It all began with Dan Howbert's vision to get some members of the Class of 1964 together to attend the Atlantic 10 (A-10) Conference Basketball Tournament in Atlantic City, New Jersey during March 12-14, 2010. Danny is a graduate of Xavier University and Jim Gehring has been a Dayton season ticket holder for over 25 years.
After several calls to classmates around the country, the group was narrowed down to four: Danny Howbert from Texas, Jim Gehring from Ohio, Jim Frankart from Pennsylvania, and Terry Mitchell from New York State. We reserved two rooms at a Howard Johnson's, located about a half mile from the tournament site at Boardwalk Hall. On Thursday, March 11, Jim Gehring drove from Dayton, OH and met Jim Frankart in the Harrisburg, PA area, and Terry Mitchell drove from the Syracuse, NY area and met Dan Howbert at the Philadelphia airport before we all met in Atlantic City later that afternoon.
The A-10 Conference consisted of several strong teams this season. At various times four teams: Dayton, Richmond, Temple, and Xavier, were ranked in the top 25 of the college basketball polls. However, Dayton wasn't playing well the last few games prior to the conference tournament. Although they were the pre-season favorite to win the Atlantic 10 Conference during the regular season, they were now considered a “bubble team” by the NCAA selection committee going into the tournament and needed to win the A-10 tournament outright or make a strong showing to boost its NCAA tournament hopes. The first game we saw pitted Dayton against Xavier, which for us was the premier game of the tournament because it matched Dan's and Jim Gehring's teams against each other. It appeared to an unbiased observer that there were more Dayton fans present than Xavier fans as the game began. Dan sat quietly as Dayton led for most of the game, and at one point even suggested that we leave early as Dayton seemed to be putting the game out of reach. Then, as the game approached its final minutes Xavier made a run and “snatched victory from the jaws of defeat” as they say, coming back from a 15-point deficit to win 78-73. Unfortunately for Jim Gehring and the many Dayton fans in attendance, Dayton's hope for an NCAA tournament bid was eliminated with the loss and they were relegated to an NIT berth. However, during the NIT Dayton played like they were on a mission and defeated North Carolina for the NIT Championship. At the A-10 Tournament Xavier eventually lost to Richmond in an overtime thriller in the semi-final of the A-10 tournament. Temple won the tournament for the third year in a row and was joined by Xavier and Richmond with bids to the NCAA tournament.
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Aside from some great basketball and the fierce competition between long-time rivals Dayton and Xavier, we enjoyed getting together, reminiscing about our high school days, remembering our other classmates, teachers, and catching up with each others' lives since we left high school. Some of us hadn't seen each other since high school or for many years since then. Our hotel was conveniently located across the street from a Catholic church so we attended Mass together Sunday morning before heading to the championship game. We enjoyed breakfasts and dinners together during the weekend, sampling different restaurants for dinners but found that the restaurant attached to the hotel served a great breakfast at reasonable prices.
We discovered the Atlantic City Jitney as a convenient and inexpensive way to get from the hotel to the tournament site and back. The Jitney was a small bus that seated about 11 passengers with no standing allowed. We soon found out why. The Jitney drivers would speed up and down the streets hitting every pothole and bump along the way. It was such a wild ride that we commented they should issue helmets to their passengers.
More important than the basketball games, during the weekend we created some great memories. To be clear, they were all legal memories. After all, what kind of trouble can four guys get into at 64 years of age? (Actually, Jim Gehring and Terry Mitchell are still 63 for a few months yet). At one restaurant our waitress asked why we were in Atlantic City. We told her we were there for the A-10 basketball tournament. She asked about our wives (trying to hit on us?) and we mentioned something about convincing them to let us go alone, that they trusted us to stay out of trouble. In our most provocative encounter, a young African American woman who was with a bridal party approached us in a restaurant and said that as part of a dare, she had to ask us if we slept naked. We played along and answered yes without giving it a thought. She then asked to have her picture taken with us, so with her arm around Jim Gehring the picture was taken. Jim graciously offered to buy the bride-to-be a drink, and upon leaving we wished her a long and happy marriage. We joked that we might find ourselves on Face Book.
During the weekend we laid the foundation for an annual get-together for the A-10 basketball tournament and possibly other events in which we hope other classmates can join us when possible. The attached pictures are included to let our classmates know what we look like. As you can see none of us have changed much. We dubbed the picture in front of the horses as “The Four Horsemen”, to commemorate the reunion of… well, four old horses. We considered having our picture taken while on the horses but were afraid we might spend the night in jail.
Terry Mitchell
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Received April 16, 2009
