{"id":1578,"date":"2017-11-15T14:50:11","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T19:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=1578"},"modified":"2023-08-04T09:30:12","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T13:30:12","slug":"in-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/in-the-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time in 20 years, and only the third time in program history<a class=\"tooltip\" title=\"In the program\u2019s two previous Madison Square Garden appearances, the Hawks beat Marist, 61-53, on Feb. 5, 1991, and lost to Mount Saint Mary\u2019s, 53-59, on Jan. 29, 1997.\" href=\"#notes\">[1]<\/a>, the men\u2019s basketball team returns to Madison Square Garden. As Monmouth gears up for its Dec. 9 showdown with the Kentucky Wildcats in New York City, we asked some Hawks who\u2019ve been there what it\u2019s like to play in \u201cthe world\u2019s greatest arena.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Will Lewis \u201992 \u00bb Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n<aside>\n<header>How to watch<\/header>\n<p>Tickets for the Hawks\u2019 Dec. 9 game against Kentucky are available at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketmaster.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ticketmaster.com<\/a>. The game will be televised on ESPNU.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The smell of the place still sticks out in my mind. The Garden hosted a lot of circuses back then, so maybe one had just been in town, but the place smelled like\u2014the zoo. I wasn\u2019t the only one who noticed it, either.<\/p>\n<p>I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I\u2019m a huge Knicks fan, so it was exciting to play there. We played in some big places around the country, but the Garden is unique. It\u2019s definitely the greatest arena on Earth\u2014there have been so many great sporting events, and concerts and shows there. We didn\u2019t take it for granted where we were playing. I\u2019m a middle school counselor in the Bronx public school system these days, and I still tell my kids about when I played there. They get a kick out of that.<\/p>\n<p>It makes me proud as an alumnus to see how far this program has come. I\u2019ll be there in December cheering as loud as I can. And the fact that we\u2019re going against an opponent like Kentucky? It doesn\u2019t get any better than that.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dave Calloway \u201991, \u201995M<\/strong><br \/>\n<em> Calloway was a guard on the 1990\u201391 team and an assistant coach for the 1996\u201397 team.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>There were maybe a couple thousand people in the stands for our games at the Garden. And for me, the atmosphere and the people always mattered more than the building. We had some great games in Boylan, and those memories come back to me before the games at the Garden. When we played at Duke, and the Cameron Crazies were going nuts\u2014that was a great atmosphere. It\u2019s the excitement that the students and the fans bring that make a place stand out. That\u2019s what this year\u2019s team will experience in December. The Garden will be packed for the Monmouth-Kentucky game. And I think that experience is going to pretty special for the players.<\/p>\n<p>But the mystique of the Garden? That\u2019s definitely there. I don\u2019t know if I noticed it at the time, but playing there was one of the great things that happened to me at Monmouth.<\/p>\n<p>If you really want to talk about how far the program has come, it\u2019s who they\u2019re playing more than where. Even if they lose to Kentucky, people will be talking about the game for awhile. They already are. And if they beat Kentucky? You\u2019re talking a whole new level of visibility.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jeff Franklin \u201997 \u00bb Guard<\/strong><br \/>\nAt practice one day the coaches told us we\u2019d be playing there. I almost fainted. I had grown up in Brooklyn, when public schools played the city championship at the Garden. But I went to Taber Academy in Massachusetts and missed out on that. Getting to play in the Garden was a dream come true.<\/p>\n<p>The game experience didn\u2019t meet expectations, unfortunately. We were the better team but came out flat. That was a home game for us, and we normally lived off the excitement of our crowd. The place felt empty that day.<\/p>\n<p>But the experience of seeing the Garden\u2014seeing the posters of former Knicks, of being in the locker room and on the floor\u2014that was mind blowing. I was in awe when I walked on that court. I sat on the Knicks bench and looked around the place, trying to think what it must be like to play in front of 19,000 people, all of them screaming and yelling. Shooting at those baskets gave me chills. It was exciting. I just wish I\u2019d had a cell phone at the time to take some pictures.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Corey Albano \u201997 \u00bb Forward<\/strong><br \/>\nI remember being on the bus as it sat in city traffic, and looking out at how alive Manhattan was, and thinking, <em>I\u2019m going to play basketball in Madison Square Garden.<\/em> It was surreal. During the pregame shootaround, I think I was looking around more than shooting, taking it all in. I can\u2019t speak for everybody, but for a few people it seemed there was a sense of, <em>Wow, we\u2019re playing in the Mecca of basketball.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I played in Europe for 13 years after graduating, and saw some iconic buildings over there. But it wasn\u2019t the same as being in Madison Square Garden. Until this day, it is one of the coolest places I ever played.<\/p>\n<p>To hear Monmouth in the same sentence as Kentucky shows how much the program has grown. I couldn\u2019t be prouder. A Hawks win that day would be so great. It would definitely take the program to the next level.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Emmanuel Milou\/Wikimedia<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"notes\">\n<h4>Footnotes<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li>According to TiVo, Patrick\u2019s \u201cEnhancement\u201d commercial for GoDaddy.com was the most watched commercial during the 2009 Super Bowl.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every hoopster dreams of stepping on this court. These four did it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1580,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[94,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-play"],"thumbnail":"<img width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-300x225.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1580 wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" role=\"presentation\" style=\"object-position:50% 50%;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-2800x2100.jpg 2800w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-1400x1050.jpg 1400w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-828x621.jpg 828w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-360x270.jpg 360w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU-9x7.jpg 9w, https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2017\/11\/22-Madison-Square-Garden-EMMANUEL-MILOU.jpg 3500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>","catString":"Athletics, Play","issue":"Fall 2017","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1578"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12971,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1578\/revisions\/12971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}