Nov. 20, 2001

Journal Page

I am writing this on November 20 at 11:30 a.m. It is the day before our second game of the year and a long time since I first arrived here at Lafayette. Everyone always talks about how quickly the time goes, but in this case I can say it went by relatively quickly. I wouldn't say it seems like only yesterday that I got here, but it is strange how vividly I can recall throwing up after running the mile freshman year. It was only my third day of being a college student, and I was already wondering what I had gotten myself into. Time marched on.

The practices came and went. The fact that our team was winning helped me on the days where I did not feel like I was able to make it through physically. Then we ended up winning the Patriot League, making history, and having fun while doing it. One of my most memorable moments is running out onto the court at the Fleet Center for warm-ups before we played Miami in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. All the hard work and pain I had put my body through in the previous months finally paid off. Not getting a lot of time at home during the holidays, like most students get, seems to be ok when you are playing in front of over 20,000 people.

Then sophomore year flew by. We won the Patriot League again. That was nice. My junior year was pretty uneventful, except for my lung collapsing. That leaves me here. As a senior, everything I do now is going to be the last time as a Lafayette College basketball player. Today is the last time I'm going to practice on November 20th. This is my last first journal entry. It kind of makes you want to do things a little bit better than usual because you know you'll never have another chance.

That's enough reminiscing. I guess I'll talk about our game against Albany. For the past couple of months we've had to deal with predictions. People ask us what it is like to be picked to finish in a certain place in the standings. It honestly does not matter to me where people pick us. I'm not just saying that. Some guys like to use it as motivation and say that we now have something to prove, etc. I don't buy into that. The people who vote on these things don't have any idea what is going to happen. No one does. That's why it is fun. Once the games begin, I don't think people pay as much attention to all the preseason hype.

With that being said, the win against Albany was huge. We built up a 12 point lead in the second half and seemed to get comfortable. Then, before we knew it, we were only up 1 and very easily could have lost the game. It was nice to see us hang on to the game. Last season games like this didn't seem to go our way. This time it did. Now we get Penn State and Miami. The reward for a job well done is the opportunity to do more. (O'Hanlon, 2000)

I'd write more but I'm on my way out the door. We are leaving for Penn State after practice today, so I have to make sure I have all my stuff ready. For those of you who are new to the Brian Burke journal, this is the way I write. I've been criticized for having choppy sentences, ending sentences in prepositions, using "I" a lot, using too many commas, and a lot of other things. But I like it this way. It is my writing so you know that whatever you are reading comes from me and me only. I don't have anybody edit it or even proofread it. If you think I should let me know.

Thanks. See ya next week.