By Tucker Paquette
@tpaquette17
For 62 days in the summer of 1965, Springfield College’s men’s basketball team went on an unprecedented adventure. They traveled to numerous countries, played in 26 games (winning all of them), 20 exhibitions and hosted a whopping 111 clinics on the fundamentals of basketball. In total, the squad was seen by around 250,000 people.
Then this past Saturday, as the team’s 10 players have been doing consistently for the past 60 years, they made a more modest trek: back to Alden Street, where it all began.
The trip abroad was sponsored by the U.S. State Department and referred to as a goodwill tour, because the main missions for the Pride were to help raise international spirits and raise basketball’s profile outside of the United States.
Ahead of the trip, a common thread amongst Springfield’s student-athletes was a blend of excitement and nerves.
“The State Department is going to be sponsoring this, so I thought, ‘Well, I’ll be safe,’” said Paul Wagner, a member of the team and the Pride’s 18th all-time leading scorer. “I only spoke English, which a lot of Americans probably do. It was [nervewracking] when I saw the scale of it. And being away for more than two months and traveling so much, with new cultures, new customs, new food.”
Head coach Ed Steitz, trainer and manager Tony Skolnick and public information director George Wood comprised the list of staff members that went on the trip. They were joined by 10 players: Ralph Arietta, Larry Buell, Jim Champlin, Ben Davis, Leon Drury, Rick Janes, Bill Scanlon, Reed Schultz, Bob Sisson and Wagner.
The tour happened at an especially unique time in Wagner’s life, as not only was he in college, but he was also married. Wagner was one of two players on the team who was married, along with Davis. Understandably, this added another layer of thoughts to Wagner’s mind as the trip neared, though the two months away from home ended up being more than worth it.
“I had to say goodbye to my wife,” Wagner said. “And yeah, I’ll see you in a few months. But it turned out to be probably the single most impactful couple of months in my life.”
The team made a wide variety of stops on the tour, including in France, India, Pakistan, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Ceylon (now known as Sri Lanka). Interestingly, a number of different means of transportation were used to get the players and staff from country to country, including air, rail, bus, pony wagon, camel cart and even elephants.
These unique experiences are a main source of the value the trip provided Springfield’s players. Growing up in the United States and still being young, they hadn’t had significant exposure to other parts of the world, but they got a heavy dose of that with the goodwill tour.
“Some of these places, you’ll never see in your lifetime,” Drury said. “It opened our eyes because we went to so many countries. The language wasn’t a barrier. So many people that we interacted with spoke English or broken English. And we were able to communicate.”
In terms of the clinics hosted by the Pride, they focused on teaching the fundamentals of the game – passing, dribbling, boxing out and defense. This was partly necessitated by the quick-hitting nature of the team’s schedule, as they typically couldn’t stay in each place for more than a couple of days.
Even still, these were enriching experiences for Springfield’s players. To this day, they still look back on those clinics as their chance to help spread knowledge of the game they love.
“Educate them, kind of correct them,” Drury said. “You’re [like a] school teacher, and you get the gym classes. So it was a really good experience for us to become a teacher rather than a player.”
In the Pride’s games and exhibitions, the teams they were competing against were not on their level, simply because the sport wasn’t as developed elsewhere as it was in the United States. In some places Springfield visited, players even lacked the standard gear needed to effectively and safely play.
“The team here, no matter how good they are, would be the national team [in some countries],” Wagner said. “The courts, most of them, were not paved. Some of the teams that we played, the players didn’t have sneakers, and they were barefoot. There were some talented kids, but very few. We really pounded the teams we played.”
Despite the gap in skill levels, huge crowds nonetheless showed up to see the Pride. The height of their popularity on the trip was reached during a game in India, where 30,000 fans came to watch.
This moment was an example of the lasting power of the goodwill tour on the Pride, as last Friday marked the 60 year anniversary of their return to campus for the start of classes in the fall of 1965.
Naturally, the trip brought Springfield’s student-athletes closer together. Traveling the world while in college has a way of creating lifelong memories, and that was definitely the case here – the team reunites every couple years, whether at Springfield College or elsewhere.
“It opened my eyes to other peoples and cultures,” Wagner said. “And we were so welcomed. I think that’s probably a common theme with the other guys as well. We’ve been meeting as a team over the last 60 years. Every few years we get together in different places. We’ve become friends.”
The team felt a great sense of relief when they returned home, having safely and successfully navigated such a wide-reaching journey. However, they were also eager to cling onto the memories they made. Instead of getting summer jobs in 1965, Springfield College’s men’s basketball team got to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.
“College kids from all over the world looked up, it was amazing,” Drury said. “Normally in the summertime, I find a job in the factory somewhere, make a couple thousand dollars and pay for school.”
(Photo courtesy of Springfield College Archives)