The worst part was they were never as bad as their record. The University of the District of Columbia men’s basketball team was 1-22 last season. It would have been difficult to be much worse.
But immersed in the 25th anniversary season of the school’s last Division II national title in 1982, the Firebirds have undergone a dramatic renaissance. After a four-point season-opening loss, UDC has reeled off seven straight wins en route to a 7-1 record.
“There wasn’t really any low point, just fatigue; tired of battling every night with seven guys, coaches battling,” said junior guard Frank Petersen, one of only two holdovers from last season’s roster. “We had people working their tails off last year. It was just depressing that the season came to an end and we only won one game.”
The Firebirds, which last reached the national final in 1983, started the fall of 2005 with just four players and a late-hired new coach, Julius L. Smith Jr., who had relocated to Washington after being chased out of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Smith filled out the roster with a several players lacking high school basketball experience.
“I shook my head in frustration quite a bit, but not per se at the kids,” said Smith, who guided the Firebirds to a number of single-digit losses and a solitary victory over Salem International. “It’s like you’re going to battle and you’ve got an empty gun. I had good, quality people. But we didn’t have enough.”
It was better than nothing. Two years ago UDC didn’t even have a season.
Citing concerns over recruitment, academic eligibility and financial aid, UDC president William L. Pollard shut the men’s and women’s basketball programs down for a year in November 2004.
This past offseason Smith began to recruit. He’s a tried and tested coach, with stints as an assistant at Indiana, James Madison, Tulane and Mississippi State. Also a graduate of Archbishop Carroll, Smith built this year’s team around Petersen and a host of local players who have developed chemistry on and off the court much quicker than expected.
“We’ve bonded very well and very quickly as a team,” said Smith. “When you bring in 11 new guys, sometimes it takes you forever to get to know each other and to like each other. That happened very quickly for us.”
Petersen said the best thing about this season is simply having teammates, a family of guys that rely on one another.
“We’re getting what we deserve. We’re winning ball games,” said Petersen. “We’re not going to be satisfied with 7-1. We want to go as far as we can. We want to be like the ’82 and ’83 teams that were here.”
Looking forward
Slightly more than a year removed from a season in which UDC didn’t field a men’s or women’s basketball team, this year’s Firebirds have more to overcome than recent history.
“We want our teams to really start their own traditions and move in a positive direction,” said UDC athletic director Harold M. Merritt, who was hired in January. “If there’s any questions to be asked we have nothing hide. So in a way we’re fighting, but in some ways we’re not because we’re putting that behind us. We’re not living in the past.”
Merritt was once a Division I basketball coach himself, guiding Northern Arizona for four seasons and preceding current UCLA coach Ben Howland.
“If this plays out like it could,” said Merritt, “I haven’t seen anything to parallel it in college basketball.”
— Craig Stouffer
