Tag: Siena

Siena Saints men’s basketball

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference

SienaAs a perk of having a subscription to Albany’s remaining newspaper, I can enter a number of contests pretty much automatically. So I play. A couple months back, I scored a pair of tickets to a movie theater.

Then in November, I received a pair of season tickets to Siena College men’s basketball games. Siena is in suburban Loudonville. That’s pronounced LOUD-in-ville, not LEW-den-ville, or London-ville.

Siena plays in Division I. It’s in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, a league that generally gets only one team to play at the end of the season NCAA March Madness. Siena’s gotten to that tournament six times over the years and has won a total of four games.

But it’s one of OUR teams, along with my alma mater, UAlbany. I missed the first home game. I decided I should go to the second game on Tuesday, November 12 because there wouldn’t be another home game until December 21.

Not Charles

I decided to invite the only person I know who definitely knows something about basketball. Chuck Miller is a fellow blogger, but more importantly, an announcer for the Albany Patroons, defending champions that play in the oddly-named The Basketball League.

We met at the pizza place nearby. The owner ended up offering a free slice to a guy who asked almost everyone in the joint for money. The fellow claimed to be a homeless veteran; perhaps, perhaps not.

The last time I was in the Times Union Center was when I saw a football game of the now-defunct Albany Firebirds a couple of years back. Our seats at the basketball game, if it were a football stadium, would be in the end zone. In other words, we were almost behind one of the baskets. Yet we could still see pretty well.

The two teams, Siena and St. Bonaventure University, were playing for the Brother Ed Coughlin Franciscan Cup. Coughlin was Siena’s president before he died in July 2019. He had earned his bachelor’s degree at St. Bonaventure.

Siena started the game off really cold, even missing free throws. The Bonnies made a few threes and had a six-point lead after four minutes. But the Saints turned things around, as their opponents got sloppy. Siena, up three at the half, built an insurmountable lead in the latter stages, and won 78-65.

There was a young woman in front of us, a Siena alum, who knew far more about the team and their skill sets than we did.

What was that?

The school held a 50/50 raffle to help one of their baseball or softball teams. Chuck spent $10 on his tickets and wanted to know if I wanted to go in on it with him. I decided to buy my own $5 worth. With 15 minutes left, the scoreboard flashed the winning number. The announcement was that I should go to the VCfghfl jkgughjn. WHAT?

I wandered around the perimeter of the arena until I found a young woman and her daughter, who was under five. She verified my ticket and handed me $263. Ah, Christmas is saved!

I was reminded that, generally, live sport is more interesting than watching on television. The game, I later learned, was broadcast on ESPN+, one of those several tiers of the sports network.

Would you like to go?

These are the remaining home games on the schedule.

December
21 (SAT) 6 PM VS BUCKNELL
23 (MON) 6 PM VS CANISIUS
29 (SUN) 2 PM VS HOLY CROSS

January
3 (FRI) 7 PM VS MONMOUTH
9 (THU) 7 PM VS SAINT PETER’S
24 (FRI) 7 PM VS MARIST
26 (SUN) 2 PM VS QUINNIPIAC

February
7 (FRI) 7 PM VS FAIRFIELD
14 (FRI) 7 PM VS RIDER
16 (SUN) 2 PM VS MANHATTAN/DOUBLEHEADER WITH SIENA WOMEN (noon)
19 (WED) 7 PM VS IONA

March
4 (WED) 7 PM VS NIAGARA

It’s highly unlikely that I’ll go to all of them. Thursday is choir night, e.g. And I don’t really want to go alone. So if you’re local and want one or two tickets, IM me on Facebook.

Finding your own activism

I was also fascinated by the media guru who posted the item, who admitted that she’s “someone who has never been a protester.”

siena.billboardThis is one of those stories that wasn’t particularly interesting to me UNTIL other people piped up.

Some students at Siena College, in a suburb north of Albany, protested about a billboard they found offense. I was unaware of the controversy until the local media guru posted the response from one of the local radio deejays, a guy named Chuck, with whom I was unfamiliar, on her Facebook feed:

I believe apathy is a dangerous thing and it’s particularly depressing when I see it so frequently exhibited by young people. For that reason, I actually admire the fact you are willing to take action against something you deem offensive and misguided.
With that said, here is my unsolicited advice. Devote your energies to a cause that might actually make a difference in someone’s life.

THAT response rubbed me the wrong way.

Among the Facebook discussion that ensued: “While it certainly wouldn’t be reason enough for me to protest, I’m certainly not going to condemn someone else for taking a stand on something! we need more social engagement in this country and young people have to start somewhere!”

That more or less was my position. Yet, as I reread Chuck’s blather, I got more and more irritated. Maybe it was because I was feeling unwell.

I wrote, “Chuck’s response is a classic diversion stance of ‘Aren’t there more pressing issues?’ Of course, there are, but this one engaged these people in this moment, something that they might change in the moment.”

Chuck had written further in his response:

“You really want to help women? There’s a strip club a couple miles up the road. Maybe some of those women could use your help. Their lives truly ARE dependent on men.”

I noted, “Telling them about a strip club that they might not have even known about, and suggesting they ignore what’s right before their eyes, is patronizing and insulting. Good for the protesters.”

Ultimately, I thought there was less sexism in the ad than in the snarky response by the deejay.

Chuck wrote, “Somehow you have whipped yourselves into a frenzy…a storm of wild indignation and self-righteousness…fooling yourself into believing you are doing something noble and important. I hate to break it to you but….you’re not.”

The subtext to me of his comments was clear: they were silly, overly sensitive “girls” who didn’t know about “real life” or “marketing.” Someone wrote of the DJ: “You are perpetuating the many stereotypes assigned to women over the years who get passionate about unpopular ideas” which sounds about right.

I was also fascinated by the media guru who posted the item, who admitted that she’s “someone who has never been a protester.” As someone who has protested a lot of things over the years, I’m interested to see how someone, albeit half my age, could not moved by some cause, some issue. It’s just foreign to me.

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