A Walk Down Memory Lane with the Saint Peter’s Peacocks
By Stanley Yavneh Klos
In 1972, thanks to my high school basketball coach Luke Lenahan, and my teammates, I came into my own as a basketball player. By my senior year, I had basketball recruiters and academic scholarship offers from over a dozen colleges and universities including Louisville, the Naval Academy, and Dartmouth. The academic scholarships were mainly due to my math teacher, Mrs. Rosenblum, and my friend Mary DiPietro, whose good work resulted in my achieving a 730 SAT score in math on my first and only try.
Basketball, not academia, was my calling and Don Kennedy, then-coach at Saint Peter’s University (who, along with then-athletic director, Rev. John A. Boland, S.J.), was being quite persistent. It was Fr. Boland, however, who drove to my home in Old Bridge, NJ to present a Saint Peter’s basketball scholarship offer in person.
Saint Peter’s was about a 45-minute drive from our home in Old Bridge. This was important because my mother, Eileen Hundertmark Klos, was suffering from breast cancer. She was my biggest fan and, despite her condition, travelled all across New Jersey to attend my high school games. By the end of my senior year, Mom’s cancer prevented her from utilizing the stands in the gym. Instead, she traveled with a rather large walker that included a seat. This device enabled her to walk, rest, walk and alternate between standing and sitting during my games, to alleviate some of her chronic pain. Sadly, I have no picture of Mom smiling courtside in her walker, which I still see clearly in my mind’s eye.
Fr. Boland had done his homework and knew of my mother’s condition. At our kitchen table, he presented a four-year [SK1] scholarship offer and touted Coach Kennedy’s NCAA college coaching record, noting that his teams had won 325 of 515 games and had participated in five National Invitation and two National Association of Intercollegiate Athletic tournaments. Once finished, he looked me in the eye and said, “Know that if you sign with Saint Peter’s, there will always be a place courtside for your mother at all of our home games.” I looked over to my mother: her smiling face seemingly lit up the room. I asked, “Is this okay with you, Mom?” She smiled even wider with tears in her eyes and nodded. Then I signed the offer.
I was serious about basketball and spent the summer at Coach Kennedy’s Camp St. Regis in East Hampton, NY working as a basketball counselor. Coach and his son, Coast Guard Academy Coach Don Kennedy, Jr. , worked with me and Manhattan College’s 6’10” Center Bill Campion during the summer of 1972. By September, I was ready to play college ball.
In October 1972, Fr. Boland and Coach Kennedy had a falling out. Coach Kennedy was fired and Assistant Coach Bernard Ockene was appointed as the Peacocks’ new head coach. Although disappointed, I remained at Saint Peter’s and started most games in my freshman year. Fr. Boland was true to his word: I cannot recall a home game where my mother was not courtside with her walker.
In the summer of 1973, Coach Ockene provided me with a remarkable opportunity. He secured me a basketball counseling job at Kutchers Sports Academy, where I worked under famed Louisiana State University Coach Claire Bee. I was assigned to assist visiting NBA Greats like Bob Lanier, Billy Cunningham, Walt Frazier, Bob Love and Julius Irving while they conducted basketball camper clinics. Once again, my game improved, thanks to the Saint Peter’s head coach. I ended up starting all of the games during our 1973–74 season.
I went through some trying times, personally, in those two years at Saint Peter’s. Geographically, Jersey City was also challenging because it was a metropolitan area where crime was then rampant: you woke up to birds coughing, as opposed to singing, in my Old Bridge wooded hometown. Fr. Boland, Trainer Bill Battershell, Sports Information Director Fred Cranwell, Team Doctor Ann Jerene Robbins (also my landlord), Coaches Bernard Ockene and Bob Kelly all assisted and counseled me through two emotional years, maddened by Mom’s health decline. My becoming Jesuit-educated was important, but it was the all-encompassing sense of community and its magnanimity that are the relics of the Saint Peter’s experience that I still cherish some 50 years later.
Sadly, in the spring of 1974, Coach Ockene, only 55 years young, died of a heart attack. In addition, it was clear that by the end of the 1973–74 season that Mom would never be well enough to attend another basketball game. I wanted out, so through a contact of my father, I approached Idaho State University, where, during a three-day visit, I had a “try out” and was then offered a scholarship. I redshirted the 1974–75 academic year, mourning the passing of my mother, and then played two seasons at ISU. Our team, during the 1976–77 season, advanced to the NCAA Sweet 16 and defeated UCLA to advance even further to the Elite Eight round. Despite this momentous win and my close ISU friendships, my fondest basketball memories are of my mother sitting courtside at Saint Peter’s with my father and seven siblings, cheering in the Jersey City Armory stands, “GO PEACOCKS”!
Saint Peter’s advancement to the Sweet 16 this year brought back all of these Peacock memories and, thanks to ISU’s advancement into the Elite Eight nearly fifty years ago, I know the player elation over last weekend’s victory.
So, consider this story as a shout-out to my twelve children, eight grandchildren, siblings, cousins, teammates, and the Saint Peter’s University Community of the 1970’s, about a time gone by, and acknowledgement of the blessings of collegiate competition and the Jesuit community.
We thank Stanley Yavneh Klos for allowing us to feature his reflections on Saint Peter’s basketball on the #JesuitEducated blog; click here to view his original post (with additional photos) on Facebook.
