err I mean exhibition game. Exhibitions are something every team
does, and it's rarely anything out of the ordinary (though some big
name team gets caught off guard and is upset by a little guy every year).
It's always the same routine; a division one team will schedule a local D2
or D3 team, they run their plays, shake off the rust, and throw down a
dozen alley oops in the process. Fans get excited, players get to
show off, and the season gets underway.
This Thursday, the 49ers will host the Pfeiffer Falcons, or is it
Pfalcons? This matchup has the look of a same-old same-old exhibition
game, but there is actually some colorful history here.
I will preface the following with this: Some of this is second,
third, fourth-hand information, whatever you want to call it, so I
won't include any direct quotes. However, this was also witnessed
first hand by yours truly, as I was sitting two or three rows back
from mid court, so I had a nice view and was within earshot of all that
went down. And with that, I will proceed...
Longtime Charlotte 49ers head coach Bobbly Lutz got his coaching
career off the ground at Pfeiffer. Actually, saying he got it off the ground
is a gross understatement. Coach Lutz came in and turned Pfeiffer into
a division II powerhouse. He took the Falcons to six straight NAIA
tournaments, including two Final Fours, an Elite Eight, and an appearance
in the championship game. His all-time record at Pfeiffer ended up at 180-89.
He is pretty much a legend around there.
Fast forward a few years and he is coaching the Charlotte 49ers. Just
like any other team, we would schedule a "cupcake team" for our
exhibition each year, usually a local team, sometimes a traveling "All
Star" team. As you might have guessed, with his connections to the
school, Pfeiffer ended up on the schedule a couple times in the early
2000s.
We ended up playing the Falcons two or three times, but it is the last
encounter that is of interest.
Records of exhibition games are not exactly posted all over the
internet, but as I remember, it was the beginning of the 2004-2005
season when Pfeiffer last ventured into Halton Arena. The game
started to go as you'd imagine it would. We out-rebounded them,
out-dunked them, out-muscled them, and pretty much overpowered them in
every facet of the game. So how does a team whose average height is
that of your typical high school team hang with a Top 25 division one
team (yes we were ranked that year!) full of 6'8 horses? You play
dirty.
As the game wore on, you could tell the Charlotte players were getting
a little more frustrated than a team who is up by a couple dozen
should be. From the stands, it's sometimes tough to catch the
subtleties, nuances, and other ultra quick happenings on the court, so
it wasn't clear at first what was going on.
However, we soon caught the gist of what was happening. The Pfeiffer
players could not out rebound the much taller 49ers, so what happened
was they would wait until a Charlotte player jumped for a rebound, and
then they would throw their body up against the Charlotte player's
legs, thereby undercutting him and sending him to the floor. Do this
once or twice a game, and it's brushed off as accidental or just rough
defense, but continue to do this, and you're going to make a lot of
people very mad. Here we were just trying to essentially get in a
practice, and these guys were risking serious injury to our players.
In addition to our players glaring and barking at the little Pfeiffer
players, coach Lutz, who was known to be very passionate and mega high
energy, was starting to really ride the refs, and you could tell the
fire was building. By half time, we thought the refs would need a
body guard, and a few quick shouts and death-stares were sent from
Bobby towards the Falcons head coach.
As the game went on, the margin of victory widened considerably, but
you could tell the Charlotte players were very angry, and coach Lutz
was absolutely fuming. As the final buzzer sounded, coach Lutz was
still at mid court with a few assistant's arms around him, giving the
Pfeifer coach an earful. Actually at this point I'm pretty sure he
was breathing fire. Like I said, I won't use direct quotes,
as it was a long time ago, and none of this is documented other than
in our green-tinted memory banks, but the words "YOU WILL NEVER PLAY
HERE AGAIN!" may or may not have been shouted by Bobby at the Pfeiffer
coach. And anyone who was in the lower level of Halton Arena that
night would tell you they lean towards "may have."
And guess what.. Pfeiffer indeed never played in Halton Arena again
while coach Lutz was at the helm. This was a fairly big deal, as
Bobby was beloved by the Pfeiffer basketball family. It's also a big
deal for the team and fan base of a school that small to get a high
profile matchup like they had with Charlotte, so for Bobby to cut ties
like that speaks volumes about how ugly it got.
Now fast forward one more time to November 2012. Bobby Lutz is
reeling in McDonald's All Americans at NC State, and former Ohio State
assistant Alan Major is head coach of the 49ers. Pfeiffer also has a
new head coach, now in his third year with the team. So It took both
teams changing coaches and almost a decade to pass before Pfeiffer was
able to make their way back into Halton Arena.
Once again Pfeiffer will be out-everythinged by the Niners, but let's
hope they play a little nicer this time around.. I wouldn't want to
have to sic Bobby on them.
