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Outside the Limelight is the first book to look inside Ivy League basketball and at the boundless enthusiasm that defines it.
With painstaking reportage, Kathy Orton weaves together the stories of coaches and players as they move from fall practice through an entire season and ahead to the NCAA tournament.
Vividly capturing the internal fervor of the personalities who champion their game—all the triumphs and disappointments of an Ivy hoop season.
Kathy Orton has covered college basketball for the Washington Post for more than a decade. She was also the newspaper's beat writer on the NFL's Baltimore Ravens for two seasons, including their Super Bowl season in 2000.
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The Ivy League is a place where basketball is neither a pastime nor a profession. Instead, it is a true passion among players, coaches, and committed sports enthusiasts who share in its every success and setback. Outside the Limelight is the first book to look inside Ivy League basketball and at the boundless enthusiasm that defines it.
With painstaking reportage, Kathy Orton vividly captures the internal fervor of the personalities who champion their game—all the triumphs and disappointments of an Ivy hoop season. Scholarships for student athletes? None, and this is the only Division I conference that does not offer them. The TV spotlight? It barely shines, despite the passion, talent, and commitment of the players. Megadollar contracts from the NBA? Rarely does a player receive an offer. These age-old institutions are better known for turning out presidents, not point guards, and CEOs and captains of industry, not centers on the court.
Orton weaves together the stories of coaches and players as they move from fall practice through an entire season and ahead to the NCAA tournament. From Harvard to Penn, Princeton to Cornell and beyond, players—perhaps more accustomed to pomp and circumstance—face leaky gyms, endure long bus rides, rigorous courseloads, and unbearable exam schedules. Why? Just to prove they can hang with the big boys despite juggling multiple non-athletic responsibilities? Maybe. But more importantly, for the sincere love of the game.
Outside the Limelight provides frontcourt vision for college basketball fans everywhere to achieve an appreciation of this captivating conference and for diehardenthusiasts to gain greater insight into what brings Ivy League basketball to center circle.
Praise for Outside the Limelight
"... Kathy Orton, provides a welcome look at a frequently underappreciated side of college hoops. Orton's talents shine most brightly in her ability to make us care deeply about these players both on and off the court. She reminds us that, contrary to public perception, 'student athlete' isn't a contradiction in terms. ..." The Washington Post, 1/20/10
"... Orton, a Washington Post sports writer, makes a game effort of illuminating the inside game of a sport that has been remarkably monotonous in its outcome. ..." Bloomberg News
"... Not many people are aware of the drama of Ivy League basketball. Outside the Limelight is a wonderful tribute to one of the most undervalued conferences in college basketball. I know. I've got the tuition bills. ..." Tony Kornheiser, Washington Post and ESPN
"... Journalist Orton followed Ivy League men's basketball during the 2005-06 season, as Penn and Princeton battled for the top spot and Harvard, Cornell, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, and Columbia struggled to achieve winning records. This charming book recalls a time when colleges played basketball solely for the love of the sport. Highly recommended. ..." Choice, March 2010
Book Excerpt:
"... In just a moment, a teammate goes down, a team comes together
The game takes on a new perspective after Cornell's Gant is injured..." by Kathy Orton
"... Cornell was stunned by the loss to Columbia. The Big Red couldn't understand how it let this game slip away. The team had suffered yet another ruinous collapse in the waning moments of a game. Cornell Coach Steve Donahue termed it "the toughest loss of his career at Cornell." He was so troubled by the defeat that he didn't sleep that Saturday night. It would have been a short night for him anyway. He had to leave his house at 3 a.m. to catch a 6 a.m. flight to the West Coast for a recruiting trip. He took the red-eye back Monday night, arriving around noon on Tuesday.
The time away had given him a chance to gain some perspective on the situation. The season wasn't turning out as he or anyone else had hoped. Nonetheless, all was not lost. He felt the need to remind the players that they still could accomplish great things. So before practice that afternoon, he brought the team together.
"You get judged," Donahue told the players. "You judge guys on wins and losses, and when we're at a place like Cornell, it's just a shame that it has to be that way. I know that you guys are high-achieving people who care for each other. I almost wish we had headaches, discipline problems, so that I can get angry at you. But you're great guys. When I was your age I didn't accomplish anywhere near what you have accomplished. You got into this school. You're a Division I athlete. You're achieving great things already. It's hard sometimes to keep it in perspective. These losses are an aspect of life that has nothing to do with how successful you guys are."
Practice that day was fierce. The players were throwing themselves into their work, going all out on defense and playing aggressively on offense. About an hour into the session, during a rebounding drill, there was a scramble for a loose ball underneath the basket. Ryan Rourke and Khaliq Gant dove for it with Brian Kreefer coming in late. The three collided hard. Graham Dow, who was watching from the sideline, was worried about Rourke and Kreefer because it appeared their heads had hit the floor hard.
"I was immediately looking at them because they were woozy and stuff," Dow said. "They're getting up, walking around slowly, and then you look back and see Khaliq still on the floor. Just the way he was lying, you could just sense it was different from a normal injury."
Gant wasn't moving. The sophomore guard from Norcross, Georgia, had no sensation in his arms or legs.
"When I dove for the ball, I heard a loud scream, but I didn't realize initially that was me," Gant said. "I just remember laying there, my body feeling a little bit weird. I was about to get up and I realized I couldn't get up at all."
He was paralyzed. Fortunately, trainer Marc Chamberlain was only steps away and recognized the seriousness of the injury immediately. A call was made to 911. As the players and coaches stood watching in uneasy silence, Chamberlain kept telling Gant to relax and not panic.
"I guess by nature I'm more of a calm person," Gant said. "I was kind of trying to take it in stride. I knew it was pretty serious from the get-go, but I wasn't going to freak out. I knew those kinds of injuries you want to stay relaxed and not add the adrenaline to the injury. . . . I wasn't really thinking about, 'Oh, I can't move.' "
The paramedics arrived. They put a neck brace on Gant and began administering steroids to reduce the swelling. A helicopter landed on the field behind the gym to airlift him to Arnot Ogden Medical Center in Elmira, New York, the closest hospital equipped to handle this type of traumatic injury.
At the hospital with the help of a nurse, Gant spoke to his mom. "Khaliq said to me in his very calm voice, 'Mom, I'm going to be okay,' " Dana Gant said. "Something about the way Khaliq said it, it hit me in a way. It was a knowing that Khaliq felt and knew within the deepest part of his being that he was going to be okay, and I felt that."
Donahue was disconsolate. He couldn't understand how this could happen to one of his players. It had been such a routine play, the kind that happens countless times during practices and games. Yet this one play had taken a vibrant young man and rendered him helpless. One minute Gant, all 6 feet 3, 175 pounds of him, was racing up and down the court with abandon, the next he was lying eerily still in a hospital bed, unable to even wiggle his toes. Donahue, who had spent a lifetime devoted to basketball, now wanted nothing to do with the sport. "I didn't ever want to be in a gym again," Donahue said. "I never wanted to see a young kid play basketball."
Gant's parents, Dana and Dean Gant, arrived from Georgia on Thursday. Had it not been for their fortitude, Donahue might not have been able to cope with this tragedy. They didn't blame anyone or feel sorry for their son's predicament. They wasted no time on pity. Instead, they focused on what it was going to take for their son to recover. "They're unbelievable people," Donahue said. "That's when it hit me. My job is to coach. We have responsibilities as players, coaches."
On Friday, Gant underwent a seven-hour operation. The doctors took a bone graft from his hip and used it to fuse the C4 and C5 vertebrae, then inserted titanium screws and plates for stability. Before leaving for their game at Columbia, several players went to the hospital to wish him good luck. Gant, in turn, wished them luck against the Lions and told them to play hard.
This game mattered more to the Big Red players than any game they had ever played. They wanted to win more than they ever had. Yet, given all they had been through, it would not have been surprising if they lost. They had spent more time worrying about their teammate than preparing for the game. "It's been the hardest week of my life in a lot of ways," Donahue said.
Donahue tends to be an emotional guy. On the sidelines, he bounces up and down, waves his arms, gets in a defensive stance, whistles, and has more facial expressions than a stand-up comic. He wants his players to feed off his energy. But on this day, he was doing all he could to keep his emotions in check. He didn't want to lose it. He didn't want his players to lose it. Easier said than done. Even as the team tried to focus on basketball, reminders of Gant were everywhere. Each player wore a patch with the number 21 -- Gant's number -- on the upper left part of his uniform, close to his heart. Donahue wore a bright red tie with the number 21 embroidered on it.
"Coach told us that the outcome of the game, win or lose, didn't matter to him as long as we went out and gave everything we could on the court for Khaliq," Collins said. "If we played as hard as we could, he told us good things would happen. If we did that, then it didn't matter to him if we won or lost."
Fueled by adrenaline and emotion, Cornell surged to an 8-0 lead. Columbia wisely maintained its poise, weathering the onrush before slowly chipping away at the lead. The Lions went into halftime ahead, 37-34. In the second half, Cornell's guards took over. Graham Dow played his best game of the season, scoring a career-best nineteen points. Adam Gore broke out of his midseason slump, finishing with a career-high 28 points. Cornell went on to win, 81-59.
As the final seconds on the clock wound down, it became impossible for the players and coaches to stifle their feelings any longer. They embraced each other and sobbed on one another's shoulders. They wiped away their tears long enough to shake hands with the Columbia players before heading to the locker room to shed some more. This game had been more trying than they expected. They were exhausted, but relieved to have won.
"In all honesty, I didn't care what the score was going to be today because that's not what this is about," Donahue said. "It's not what Khaliq has to face. It's about trying your best, no matter what. I thought we did that to the nth degree when things could have easily collapsed. . . . I just can't be more proud of a group of guys that I am now."
On the way back to Ithaca from the game, Cornell's bus made a detour. The team went to visit Gant in the hospital. The surgery had gone well. After days of pessimistic prognoses, the doctors were beginning to talk optimistically about Gant's recovery. Everyone was in good spirits, especially Gant. He joked with his teammates, teasing Dow about his turnaround jumper. He clearly shared the team's elation over the win.
No one knew for certain what lay ahead for Gant. Five days after his operation, he was flown by a medical plane to Georgia and taken to Shepherd Center, a spinal-cord-injury hospital in Atlanta, to begin his rehabilitation closer to home. It was still too early to know how much movement, if any, Gant would regain. He would have to endure months of arduous physical therapy. Not wanting him to feel cut off from the team during his time away, a videoconferencing system was set up in Donahue's office. It allowed players and coaches to see and speak with Gant daily. Several players were making plans to visit him during spring break. As he reflected on what the team had been through the past week, Dow realized it was times like this that he was glad he chose to attend Cornell.
"That's the biggest thing with Khaliq and what happened, was how as a team, everybody was there for him," Dow said. "He is like a brother. We wanted to help him as much as we could, help each other try to get through it." ..."
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About Outside the Limelight
"... I’ve just finished reading Kathy Orton’s book, “Outside the Limelight: Basketball in the Ivy League”. It’s more than a bit interesting to see the psychology of our opponents’ develop along the season and in particular to see the inside look at Harvard and Cornell. This is the type of thing that you just don’t think about when you’re stuck in your own world and focused only on one thing: winning the Ivy League title for Princeton. This part of the book is merely interesting for me and will be nice to read for those not familiar with Ivy League basketball to get a window into what actually happens.
On the more salient topic of what was going on at Princeton however, while it’s certainly flattering to read an outsider’s perspective of a season that was tumultuous, at best, to live through, the book loses a good amount of the emotion of what the relationship of Joe Scott and his players actually was and how it developed into the psychology of who we/I are/am.
First of all, thinking back to that year, my most vivid memories are of the utter and complete emotional and psychological exhaustion. Going through practice on a daily basis under a coach who spoke quite positively to the media but quite negatively to us makes your head spin. Did he have faith in the fact that we were getting better? Did he resent us for not being able to follow all of his directions to the T? Why did we care so much about what this man thought? All the quotes that Orton uses for Joe Scott, it seems like he had confidence in us and felt that we were going through the process of a.) shedding the people who weren’t totally bought in, and b.) building a foundational culture among those who would follow him to hell and back (my business school mindset immediately thinks of Jack Welch in the 5 years after you took over GE).
Despite that, I can’t help but think of some of the things that he said to us or around us and wonder whether that’s the way to build something special: “You guys don’t f*cking care.” ... ”You guys have no f*cking guts” were certainly the main themes. I’ll never forget the practice where I was running down the floor and I heard him turn to his assistant and merely say “Howie, I need all new f*cking guys.” Is this the right way to treat people and get results? Granted, it’s a unique situation where his job is to develop men out of 18-22 year old kids (really, very much kids) using only an emotionally, charged, physical game, but I wonder.
Beyond the (mis)management of how he treated us, I think the book loses the genius of Joe Scott. The fact is, much of what he said was right. I could talk until the cows come home about how uncomfortable that time was and how I would never want to live through it again. However, at the same time, the philosophy on life that he imparted through his words can and will stick with anyone who was around the program.
So what effect does it have on players/employees to have the right message, to sell the right vision, but treat them in a way that makes them feel a.) unappreciated and b.) beaten down?
I believe that the dissonance of hearing his (often very powerful) philosophy on life while living through very difficult times where it doesn’t seem to be working and you feel attacked by him, the media, and innumerable others (after all, results are very public in college basketball), leads to some very interesting psychology in us as players. After all, it was during this period that we began our development into men.
The toughness that the Harvard guys discuss in the book is the same as the toughness that we actually built individually by living through an almost turnaround. The discipline that we had to develop is the same that people purport to have but lose in the tough times. The self-confidence that we developed is something that will always leave us with complete and utter faith in what we’ve built. No one can take those teachings away.
But I also believe that the way that we were treated adds an interesting edge to how those qualities display themselves in our/my own lives/life. On toughness, I hold myself to a incredibly high standard, but it can be uncomfortable to do the same to others for fear of treating people who Coach treated us. On discipline, there’s an cynicism because though we followed his definition (“Discipline is doing what you’re supposed to be doing when someone is trying like hell to stop you”), the results didn’t follow. And on self-confidence, there’s an understanding that I do have something special that I’ve built within myself that can’t be taken away ever, but it sits side-by-side with the insecurity of knowing that I’m always judged and never good enough by some standards.
So what did Joe Scott or any manager like him build among his players/employees? He gave us both good and bad, and the only way to see how they bore themselves out is to continue to live our lives. ..." Luke Owings, from Inactionable
Table of Contents
Foreword Preface
1 Origins of a League
Part I Great Expectations
2 A Mom-and-Pop Store
3 Great Scott
4 Multicultural Quakers
5 Getting Under Way
6 Roll Crimson Pride
7 Backdoor Cuts
8 A Tradition Tarnished
9 Bright Lights, Big Stages
Part II The Heart of the Season
10 Harvardization
11 Conference Calls
12 We Interrupt This Season . . .
13 The Road Is the Thing
14 Everyone Onto the Court
15 Brothers in Arms
16 A Rivalry Like No Other
17 Topsy-Turvy Weekend
18 Dreams Deferred
19 And the Winner Is . . .
Part III Tournament Hoopiness
20 The Wait of Expectations Epilogue
About the Author
Kathy Orton has covered college basketball for the Washington Post for more than a decade. She was also the newspaper’s beat writer on the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens for two seasons, including their Super Bowl season in 2000.
• Author: Kathy Orton with Forewords by John Feinstein • Binding: Hardcover • Number of Pages: 240 pages • Publisher: Rutgers University Press • Publishing Date: September 11, 2009 • Language: English
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