This is Part 5 of the story of one of Sussex County’s most standout of athletes. Michael Ferrara was exceptional in high school and college and made it to the NBA - considered the pinnacle of achievement.
Here is Mike’s story, as told by himself, Part 5 ...
***
The first spring coming back from Niagara, I knew I had my work cut out for me, but I also was aware I had another year just added to my college career because of the red shirt/sit out transfer year.
I needed every bit of that extra year to get bigger, stronger, faster, better. The initial training group from ’72 (Platukis, Baldwin, Jim Jim, Stick, Paiva, Minor, Earl, others) expanded in numbers to about 20 to 30 guys by now and would continue to grow for the next four years.
Plus, everyone playing now was 18 to 30+ years old, not mostly 14, 15 or 16 like it used to be. So everyone was a little bigger, faster, stronger, better besides.
Plus, this training group had a lot of committed basketball players in it, three or four college players, and for the most part everyone was improving their skills also.
We had different groups of guys now coming in from down below plus the Vernon Pope John guys now joined us too (Mike Sweeny, Mike Rourke, Don Henry, Jerry Doyle) - all good players very competitive.
We had our share of characters also, with Harry the Hat, Chris the Cat, Gene Gene the Hacking Machine, the Snake, football players Chris and Jeff Parrott, and others. I mention these guys too because even though basketball wasn’t their sport, these guys were good athletes who played hard too and didn’t hurt the quality of play.
This very competitive training group was key to my development, and we were running four to five nights a week somewhere in Sussex County. I was playing two to three times a day seven days a week somewhere with someone usually from this group.
This summer, I also met and picked up another real key training partner in Dave Conroy from Vernon/Assumption College. He and I would work together the next four years on mostly drills: one-on-one stuff that would be instrumental in helping me perfect a few offensive tools that were frankly unguardable.
So now that I have given you the back story of what was going on intensely behind the scenes for the next/past four years, how did I actually do with this crazy revenge thing I initially set out to do? We’ll see. We’ll go quickly year by year.
First year: Colgate 77-78. I am ineligible. I can’t play but I can practice. I also had classes/credits transfer over from Niagara so, thank God, I had a lighter school load to begin with than everyone else. I wasn’t prepared for the academics that I didn’t care too much about the spring before.
Here is my first week shock at Colgate. Funny story: I am at the Dean of Economics’ office with Professor Farnsworth, who looked like Uncle Sam and about as old. I went to Catholic school in New York City with the nuns with long habits with the paddles in the old days. So I came out of eighth grade schooled well.
At Franklin High School, I did well in school but never had to open a book because I learned everything they were teaching at public high school for the most part in Catholic grammar school. Then at Niagara, I never had to open a book again because of basketball. My books in storage to this day from Niagara are still brand new.
So I got to Colgate, and I hadn’t done any real schoolwork in five years. As Mr. Farnsworth is talking to me, I interrupted him three times saying the same exact thing. I remember this meeting perfectly. I said to him, “Mr. Farnsworth, I am here to play basketball.”
I said this three different times over five to 10 minutes. The third time I said it to him, he moved his bifocals up, looked at me and said, “Son, I don’t care what you’re here to play, you’re going to go to school.”
I knew the way he said that to me, that second, I was in big trouble academically. I didn’t know what a syllabus was, what plagiarism was or really meant. I was totally unprepared. I spent the first year at Colgate playing basketball every day from 3 to 5:30 and 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., then living in the library every night, including weekends starting at 9 p.m. until closing (1 to 2 a.m.), re-educating myself.
It was a difficult first year readjusting to this, but I had to in order to play. I am so glad I wasn’t playing that first year I was there. If I didn’t get this studying stuff down, I would have been in trouble again. They would have thrown me out of Colgate in two seconds up there. I wasn’t dealing with the priests at Niagara any longer.
First Season (I can play) 78-79. I will just talk about the three targets (Niagara, LSU and Vermont). We only played LSU and Niagara this year. LSU down at LSU was in the top 10 to 20 that year. Packed house, we lost by 30 and I had 23. I belonged on the court with those guys that night, which I needed to experience, but I was far from outstanding.
Now Niagara up at Niagara was like the Ocean Gate implosion. Packed house, my friends from freshman year are all there and we lost by 50, I maybe had 10 to 14 points. Do you hear in the background right now Howard Cosell screaming, “Down Goes Frazier!” That’s what happened here. They were glad I left Niagara after that game, and I embarrassed my Niagara boys big time.
If I was ever going to quit this quest for revenge, this was the game that could have broken me. It came close. Yikes and embarrassing!
Second Season, 79-80. This year we only played Niagara and Vermont. We lost to Niagara by about 8 to 10 at our place. Once again, I failed at payback. I had about 22 points this time but at best maybe I was one of the better players on the court that night, but I definitely was not the best that night, we lost. Mission not accomplished again.
We played Vermont also that year and I can’t recall what happened in that game. If I can’t recall it, it obviously was not a great success/failure either way. I typically played well against Vermont, and they typically had a good team, but this performance wasn’t the payback, or I would remember it. Failed again for the second year in a row. Not as bad as I did the first year.
I had two very significant things happen to my career this second college season. First, this junior season I did show some streaks of brilliance on the court, but I was erratic at best. Case in point. We had a new young sports information director (SID) at Colgate from St. Bonaventure, Jim Englehart. He was a grad assistant SID who covered the basketball team.
St Boni’s the year before won the NIT, Sanders had 40 in the finals, and they were ranked 15th to 20th in the country. This night, I had just scored 47 at Cornell and we won. We were coming back on the bus. Feeling a little cocky, I went up to the front of the bus, sat next to Jim, who was/is my buddy, and said, Jim what do you think, can I play for last year’s team at St. Boni’s or what?
He looked at me, serious as a heart attack, and laughed at me. He said, “No way.” Remember, he’s my buddy, he likes my game (I am the best one on the team) but he shot me out of the sky like a wounded duck. I just scored 47. I was actually shell-shocked.
I said, “Why not?” He laughed again. He took his hand and right in front of himself moved his hand from left to right/side to side. He then said those were my Boni guys, smooth and steady, they showed up every night to play and play well. Then he took his hand, went up and down, and said, “You’re like a yo-yo. You’re up and down; you can’t be counted on. So no, you wouldn’t be starting on last year’s Saint Boni’s team.”
Talk about a wake-up call. That is when I started studying the 1980 Russian Olympic team and got heavily into visualization as part of my personal training regimen. That bus ride home changed the trajectory of my college career. That one thing Jim Englehart did with me was as significant as any great basketball lesson I learned at FHS. Talk about a very needed wake-up call.
The second significant thing that happened, I met Bill Dooley from the University of Richmond. 6’7”, athletic, fundamentally sound and a fantastic D-I forward. We become very tight very quickly and then I am living with him and his family in Rumson half the time, training with him and playing with his guys down at the Shore, who are just like my guys in Sussex County. They are all basketball crazy too and really very good college players.
These two things plus the last three years of developing in the games and all the training are all finally coming together, setting up the last summer and last season. So far, I haven’t accomplished what I set out to do, but I have one more shot at all three targets this coming year and these games are coming up quickly. We open up with LSU in Alaska at the Great Alaska Shootout November 1980 next season. Stay tuned; now it gets interesting.
Contact Bill Truran, Sussex County historian, at billt1425@gmail.com