Summer Night Passion

Summer Night Passion

J. Glenn Eugster

Fontana Free Press

March 2, 2005

As a young boy I would watch the Mattituck High School Varisity basketball team play in a small gym in Mattituck, New York.  The team was awesome and typically come out of each game victorious.  For a small school in rural Suffolk County it was a joy to watch Dave Tuthill, Herman Strickland, Jerry Sawicki, Charlie Tyler and John Krupski play with skill, talent, savvy and joy.

Passion was also part of their equation.    I was a junior in high school and playing basketball all the time when I first encountered contact basketball.  In Mattituck, NY we 

played games in the summer time on an outdoor court with whoever would 

show-up.  I was a small-town high school rising star and I did well.  I could 

jump then, shoot the eyes out of the basket and block shots better than 

most guys my height.  One nigh alumni John Krupski, came to play.  

Krupski was an all county all-star and his teams won Suffolk County 

Championships. He played on a team that is still legendary in Mattituck.  

They were big, smart, very good and most successful and all of the Tucker 

fans were in awe that they played for our small town.    John was one of 

the stars and he went on to play college ball at Brown University.   He 

was home that summer and decided to play that night.

The game started and I guarded Krupski, a farm boy my height but 

60 pounds--of muscle, heavier.  He took me down low and tried to 

shoot over me only to have me block his shot.  He retrieved the first 

block and made the same move again, with the same result.  He retrieved 

the blocked shot again and started to make the same move again, only this 

time he planted his elbow squarely in my mouth before he shot.

John Krupski knocked my front teeth out of socket and the evening turned 

out to be a painful trip to the dentist.  After my teeth were re-set I played again and had a good senior year on a very mediocre team.  I learned that basketball was far tougher than I thought it was.  It was then that I learned that my roundball aspirations far exceeded my size or ability.