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Steve McKee is the author of CENTAUR SEASONS, a memory blog about his basketball-playing days at Allentown (Pa.) College of St. Francis de Sales in the early 1970s (a good excuse for using his college yearbook picture -- though there's NO excuse for that mustache and hair!).
CENTAUR SEASONS can also be found at www.centaurseasons.com. The centerpiece will be the posting in "real time" of the diary that Steve kept of his 1972-1973 junior-year season, beginning on November 30. Prior to that (and after), Steve will be posting regularly about his freshman, sophomore and senior seasons, as well as about what it was like to be there at the beginning to help get a struggling college basketball program off the ground.
Steve was the original writer of The Wall Street Journal's popular sports blog, "The Daily Fix" in 2001-2002, and was even dubbed "The Unwitting Father of the Sports Blog" by Gelf Magazine, the online publication of the "Varsity Letters Reading Series. Steve was the Journal's sports editor for its original Weekend sport section and was involved in all of the Journal's Olympics coverage, Winter and Summer, from 1996 through 2008.
He is the author of three books, most recently "My Father's Heart: A Son's Reckoning With the Legacy of Heart Disease," which he is adapting as a one-man show. For his first book, "The Call of the Game," Steve traveled the country in search of sports events -- including the famous N.C. State Wolfpack victory over "Phi Slamma Jamma" of the University of Houston. For his second book, COACH, among the 150+ coaches Steve interviewed are/were college basketball coaches John Wooden (UCLA), Pat Summitt (Tennessee), Frank Layden (Niagara), Bobby Cremins (Georgia Tech), P.J. Carlesimo (Seton Hall), Bill Guthridge (North Carolina), Abe Lemons (Texas), Stan Morrison (USC), Kathy Rush (Immaculata), Jim Satalin (Duquesne), Charlie Thomas (San Francisco State), Butch Van Bredda Koff (Princeton), Bill Whitmore (Vermont) and LaDonna Wilson (Austin Peay).
For more, you can click on www.steve-mckee.com, where you can find a TODAY show appearance and an NPR interview.
Posted on May 14, 2013 My junior year at Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales -- forty years ago this year -- we Centaurs ended our season at 6-and-11. A brutal campaign, as chronicled here at HoopsU.com, it boasted, so to speak, a nine-game losing streak and defeats by ... 2 ... 12 ... 7 ... 2 ... 15 ... 15 ... 5 ... 29 ... 36 ... 6 and 18 … [Read more...]
Posted May 3, 2013 I figured out why your blog and book will be a winner. Well, I am certainly glad someone has! (And yes, one of the goals I've been shooting for with this blog is to find the book in these Centaur Seasons.) Those dozen italicized words that tip-off this particular CENTAUR SEASONS post here on HoopsU.com were written … [Read more...]
Posted on April 26, 2013 This post, like the two before it on CENTAUR SEASONS and here on HoopU.com -- Micheal Bantom of the ill-fated 1972 U.S. Olympic basketball team and his sudden appearance at Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales’s 1973 Spring sports banquet (This is the most unusual experience of my entire life), and the answer he … [Read more...]
Posted on April 24, 2013 On a Thursday evening in early May in 1973 Mike Bantom – he of St. Joe’s College, the Philadelphia Big 5, and the ill-fated 1972 U.S. Olympic basketball team and its disputed loss to the Soviets in the gold-medal game – appeared seemingly out of nowhere as the guest speaker at our Allentown College of St. Francis … [Read more...]
Posted on April 19, 2013 Last week here at HoopsU.com a CENTAUR SEASONS post proffered “Six Degrees of Refereeing,” about the longtime and well-respected basketball official Jody Silvester. Jody whistled some of our home games at Billera Hall in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, but eventually he worked the big rooms – Madison Square Garden, … [Read more...]
Posted on April 16, 2013 Yesterday, while I was working on today's CENTAUR SEASONS post to be available here on HoopsU.com, my wife, Noreen, yelled up to me: "Bombs at the Boston Marathon." I put aside what was going to be today's post. Though the irony is worth noting: Today's post was going to connect the early-Seventies Centaurs of … [Read more...]
Posted on April 9, 2013 A recurring theme here at CENTAUR SEASONS exclusively on HoopsU.com has been the idea that Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales in Center Valley, Pennsylvania -- the school brand-new, we students its only resource – offered a uniquely interesting education to those lucky enough to have been there in the late … [Read more...]
Posted On April 8, 2013 To start this CENTAUR SEASONS post -- brought to you here on HoopsU.com -- we need first to go to Madison Square Garden. It is the mid-1980s. I am there watching a St. John’s basketball game. The whistle sounds, and I follow the ball as it gets thrown to the ref. Wait! I know that guy! The referee! I mean, I know … [Read more...]
Posted on April 5, 2013 Today, Centaur Seasons here exclusively on HoopsU.com takes a break from TALKING WITH JOHN WOODEN, its multipart March Madness series of never-before-heard conversations with the UCLA legend. (Come back Monday to HoopsU.com for the Final Four final installment.) No, today Centaur Seasons is going to wade into the … [Read more...]
Posted on April 4, 2013 During this 75th anniversary celebration of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, Steve McKee's memory blog, CENTAUR SEASONS, here on HoopsU.com is remembering not to forget John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins. HOW? By listening here exclusively to the Coach talk about the game and his life (and his life in the game) in a … [Read more...]
Posted on April 3, 2013 During this 75th anniversary celebration of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, Steve McKee's memory blog, CENTAUR SEASONS, here on HoppsU.com is remembering not to forget John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins. HOW? By listening here to the Coach talk about the game and his life (and his life in the game) in a … [Read more...]
Posted on April 2, 2013 During this 75th anniversary celebration of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, Steve McKee's memory blog, CENTAUR SEASONS, here on HoopsU.com is remembering not to forget John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins. HOW? By listening here to the Coach talk about the game and his life (and his life in the game) in a … [Read more...]
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