Julius Erving

[tom mclaughlin]

Julius’s was coached by Pete Broaca for a very good Freshman team that included Rick Vogeley, John Bettancourt, Mike Pagliara and Chris Coffin. I think they went undefeated and people would actually come and watch the Freshman team play at 6 PM - they were
that good! Interesting trivia question could be who led that team in scoring. It wasn’t Julius Erving and was Rick Vogeley a talented player from Long Island. That team and the one before with Ray Ellerbrook, Ken Mathias and Jack Gallagher along with guys just before that of Joey Desarcina set the stage for years of very entertaining teams that played hard defense and shared the ball. All those players came thru playing Freshman ball for Pete Broaca and getting them ready by stressing defense, passing the ball and taking a good shot. If you didn’t play defense and team ball you were gone.
Peter Broaca was as basic as you get. His father was a great baseball athlete and played for the Red Sox way back when. Pete, Ray Wilson and Jack Leaman all went to school ar BU. Pete was from New Jersey and that is why UMass recruited NJ and NY. Ray Wilson being familiar with Long Island is why we ended up with Long Islanders like Julius, Al Skinner and Rick Pitino. Pete and Ray spent countless hours driving to NY and NJ. Pete left UMass for his own coaching job @ Coast Guard Academy where he did a terrific job. He eventually left and became an assistant @ Springfield College for years. He stopped coaching @ Springfield in the last few years. He resides in Holyoke and still is involved in basketball. He is in essence a basketball lifer - a good guy and a great teacher of basketball and how to play it right. Play defense first, play together and take the high percentage shot and no showboating - just play hard and don’t worry about stats.

[inthescoop]

Fantastic to read as usual - thanks Tom!

[MikeUMA]

50 years ago today: Julius made his debut with the UM varsity team, and proceeded to score 27 and pull down a new program record 28 rebounds.
https://umasshoops.com/wiki/doku.php?id ... providence

[Berkman]

^ ^ ^
Also in that bunch was Dick Samuelson who I got to know pretty well because he married a girl from Adams. She worked for my periodontist. I called him Julius's bodyguard because he did the boxing out for most of his rebounds.

After he graduated Dick became a state trouper spending a lot of time in western MA.

[tom mclaughlin]

Those teams with Julius developing each season were teams that played hard and played the right way or they wouldn’t play for Jack Leaman. Unselfish guys who played their roles and did what they had to do to win. No frills - grey t shirts and shorts (University PE issued to every PE students) - 2 pair of Converse Canvas a year - no training table - long 6 hour bus rides - no conditioning coaches - only 2 assistants that had to teach PE classes and recruit up and down the East Coast in their own cars - if I recall Jack Leaman drove a VW Beetle (no dealer car).
Yes Dick Samuelson was one of the guys that boxed out for Julius and he always played hard. We were taught to box out - even Julius and Al Skinner were yelled at to “box out.” You had to find your man and make contact. Guys like Charlie Peters, Ken Mathias and Dick Samuelson really boxed out and you felt it. If you didn’t box out you didn’t play. You did it Coach Leaman’s way - no questions asked. Ray Wilson and Pete Broaca were perfect assistants to Jack Leaman. Ray Ellerbrook and John Betancourt could shoot lights out. If you couldn’t shoot more then 45% you didn’t shoot - you set screens and rebounded. This was pre 3 pt line so we tried to take the highest % shot. Jack’s teams scored and would have games where they scored in the 80’s, 90’s and several games going over 100 pts we played together and we played defense on every play. We had no stars and everyone was treated as equals. To his credit Julius was one of the guys - no ego and totally team orientated. We were all in it together. Great time to play basketball @ UMass - the fans were the best!

[bobolink]

great reading about this. wonderful write-ups from the Collegian. how things have changed, from the days when the season opener was December 2, versus this season with 8 games already played. That Collegian headline "Redmen Roast Friars"--a reminder that we weren't the Minutemen back then. Of course, no names in that article rise the the level of Julius Erving, but on Providence, there was Dave Gavitt and Jim Larranaga (lot of coaching wins from those 2 over the years) and for UMass coaching great Jack Leaman and Ray Ellerbrook. Great basketball guys in a great game.
Thanks for posting it!

[LS71]

Interesting that this thread is about Julius’1st varsity game while the thread I repost every February is about what turned out to be his last varsity game.

The buzz had been building for a year, since freshmen could not play varsity ball then...every home game was a double header. The 68-69 freshmen team packed the Cage. Rick Vogeley actually had a better freshman season than Julius.

Part of the intrigue was that media coverage was minimal by today’s standards..no Internet, no social media, no cable TV...even over the air coverage was rare. If you didn’t go to the game you didn’t know what WE knew and we knew something the rest of the basketball world didn’t...we had Julius Erving and he was great!

[tom mclaughlin]

You are exactly right about the rest of the country not knowing about Julius. When I transferred from Tennessee to UMass I told my friends from NY about Julius and they said “he can’t be that good if he was he would have gone to StJohn’s or NC.” Remind you I had been at Tennessee which was ranked in the top 10 and had 2 All-Americans. Julius was better then either of them. We’d play in NY during the season and they would come see us play and were amazed at how good Julius was. When we played Marquette at the Garden when they were ranked in the top 5 and gave them a game it was said that during the game legendary coach Al McGuire turned to his assistant Hank Raymond’s and yelled “you didn’t tell me that kid was this good.”
Since there was no dunking at the time the fans were short changed. However the world found out about Julius Erving in the Summer before his Jr year. At the time the USA played games agains Russian All-Star teams with college players. Hank Iba the legendary coach from Ok State was taking a US team overseas. Jack Leaman had tried everything to get Julius on the team but they said no. Luck would have it the day before they left out of NY one of the players got injured and because Julius was in NY they called and he was placed on the team. The rest is history Julius went overseas and led the team in scoring and rebs and because they could dunk in international play he put on a show. Word quickly spread about this Erving kid and his dunks - people said he was unbelievable.

[vanmeter]

Tremendous read. Thanks Mike

[LS71]

^^ UMass fans were indeed very fortunate to have been able to watch one of the NBA's top-50 players of all time develop!

[SignMan]

Sam is a STH and comes to the home games...saw him at the last one.

Vogeley usually is at a game or two each year...still in MA

Charlie Peters retired a few years ago as the #2 @ Red Hat, Inc (Linux open-source software leader, acquired by IBM this year for $34B as an independent business unit). He was their CFO and stayed in NC ...

(Mrs SM will be retiring from Red Hat very soon).

[daveyboy]

That 70 team had that cohesive smoothness with plenty of contributors .Dennis Chapman
was a valuable piece to that team.I think the late Tommy Austin,who also was a terrific pitcher and fine gentleman was on that team.

[LS71]

II noticed that they're selling Julius Erving replica uniform tops...an away uniform with the number 32 and the name Erving over the number on the back. Seems like the shade of maroon is lighter than it was when he played. I didn't notice the price.

Of course those of us old enough to remember know that UMass uniforms did not have players' names on them back then.

[Berkman]

Here is an Erving story I heard back when he was playing. Supposedly a student, I think, told him that if he put a 5 or 10 $ bill on the top of the backboard could he leap up and get it. Erving's answer was put a $ 100 bill up there and we will see. Don't know if it is true but that is what I heard back then.

[Quann]

Probably the easiest Benjamin Julius ever made. He could probably hang from the top of the backboard.