I go to most of the Middlebury College men’s home basketball games, and some away games too, and have for many years: over 50 years of games, including those in which I played on the Middlebury team, in that gym, many renovations ago.

I sit with members of my family and friends. It’s just about my favorite thing to do, gets me through the Vermont winter.

Near the end of close games, especially conference games, I will often get up from my seat, leave my pals, and pace the hallways above the stands, stopping to observe the action through the windows there.

Other times, I will go over to the far end of the gym, on the south side, and stand in the corner and watch the final minutes of action by myself from a perch in Pepin, high above courtside.

There are those, I think, who find this behavior an affectation — that is, I do it to draw attention to myself as an especially ardent fan, a Middlebury partisan-extraordinaire, unable to sit still, having to move about to calm my nerves.

I would reassure them that this gesture is a learned behavior, learned from hard experience. It is a preventative gesture, done as a kindness to others.

To wit: Rich was new to Middlebury College and the town, and we had enjoyed exchanging pleasantries during the week. So when he came to the Middlebury basketball game on the weekend, he spied me in the stands and sat down next to me.

“Hey Karl, how’re you doing,” he asked in a friendly manner.

“How the hell do you think I’m doing,” I snapped. “We’re down six points with three minutes to play!”

“S’cuse me,” he mumbled and moved quickly on.

I apologized, later, and he forgave me for my rudeness (I think).

Here’s another example: Just last year, in the final moments of a big game, I had taken the precaution of moving to that safe spot, by myself, in the corner of the gym, high up.

Alas, we lost the game . . . an agonizing loss.

As I was returning to my family and friends, I saw my hoop friend Steve gesturing to me, apparently wanting to have a conversation about the game.

I was in no mood at that point for an objective dissection of the game, and I kept going right by him. “No, no, no, no, no! Not right now!” I spat out, “I don’t want to talk about the game!” and I showed him my back.

Moments later, I saw him coming toward me as I was leaving the gym. He was upset. “You blew me off,” he said. “I’m disappointed, Karl. You’re better than that!” and he turned to leave.

I managed to get out, “No, I’m not. I’m NOT better than that. That’s who I am!”

I went home and apologized by email, and we also made up, over coffee downtown. We’re good now.

I have learned over the years that it is useful to me not to sit too close to the action. I choose now to sit fairly high up in the stands.

If I sit lower than that, I am inclined to assist the referees calling the game, as they are prone to make mistakes, sometimes egregious mistakes, always, it seems, benefitting Middlebury’s opponents.

So I would be there, up front, nearby, to provide instruction and correction. I wanted to make sure they could hear me, so I waited till there was a lull in the action and spoke very clearly in a loud voice.

I no longer sit courtside. Like I said — learned behavior.

In my second year as a young dean, I attended a Middlebury–Amherst basketball game in our gym, with maybe 50 or so other fans, the usual sparse crowd back then.

The score was tied as the time wound down in the first half. Amherst took an errant shot as time expired, 0:00 on the clock, only no buzzer went off ending play. The scoreboard operator at the table had forgotten to switch on the “automatic horn.”

Amherst took another shot, missed, and then hit a tip-in, before the officials realized time had run out and blew their whistles.

I was not alone in loudly protesting this miscarriage; everyone was screaming “Clock! Clock!” as the Lord Jeffs were rebounding their missed shots.

I was alone, however, in marching down from my seat in the stands to the vicinity of the scorers’ table where coaches and officials were huddling. There I figured I could be most helpful.

My contribution to the discussion was to scream, “DON’T COUNT THE HOOP!” and to offer other such protestations, amounting to the same thing. There was no need for discussion, it seemed to me.

As they dithered, I turned my attention to the Amherst coach and insisted that he should acknowledge the hoop shouldn’t count. “C’mon, Coach, you know it was late, don’t take the hoop. Do the right thing! Sportsmanship!”

The Amherst coach, only 10–15 feet away from me, looked right at me. I didn’t back off. I continued, “Yeah, I’m talking to you, Coach. You know it was late!”

The refs counted the hoop and the teams and officials left the court, and I was left standing there with no clothes on, so to speak. I was embarrassed, humiliated would not be an exaggeration. It was a bad performance.

I immediately went home, sat down and wrote a letter of apology by hand to the Amherst coach, and drove to the post office that night.

A couple days later, I got a letter in the mail, the return address was “Athletics, Amherst College, Amherst, MA.” It was from the Amherst coach. Our letters had apparently crossed. Clearly he had asked somebody who that maniac was yelling at him.

He took me to task, asking how a dean could be such a poor model for his students, and so on. It was a difficult letter to read, but he had a point.

I have been better behaved at basketball games ever since then, even close games with Amherst. We lost that game by two points. You can look it up.

I’m pretty good now.

I take these steps to avoid disgrace.

But it can be a struggle.

—————

Karl Lindholm, Ph.D., is emeritus dean of advising and assistant professor of American Studies (retired) at Middlebury College. He can be contacted at [email protected].