my sister and me. She loved solitaire and word searches. We had to do hundreds of them together. She would let me add the vinegar to the salad every lunch. I would push the limits each time trying to pour as much on as I could. She never got mad. It was just the ritual of making lunch. I think she liked it as much as I did. She didn’t have a license. She carried a purse that was huge and filled with an endless supply of bubblegum. She loved jigsaw puzzles, cats, her grandchildren, a shot of what I think was whiskey before bed, cards, tending to her tomato plants, taking walks and slot machines. She could do without TGIF’s TV lineup that aired on ABC, specifically the show Family Matters, board games and….

That’s probably it. She could tolerate most things…. I think my fondest memory of her though, which is actually on video, is of her rebounding my missed dunk attempts on my Fisher Price basketball hoop during my 4^th birthday party… It was a great birthday…

Oh she also blessed us with her Texas Sheet Cake. It is the greatest cake. I can’t make it. My mom can’t make it. My sister though, I think she got the gene, because she is the only one that can come close to duplicating that dessert.

I have two grandparents still living. My Grandma Tomko turned 81 years old today. I called her to wish a happy birthday and ended up on the topic of her old rotary phone and how her phone down her basement is still a rotary. I can still see the old phone that hung on her kitchen wall that instead of pressing buttons you spun a dial. So much has changed. She tells me how her first job was working telephone switchboards, “In the 50’s, Michael!” she exclaims. Now I’m calling her on a cell phone that can access the Internet. She doesn’t have the Internet. She only recently got cable for her television, finally abandoning her antenna. It all makes me laugh. We used to turn her living room into a bowling alley. She set up the plastic pins and Leslie and me would bowl. She let us beat her in Connect 4, and taught us the card game Phase 10. She’s still an exceptional cook. I don’t call enough.

I spoke to my other living grandparent tonight too. My Grandpa Alongi was sleeping. I let the phone ring roughly thirty times. He finally answered. He doesn’t have the best hearing so I have to speak loud over the phone. He sounded glad to hear from me. I need to call him more too. He is a retired carpenter. I can still smell the sawdust that used to permeate his garage on a hot summer day. He was great with his hands. We built a birdhouse together one afternoon. I painted it white and red. He made me my very own Plinko Board out of wood and nails. He had a woodshop down his basement and tons of other contraptions. He loved garage sales and auctions. We took his blue station wagon on every trip to the Jersey Shore. I miss those trips, as uncomfortable as they were in that car. I will never forget them. He still re-grips golf clubs for his friends. He could sleep through a Tornado. He lived, until recently, without an air conditioner in his house. He loves golf and the casinos.

I think I wrote this tonight because I don’t want to forget more. I want to have some of these memories on file, a reference to a few moments of their lives. I wish I could remember more. I am thankful for each of them.

Peace and much Love to you

They're back....Kanye, Eminem & N.E.R.D.

1. Mr. West is back. That's all you need to say.

2. Eminem's new album leaked. It's crazy. It ranks up there with his best albums (The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show).... Song with Lil' Wayne, "No Love" is sick.... So is every other song on the album.

3. N.E.R.D. is back with Nelly Furtado.... the song is.... dare I say it, Hot N Fun.

Decisions, decisions...

In six weeks, Lebron James will make a decision that will define who he is as a person.

It will not only altar the balance of power in the NBA for the next 12 years, its will also finally let the us, the people who care about basketball, purchase jersey’s, buy season tickets and spend hours pouring over box scores, know exactly what makes one of the most dynamic athletes in the history of the NBA tick.

His decision will come down to one simple question.

What does he value most?

Loyalty, winning or money.

If it is loyalty, the obvious choice for James is to remain in Cleveland, a place where he grew up and a city that needs James more than James needs the city.

If it is winning, the obvious choice is Chicago, a city with a great basketball tradition and a team with talent already in place for James to try and win a championship next season.

If it is money, the obvious choice/choices is New York/New Jersey (Brooklyn), a city where he can go and make more money and be marketed as the savior of basketball if he can succeed in turning one of the struggling franchises around.

For the next six weeks, these are the choices that the reigning MVP will have to weigh. Most likely he will wait. He will take his time. He said following the Cavaliers quarterfinal loss to the Boston Celtics that he and his team would evaluate all options before making the best decision.

So what will he choose?

Will it be loyalty? He loves his home. He has always said that his heart is in Cleveland, and as long as James stays on the Cavs, they will be considered one of the top four teams in the NBA. His presence alone does that. So while Cleveland is not the sexist city to play for, it is his home, he has friends, family and an entire city of strangers that will be holding their breath for the next six weeks hoping and praying that the local boy stays close to his roots.

If he stays, he will, probably at some point in his career win a championship. He is too great of a player to go his entire career without hoisting the championship trophy. Can he win next year though if he stays in Cleveland? Probably not. The Cavs won’t have the cap space to add another big time player to pair with James. And if this season taught LeBron anything it’s that one player can’t win a title.

But it is home. And the Cavs can offer him the most money. And he can go about trying to do the previously unimaginable by bringing a championship banner to the Gund…errr, I mean Quicken Loans Arena.

Is it winning? Does winning really, truly drive LeBron James? He has said he wants to win championships, but as we all know what athletes say and what athletes actually do is two completely different things. If winning is what drives him and if he wants to win right away the top choice for James is the Chicago Bulls. He would already have the pieces in place to contend next season with the Orlando Magic for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

Derrick Rose would play the Scottie Pippen role, Joakim Noah would play Dennis Rodman, Luol Deng would play Toni Kukoc and Kirk Hinrich would play the role of Steve Kerr. James would be the lead, doing his best Michael Jordan impersonation in the house that MJ built. He would have his all-star sidekick in Rose, his hard-working big man in Noah and a cast of talented role players that could get James’s his first championship, while bringing Chicago basketball back to prominence.

Is it money? If it is, the choice is New York, whether it’s the Nets or the Knicks. If James wants to become a global figure bigger than any athlete ever his choice will be New York. It is Nike’s, Gatorade’s and the entire city of New York’s dream to have the No. 1 athlete in the No. 1 city in the world.

Both teams though would be projects. He probably wouldn’t be able to win a championship next season as either a Knick or a Net, but that is not to say he wouldn’t capture a ring in a few years. The Nets seem to have more flexibility with cap and draft picks than the Knicks as well as a new billionaire owner, but the Knicks are well the Knicks, and David Stern would love to have the game’s top player in the leagues top market. And if he can win in New York, maybe he will finally be able to earn the nickname that he gave to himself but has yet to prove is warranted. Winning a title inside Madison Square Garden would certainly do that.

So we wait, six weeks for the sports top player to make his decision.

We will all be witness.