Maddening March Memories

Buffalo is slated to host the NCAA’s March Madness tournament at HSBC arena again this year. Starting Friday, an estimated 12,000 basketball fanatics will crowd downtown hotels, restaurants, and the arena for an event that is supposed to pump some $5 million into the Buffalo economy. Logistics will be a nightmare. Many chickens will lose their wings to a slurry of butter and Anchor Bar sauce. (One must wonder, with Travel Channel’s “Food Wars” recently declaring Duff’s the wings champion, will this hurt business at the 'Bar? Doubtful.)

Admittedly, I’m not much of a basketball fan. Being 6-foot-3 and all, the opposite is generally the assumed truth. However, for one brief season I did get into the game. Allow me to wax nostalgic here:

It was 2004, and I was a freshman at Liberty University. The men’s basketball team, led at the time by Coach Randy Duntin, took the Big South championship in an 89-44 ass-whoopin’ against High Point. As the team dominated that season, I actually started following the games. Blame it on there not being a whole lot to do at the self-proclaimed “World’s Most Exciting University.” Perhaps it was free entertainment (with student ID).

I remember being in the stands during that early-March game. ESPN was on campus. Me and some friends made a goofy “GO FLAMES!” sign. We all wore red (the school’s color). Later, as I watched the ESPN video, I saw myself standing on a seat waving that stupid sign. I looked all the part of a dopey, over-giddy college freshman.

As the final seconds ticked down and LU had more than doubled High Point's score, LU pulled its starting lineup and put the, shall we say, less talented players in. Frenzied students stormed the court. I got my picture taken with Jerry Falwell.

The next week, I returned home to Buffalo for spring break. And just like this year, Buffalo was hosting the 2004 opening rounds of the NCAA tourney. Sixteenth-seed LU was playing number-one seed St. Josephs. I tried hard to get tix into HSBC Arena that day, calling in favors with several area connections. I was a broke freshman; over $100 (to see LU eventually get spanked) was out of budget for me, and that student ID wasn’t working its charms anymore. (It did however double as a MasterCard…very convenient.)

LU and Jerry Falwell made the front page of the Buffalo News that day. I kept the edition as a memento. I always thought it funny that Liberty followed me home that spring break.

After freshman year, LU men’s team never made it to March Madness again, and I never got into basketball again. Come my final semester in 2007, Duntin was dismissed as coach after three lackluster seasons. Rev. Falwell kicked the bucket a few weeks later. Talk about last-minute upsets.

So once again NCAA time is upon us. Everyone is filling out those brackets I'll never totally understand. The water cooler doubles as a sports book for office pools while wary workers cast a watchful eye (I may have just made a new tongue twister). As for me? March is all about St. Patty's Day and the coming of spring. Like I said before, basketball just never has been my thing.

Buffalo News announcing Falwell's trip to Buffalo.  Notice the News' old mast head.

Liberty Champion annoucing we had won the Big South.

"The Unlikely Disciple..." — My Take

I can’t say as I normally read the book reviews commonly found in Sunday papers. But as I was flipping through a few weeks ago, a headline caught my eye: “Going undercover at Liberty U.”

Reading over the review, I discovered the tale of Brown University sophomore Kevin Roose who in spring 2007 embarked in first-of-its-kind immersion journalism. Coming from ultra-liberal, politically correct Brown, and being of like mind, Roose enrolled at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He spent his semester at America’s largest evangelical school compiling a book: The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University. The contrast in worlds and beliefs was sure to be a culture shock to this liberal, secular student.

Roose wanted to see if the stereotypes were true: Were Liberty students all ultra-pious, Bible-thumping homophobes? What was Jerry Falwell, mostly known for his ill-tamed tongue, really like in person? Were the rules as strict as a Nazi prison camp?

The reason this book grabbed my attention is that Liberty was my school. In fact, spring 2007 was my final semester at Liberty; I graduated that May. So naturally, I wanted to read how an “unchurched” individual would view Liberty. Growing up in the Christian school system, I found the rules at Liberty to be pretty lax compared to some institutions (like Bob Jones University). I’m someone who never wanted the “one-big-drunken-orgy” college experience. But to Roose, coming from that very environment into white-washed Bible-belt culture, I can definitely see how the standards of conduct might feel downright restrictive.

What Roose discovered is that most Liberty students are not nearly as pious or cliquey as he expected. Most were just ordinary college-aged guys and girls, albeit with a special brand of faith that Roose found was characterized in their outward joy, friendliness, and morality (i.e. committed abstinence till marriage, refraining from alcohol, etc). Of course there were exceptions. Roose had a roommate whose homophobic rants and slurs of anyone (near everyone) that he decided was gay were downright abusive. And then there were the rebels. The Liberty students who sneaked out behind the dorm for a smoke, or who came out of Blockbuster with an “R” rated movie (University policy forbids anything rated higher than PG-13).

Roose took advantage of all Liberty had to offer in his one semester. He dived right into his immersion project, participating in more extracurriculars in that one semester than I did in eight! The list: Thomas Road Baptist Church (Rev. Falwell’s church) choir, spring-break missionary trip to Daytona Beach, prayer groups, Bible study, homosexual recovery group (for the experience—Roose claims to be straight), and intramural softball. Meanwhile, he filled his class schedule with Bible classes rather than liberal-arts offerings. Understandably, he struggled through those classes as a non-devout Quaker with next to no Bible knowledge coming in to Liberty.

Finally, Roose decided to request, and was granted, a one-on-one interview with Jerry Falwell to be published in The Liberty Champion. Instead of dredging up touchy political and spiritual subjects, Roose angled his interview as getting to know the man personally. As I read this chapter, and Roose described Falwell’s daily peach Snapple habit, it all came back to me. I remember reading that interview. I remember Roose’s picture in the school paper.

That interview turned out to be one of the last, if not the last, of Falwell’s life. Right before my graduation in mid-May, central Virginia made national headlines again just a month following the Virginia-Tech massacre: Rev. Falwell passed away due to heart complications. I was hiking on Percival’s Island in downtown Lynchburg when the news broke. My dad called me on my cell to inform me of what had just happened. Apparently there was initial mass pandemonium on campus; I arrived back to relative calm, just before the crush of national media descended on Liberty.

Roose stayed in town and attended my graduation ceremony, just days after Falwell’s death. He described it as a funeral/graduation. I interpreted it differently, with eulogies to Falwell kept reasonably short. Roose also availed himself of the Resident Life’s policy allowing students to stay in their dorms an extra week to attend the funeral. As for me, I hightailed it out of Lynchburg the day after graduation and never looked back.

Reading this book, I found myself continuously thinking, “Wow, this guy’s a good writer.” I wish I could write half as well as he does. Painstaking detail is demonstrated in how Roose affectively captures every conversation, every thought, every minuscule detail of all his experiences and interactions. Coming away from Liberty, Roose discovered he’d formed some lasting friendships during his five months there. He learned a lot more about the Bible than he every expected (scripture quotations, chapter titles, and anecdotes demonstrate this well). His work is respectfully written, and is not an attempt to disparage Liberty. In the end, Roose came away surprised at how wrong some his preconceptions were and how changed his attitudes toward faith, prayer, and Christianity were.

He also pointed out a few glaring faults at Liberty. I recall thinking how sometimes critical thinking was squashed in some classes, instead favoring memorize-notes-regurgitate-on-exam type education. Roose noticed the same. Of course, this wasn’t always the case. And the inappropriate gay jokes and general homophobia that bothered Roose are something Liberty as a body needs to deal with. The homosexual community is already skeptical of Christianity, and I can attest that the level of crude joking I witnessed at Liberty is an area where change is needed if Liberty ever wants to truly reach these people.

Overall, however, I found Roose’s work to be top-notch quality. His college-frat-brothers type stories and chronology of Liberty experiences kept me hooked through all 336 pages. I remember more than once laughing to myself and thinking, “Hey, I remember that…” as Roose talked about a particular speaker or event on campus. To think, I probably passed him in DeMoss Hall, or the dining hall many times and never even knew two years later I’d be enjoying his work. That said, this is a good read, made better only by having also walked in Kevin Roose’s shoes.

A Grateful Graduate's Collegiate Commentary

It’s hard to believe that it has been nearly two years since myself and thousands of other Liberty University graduates crowded Williams Stadium. Robed head-to-toe in our regalia, we came to receive that which was rightfully ours after years of hard work, late nights, and (for some) tons of caffeine. (At that point, I abstained from coffee…now, I’m like every other American when it comes to this strange, hot, beany concoction).

I was reminded of my final college years today in a light-hearted op-ed column by Mitch Albom published in Buffalo News. Albom spoke of recent visits to several prestigious institutes of higher education as his nephew prepares to embark on the collegiate journey. I couldn’t help but relate to a few of Albom’s quips and observations:

Over-perky tour guides – A bubbly, sparkly young lady was my first point of contact when I visited Liberty’s campus in May of 2003. And I had plenty more contact dealing with these types when I did volunteer work with the Visitor’s Center. While they may be busting at the seams with enthusiasm toward visitors, try working for them…it’s a whole new ball game. The girl I initially toured with did her job well though; she sold me on attending LU.

Dorms with amenities rivaling a five-star hotel – I lived in brand-new, apartment-style housing from junior year on (there was the one-semester foray off campus, but that had me crawling back to campus a semester later). On Liberty’s East Campus we had access to all kinds of entertainment in the clubhouse; an in-ground, heated pool; private gym; a convenience store; and a tunnel under US-460 to link us to Main Campus. State-of-the-art fitness facilities, big-screen TVs, and more were available at new student center on North Campus.

Co-ed dorms – Mitch was surprised at this, and Liberty was staunchly against it. “We catch a boy in a girl’s dorm after dark, we shoot him on the spot…” (paraphrase), said Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., founder of LU. He was joking, I’m sure. But I was always glad for the non-co-ed dorms. It helped alleviate what would otherwise be awkward situations at the bathroom, etc. Of course it also led to behavior such as unclothed men soaping up the tile hallway and making a virtual slip-n-slide…

Gourmet Cafeteria Cuisine – Everyone used to rip on Sodexo at Liberty and the quality of food they served. I’ll admit, some of it was gross. But especially come my junior year, the food on campus got really good. Sodexo took marked steps to “kick it up a notch,” and it showed. There was so much to choose from, in an all-you-can-eat buffet style that it’s a wonder I didn’t experience a freshman-15 followed by a sophomore-15, and, well, you get the picture. I think ripping on campus dining services is just popular no matter where you go. And by the way, we had waffle makers too…you’d wait in line for at least a half hour if you wanted one right after church during Sunday brunch.

Mitch ends by stating he’s glad he didn’t have so many luxuries, amenities, and entertainment in his collegiate days. He says it would’ve been too difficult to find time otherwise for classes, study, etc. But somehow you manage to find time…I did it while still enjoying all that Liberty had to offer.

It is my observation, however, that college has morphed into academia-cum-summer-camp at a five-star hotel. You learn things at summer camp; it is meant to be an educational experience. If you make the time, you learn at college. Unfortunately, this new form of camp comes with a much heftier price tag attached.