Spent about five hours inside Albany’s Times Union Center on Sunday, watching two college hoop games.

Thought I would blog about the basketball sights and atmosphere on this gray snowy Monday, when I suppose I could be writing more about March 9, 1978 — the day I left Rochester and drove my blue AMC Gremlin into the parking lot of The Post-Star in Glens Falls. I began my career in journalism at age 22. That’s 31 years ago today, but I won’t get sentimental about it .. at least, not until the end of this post!

More pressing points are on basketball.

It would have been easy to sit home in front of my fireplace, sip a few Irish creams and watch the games as chili con carne and mashed potatoes simmered and burned on the stove. But when you have Division 1 college basketball just three miles away, in a pro-caliber arena with four pretty good teams on the schedule, seems like we locals have to support the MAAC tournament. My friends in Rochester must drive east to Syracuse or west to Buffalo in order to catch any Division 1 games.

So I joined Mike Goodwin’s “team” for the afternoon — Goodwin, an editor at a Truly Unique news gathering organization in Albany and a truly unique company man, is always talking about his “team” at work. Jim Odato, Steve Nissen and William H. Buell also joined Team Goodwin for the festivities, although it was really Nissen’s idea to get everyone together. Here are a few things I noticed.

* The security guards are no longer inspecting fans closely at the door, no more metal detectors. Too bad — they did not spot the two orange sodas I smuggled into the arena. Hey, these are hard times.

* During the Fairfield-Siena game, I noticed the Fairfield stag working the sideline — some student in a hot, furry costume. But I did not see the Siena dog! It’s a St. Bernard with long, droopy ears, another student in a hot, furry costume. I don’t think I’ve seen the local mascot all year. Budget cut? Student apathy? Pressure from canine activists?

* The Rider College Broncos brought their student-stuffed animal bronco out for the second game. The Niagara purple eagle was nowhere to be found. Avian flu? Endangered species? Pressure from the Audubon Society?

* Good thing people who love costumes had “J.J. Jumper” in the house. I’m not sure if “J.J” is supposed to be a frog or a cricket, but he-she is an NCAA-sponsored green biped, with palm-like fronds of orange hair, blue shorts, blue hoop sneakers and dozens of T-shirts for the crowd. I find these stunts more annoying than anything else. People trying to watch the game don’t want to be distracted by a character — however well-intentioned — trying to hog the limelight.

* The Niagara contingent was small, but spirited. There were times during the second game when their cheers filled the entire Times Union Center. I doubt they will be as successful tonight, with hometown fave Siena on the court and thousands of Saints fan in the stands.

* Posted an entry last week about fashion at my local YMCA; near the top of my list of fashion mistakes is black socks with workout gear. I was surprised to see just about all the Rider players wearing black socks with their cranberry-colored uniforms. Only the Mansell brothers, Patrick and Harris, had the good fashion sense to wear athletically correct white socks.

* Our small party of hoop fans committed a cardinal sin late in the Rider-Niagara game. Thousands of people left right after the Siena game, so we moved to better seats for the 8:30 tip. At first, we were just going to watch the first half. After all, Sunday was a school night.
But it was 36-36 at halftime, so we decided to stay out a little later. The game remained close throughout the second half, and Rider’s Novar Gadson scored on a breakaway dunk with 17 seconds left for a three-point lead. That looked like it, and nobody expected Tyrone Lewis to bank in an ungodly long three-pointer with 1.7 seconds left to send the game into overtime.
We saw all that. But with Niagara up 77-71 with 53 seconds left, we joined hundreds of other fans who thought Rider’s goose was cooked. We left the arena at about 10:45 p.m. ... and missed the Broncs’ rally to tie up the game and force a second five-minute overtime.
We were all riding in one car — saving gasoline and multiple parking fees — and heard on the radio that Rider’s goose was still alive and honking. We hustled into my house at about 11:15 and caught the last 15 seconds of the second overtime.
The moral of the story. It’s not over until, well, it’s over. Niagara still won. Just took a little longer.

* Met a nice couple sitting in front of me, Bill and Mary Ann — could be Marianne — from Scotia. I was talking to William H. Buell about St. Bonaventure’s inane decision to adopt “Wolfpack” as a secondary nickname several years ago, yielding to political pressure to drop the long-standing “Brown Indians” team identification (really, we’ve always just been the Bonnies). Bill overheard, and told me he graduated from noble St. Bona in 1966 — 11 years ahead of me.
I mentioned I was a newspaper man. “Oh, are you Tim Wilkin?” he asked, mentioning a relative of mine who works for another newspaper in the Capital Region.

No, I told Bill.

This has happened more than a couple times recently, and I may have to start answering, “No, Tim Wilkin is in prison.” Or, “No, Tim Wilkin has been committed to an asylum.” Or, “No, Tim Wilkin works in Albany, Georgia.”
Just kidding. Sort of.

Tim Wilkin might not even be a working journalist today if his older brother had not driven into the parking lot of the Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., on March 9, 1978. Irv Dean Jr. was the managing editor who gave me my first newspaper job, and I started my first shift at 2 p.m. on that Thursday afternoon. Mike Kane, Lee Coleman and Jeff Wise were among my first mentors.

I’ve always remembered some of the things that made first impressions — like driving to the local supermarket near the newspaper’s headquarters at Lawrence and Cooper streets and marvelling at the chain’s logo. It looked to me like an axe imbedded in a woman’s head. It was really the Price Chopper axe-in-a-coin symbol ... I don’t see it around much anymore.

I worked in Glens Falls for nearly three years before taking a job at the Schenectady Gazette in February 1981. It’s funny to think some of my current colleagues weren’t even born when I filed my first story 31 years ago, but some things are still the same. Mr. Dean is now the city editor here at the Gazette, so I can remind him about my “anniversary” every year.

In 1979, I heard about an opening at The Saratogian, and tipped off my brother Tim. He got the job, and this year will observe his 30th year in newspapers. So next time people see me, and mistake me for Tim, at least be sure to congratulate me for 30 years as a sports writer.