ST. BONAVENTURE — The photo first began to materialize last weekend, appearing on personal social media pages before quickly finding its way into the St. Bonaventure fandom forefront.
And since then, it’s garnered all kinds of attention – online and otherwise – yielding reactions of equal parts nostalgia and admiration, striking for its level of program history in one place.
In it are four of the six winningest coaches in Bona annals: Larry Weise, Jim Baron, Jim Satalin and current coach Mark Schmidt. Together, as noted Bona historian John Firkel pointed out, that quartet accounts for 44 seasons and 735 coaching victories. Adding wins as a player from the former three, that number jumps to 860 triumphs. And that, amazingly, is 62 percent of the program’s 1,387 total wins represented in one snapshot.
That picture – of Bona’s Mount Rushmore of Coaches, if you’re willing to call it such (for most, a fifth stone would have to be carved for Eddie Donovan) – was taken last Saturday, on a beautiful early afternoon at the St. Bonaventure Cemetery. All four were there for the memorial honoring program great George Carter, who, through a community effort, was brought back “home” for a proper funeral service after passing away of throat cancer amid troubling circumstances last November in Las Vegas.
And that, in addition to the final goodbye given to Carter, was perhaps the larger point to a day in which dozens gathered to celebrate the Silver Creek native, who starred at Bona in the mid-60s before embarking upon one of the most successful professional careers of any player in program history:
This was now far from a story about Carter dying alone.
This was a story about the St. Bonaventure community coming together.
Together in how it collectively raised enough money and awareness for the expenses associated with Carter’s service. And together in how so many notable names, from that coaching quartet, to a handful of other program greats from that era, to much of the current roster, made sure they were present on Saturday.
That, as Schmidt said during the ceremony, is the Bona way.
“I didn’t know George Carter at all, or much about him until a few weeks ago,” the Bonnies’ 15th-year coach said, in part. “But that’s not the point. This is what Bonaventure is all about and why I love coaching here.”
CARTER’S STORY, and the spirit his name has inspired, continues to make its mark nationally.
The latest such piece came from Kevin Blackistone, the Washington Post reporter and frequent panelist on ESPN’s “Around The Horn,” who was also present at the memorial, from where he wrote a wonderful longform piece on Carter’s plight as a forgotten ABA veteran and later-life struggles and how he was ultimately taken care of by his own.
It joined four coaches from four of the most successful eras in Bona’s 101-year history on the same grounds just off Allegany’s N. 7th Street.
And though the day was unequivocally about Carter, and his 20 or so family members who were able to be there, it was difficult not to think about everything Bona has accomplished under the foursome in that photo – from the Golden Era accolades of Weise (with a record of 202-90 from 1961-73), to the continuation of success under Satalin (156-93, 1973-82), to the resurrection under Baron (132-131, 1992-01) to the most recent Golden Age under Schmidt, now the program’s all-time winningest coach (245-185, 2007-present).
In the aftermath of Saturday’s sorrowful, yet heartwarming scene, there was an outpouring of love (both in person and on social media) from any number of Bona folk – basketball players or not, big names or otherwise – who were all too familiar with the feeling that permeated the day.
One such post came from Sam Graham, a solid (he averaged eight points and six rebounds as a senior in 1988-89), but lesser-known Bonnie, who came through 20 years after Carter played here, but is bound by that mantra:
“This is what Bonaventure is all about.”
“This one is for my SBU family that stepped up to the plate and gave our brother, George Carter, a permanent place to rest in the heart of Bona country,” Graham said in a Facebook post, adding a link to the Sister Sledge song, “We Are Family.”
YES, IN the face of tragedy came the feeling of communion.
And there’s hope that Carter’s story will also lead to change in the way remaining former ABA players are treated by the NBA, which to this point, has provided no form of pension or post-retirement assistant for such names, despite how that era helped pave the way for today’s game.
“If there’s (an ESPN) 30-for-30 story here, this is,” said Dale Tepas, a member of Bona’s hallowed Final Four team, who was part of the core group that helped bring Carter home. “It’s not necessarily about George Carter – he’s sort of the catalyst to the story – the story’s really how guys like George Carter got left out when the ABA and NBA merged. Now, had he played nine, 10 years in the NBA, he wouldn’t have been a rich man, but he’d have had a reasonable pension and probably would have been okay. (So) it’s not necessarily a Bonaventure story, it’s about all the George Carters who are out there.”
He added, “What’s really unfortunate is that the NBA has really not stepped up. And you’re not talking about a lot of guys; many of them have already passed away, and as much money as the NBA makes, it boggles my mind that they can’t step up and do something for those remaining guys.”
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
