Notes from the Desk Panther pride

Author: Peter Baumann

As the ball floated upward, what had started as a general rumble erupted into a cacophony of sound and exhilaration.
Something about that ball was timeless. With Pepin arena exploding around it, the orange orb continued to fight against the bondage of gravity, climbing towards the rafters as if propelled by some unseen widget. Moments earlier it had been in the hands of Ben Rudin '09 as he danced towards half-court while milking the final seconds of the Panthers' 2009 NESCAC Basketball championship, but now it was suspended in mid-air, its voyage lost against the backdrop of jubilation and pride.

As the ball reached the apex of its arc, its arrival was heralded by two noises: the final buzzer - a shrill and sharp siren that pierced through the pandemonium with the same facility the ball had shown moments before in its fight against nature - and a deep, guttural scream from Rudin.

The buzzer hailed the arrival of Middlebury basketball into the brave new world of NESCAC supremacy, announcing for all to hear that the Panthers numbers this season, 24 victories including 17 straight, were not a convenient mirage. But for Rudin the scream expressed more. It told the tale of the 2006 NESCAC Rookie of the Year who had struggled through ups and downs during his career but had always taken the lead down Middlebury's path to respectability. With one scream you could see the pressures, expectations and disappointments of the last four years floating off his shoulders, quickly sucked away by the symphony of 1,200 voices yelling at once.

But despite its success, the basketball team was not the story of this weekend. Rather, it was the student body that turned out in droves to watch their friends and peers dive into famously uncharted waters. The most telling moment was watching students at previously hockey-centric Middlebury pack Pepin to the gills to watch the basketball team defeat Bowdoin