The Hofstra-Stony Brook matchup we all want to see won’t be
taking place tonight at the Arena, or any night anywhere in the world at any
point in the next one million years.
Which is too bad. Because placing a pair of podiums at the
Arena, hiring a massive security force to lock the place down and having a
debate (we’ve had those there before, right?) between Stuart Rabinowitz and Jim
Fiore to determine who was to blame for the Cold War between Long Island’s only
Division I athletic programs would have been a far more entertaining—and, one
supposes, embittered—verbal tussle than the ones Barack Obama had with John
McCain and Mitt Romney.
Alas, Fiore is no longer at Stony Brook after an ugly departure a year ago this week. And Rabinowitz is as likely to invite me to his
house to watch the Super Bowl as he is to ever explain himself for anything.
So we can only go on what we know, particularly as Hofstra
fans and alums, and what we know is this: The Cold War did more damage to
Hofstra than Stony Brook.
The descent of the Flying Dutchmen basketball program during
the Cold War coincided with the rise of Stony Brook’s. So the perception was Hofstra
was ducking Stony Brook.
I don’t think that was true: The Dutchmen continued to play
the Seawolves even when there was nothing to be gained by doing so in the early
2000s, when Hofstra was trying to establish itself in the better-regarded CAA
while Stony Brook took Hofstra’s spot in the America East. Stony Brook even
beat Hofstra in consecutive seasons in 2002-03 and 2003-04 (and again in
2007-08), and the world kept spinning.
But still, perceptions can be overwhelming, especially
when—sorry—your school drops football while the local rival is trying to
upgrade all of its sports.
And Stony Brook, to its credit, has been aggressive in
promoting itself as Long Island’s team, and has been successful in convincing
the local media of it.
Of the 18 Stony Brook games Newsday covered last year,
including two conference tournament games in Albany, 14 were covered by staff
writers. Of the 17 Hofstra games Newsday covered, 10 were staffed by stringers.
Perhaps Hofstra would have received more beat-like coverage
if the Dutchmen fared better the previous three seasons. On the other hand,
Newsday hasn’t staffed the CAA Tournament since 2007.
Playing each other once a year in various sports wouldn’t
have undone the damage made by the football decision. But perhaps Newsday would
have known how to get to Hofstra.
The Cold War also made Hofstra look petty and vindictive,
when Hofstra was not that far removed from advancing its athletic program and
benefiting greatly because other schools put aside egos and differences for the
betterment of an entire league.
It has long been believed Hofstra didn’t want Stony Brook to
join the CAA. We finally got some concrete evidence last year thanks to the
William & Mary blog Shades of 48, which employed the Freedom of Information
Act to get some delicious emails detailing the CAA’s expansion plans and Rabinowitz’s opposition to Stony Brook being invited as an all-sports member.
To be fair, there are plenty of people at Hofstra with whom
I am in lockstep on almost everything who are resolute in that Stony Brook
shouldn’t be in the CAA. So there may be more to this than just an alpha male
battle at the highest levels of two schools.
But still: Embracing a rivalry with Stony Brook, as
infuriating as it might have been, would have been a nice acknowledgement of how
far Hofstra athletics have come in the last two decades.
Sure, at the very least, Fiore was loud, didn’t pay proper
reverence to established programs and demanded his burgeoning department be
taken as seriously as everyone else.
You know who else did all of that two decades ago? Joe
Gardi. Who coached—you got it—Jim Fiore.
And despite Gardi pissing off everyone in his way and then
some, Hofstra managed to get into a football conference in 2001, seven years
after the rest of the athletic program was stabilized when the North Atlantic
Conference invited Hofstra to join the league in April 1994.
To get into the NAC, Hofstra—an independent left out in the
cold when the East Coast Conference basically ceased to exist following the
1991-92 season—had to not only win over the established membership of a
long-running conference but also Delaware and Drexel, who exited the ECC before
irrelevance set in.
I can’t imagine any of them were all that enamored with the
impact Hofstra would have on their basketball aspirations, yet enough of them
saw the benefits of enhancing a regional-based league to add the Dutch.
How much better would the Long Island sports scene be if
Hofstra and Stony Brook could find a way to co-exist in the same league, or at
the very least continue to play each other annually?
Hofstra fans and observers older than me (yes, they exist)
swear there was never anything better than the Division III football days, when
Hofstra Stadium would be packed for games against nearby schools.
Of the 36 football games to draw more than 6,000 fans to
Hofstra/Shuart Stadium, 10 were against the Island-based C.W. Post or Merchant
Marine Academy. In addition, there were four other Division III-era games
against Iona, Wagner and Post drew at least 5,600.
A common refrain/lament, even when Hofstra was building a
I-AA powerhouse in the mid-90s, was that no national power coming to Hempstead
would interest Long Island nearly as much as the Dutchmen hosting a school from
just down the road. The numbers seemed to support such a theory: Even while
playing a schedule filled with big-time I-AA schools, Hofstra drew crowds of
6,000 or more just 19 times following the stadium’s expansion prior to the 1996
season.
We don’t know if the Arena would see a similar surge in
attendance over the long haul. But we know how much fun it has been sparring
with Stony Brook fans online, and how tonight’s game just feels different than
games against other semi-local rivals.
We know the stakes, and how good it will feel if (sorry,
when) we win, and can imagine the forced smile and congratulatory message we’d
utter through gritted teeth if Stony Brook channeled the 1980 U.S. hockey team
and won.
Either way, it’s about time we felt this way. Regardless of
who or why we had to wait so long and of who wins tonight, let’s do this again
soon, shall we?
Email Jerry at defiantlydutch@yahoo.com
or follow Defiantly Dutch at http://twitter.com/defiantlydutch.
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