The first principal of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and two of its focuses are General Education and Career Discussions. Sometimes early on in school we wonder about how our classes will be useful in the real world. The further we progress it likewise becomes important to know where can apply what we’ve learned in a practical way. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Applying School To The “Real World”: Turning Subject Knowledge Into A Career.
As kids, we all remember complaining about school. And those complaints often extended beyond a mere dislike of homework. Often, children ask themselves why they’re bothering to learn certain things. “When will this help me in real life?” That’s a question many students ask, even when studying technical subjects such as mathematics. Unless you want to become a teacher, the knowledge isn’t important. Right? And technology has made human talents redundant. Spell checkers remove the need for grammatical skills, and calculators remove the need for numerical skills. And, in fact, any piece of knowledge can be gained online. But this is too cynical an approach. There are more ways to apply school to the real world than you might realize. Whether you’re a recent graduate or somebody who’s rethinking their job role, here’s how to turn your subject knowledge into a career.
Science
STEM subjects are valued very highly in the job world, so you probably feel quite confident that there are plenty of career opportunities for somebody with scientific subject knowledge. However, you can use your qualifications for more than obvious options. You don’t have to become an academic researcher in medicine or marine biology. You’ve gained more skills than you realize if you’ve studied for a scientific subject. You’ve learned to critically think, problem solve, organize multiple projects, and adapt on a continuous basis. Those skills could suit you well in the business world if that was a route which interested you.
You could start your own business or become a consultant for other businesses. Science is an incredibly vast field, so your subject knowledge doesn’t limit you to a select few career options. You can take alternatives to the traditional route. Even a student of medicine doesn’t have to become a doctor or a surgeon. Your knowledge is valuable in the “real world”, so don’t dismiss the importance of your qualifications. If you’re not interested in the traditional career routes related to the subject you’ve studied then do some research to gain an understanding of the other options out there. You might just find something totally unexpected that fits your personality perfectly.
Geography
A geographical understanding in the modern world is also highly valuable. There’s more to this subject than knowing where places are on a globe, as you well know. Otherwise, geographical studies would be made obsolete by Google Maps. You can use your degree for more than simply teaching geography to the next generation. If you’ve studied in geographical information science then you could even consider pursuing a career in surveyance. You might want to look into land surveying jobs in your area if that type of career route appeals to you. It could be an exciting opportunity to make a difference in your community with your subject knowledge. A qualification in geography can lead to plenty of vital professions, so don’t diminish the technical weight of your subject knowledge.
History
Much like the other subjects we’ve discussed, history is a topic which is often pigeonholed into a very limited range of career options. You would probably imagine that a history graduate either has to become a teacher or a historian. But research and education aren’t career routes that appeal to everyone. Luckily, you can do more with a history degree than you might think. You could even consider a career in politics. Historical knowledge is incredibly valuable because it outlines mistakes of the past. By working in government, you could advise as to how we could avoid repeating those mistakes again. You could also look into media-related jobs. This is worthwhile subject knowledge for many career routes.
The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a key focus is awareness of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. A key class for many STEM-hopefuls is ‘college- level’ General Chemistry, both in high school and college. Some students, particularly those attending very competitive high schools, take college-level Chemistry and struggle with it.
Several years ago when I tutored part-time, I worked with several students in Northern Virginia where taking ‘Honors’ and ‘International Baccalaureate’ (IB) General Chemistry as freshman and sophomores was a normal occurrence. For three to four years, I worked in the former Northern Virginia Tutoring service where I consistently coached lost and struggling students, and helped them confidently finish their classes strong. The service was run by my mentor and fellow blogger Dr. Ralph G. Perrino (Dr. Perrino’s blog).
I originally published this piece on the Examiner back in March of 2013. I’ve decided to republish this revised version as tutoring was a fun and rewarding experience for me, which also helped me earn some extra income. I myself didn’t fully grasp General Chemistry back at Hutch-Tech High School as a sophomore. It wasn’t until I was an undergraduate at Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) that I understood and mastered this exciting quantitative science. I went on to use that knowledge in my graduate studies, in my federal science career, and eventually as a tutor.
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After starting my federal science career, tutoring not only allowed me to supplement my income, but it was a very educational experience for me as well. When applying to work as a tutor through the Northern Virginia Tutoring Service, I listed Biology, Chemistry, and Physics as my areas of expertise. I had some experience with all three disciplines in my undergraduate and graduate studies.
Chemistry by far was the course that generated the most demand for me, specifically ‘Honors’ and ‘International Baccalaureate’ (IB) Chemistry. IB courses are basically ‘college-level’ and can be quite a jump for some high school freshman and sophomores. Even some upperclassmen struggle in them. These classes are particularly problematic when the students fall behind in them early, lose confidence, and when the subject area falls outside of Mom and Dad’s areas of expertise – hence the need for a tutor.
The students who needed my help weren’t ‘slouches’ by any means. Most of them resided in Virginia’s Arlington and Fairfax Counties. Fairfax County is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation – a county with a very strong school system where 90% of its students matriculate to college. The parents’ vigilance and drive to assure that their children do well academically is also a hallmark of this county. This was manifested in their willingness to invest some of their hard-earned money into tutors – sometimes several at one time for multiple children. Those parents were very impressive.
When working with the students, my initial goal was to approach them with a positive and optimistic attitude. Patience, understanding and a bit of humor were parts of my approach as well. These were particularly important for students who had lost hope. After this initial part, we dove into the actual science and turning their grades around. There were four key principles that I stressed to my students: time management, taking initiative, practice and attention to detail.
The kids I worked with were ‘high achievers’ and typically juggled multiple classes, and in some instances, multiple Honors/IB courses. They were also involved in a plethora of after school activities (sports and clubs of all kinds), which often caused a bit of an overload. In cases such as these, time management for each class, especially the demanding classes, was very, very important.
The next principles I instilled were taking initiative and the importance of practice. College-level courses require students to assume more responsibility for their studies with less coddling by teachers. This is especially important for quantitative sciences like Chemistry and Physics, which are calculation-intensive and require rigorous practice. I stressed to my students that this was the only way to feel confident at test time, when students were tasked with working their way through several pages of complex problems, usually within 45 minutes to an hour.
The argument that teachers aren’t ‘teaching effectively’ in these subjects may be partially true in some instances, but what’s also true is that the teachers can’t do everything. They can’t make the students practice what they’ve learned after hours and on weekends – arguably the most important part their learning. This is where the most meaningful part of students’ learning takes place as was the case for me as an undergraduate when the light-bulb turned on one Sunday afternoon in Charlotte, NC.
Finally, I impressed upon my students the importance of learning to pay attention to several key details. Chemistry tends to start off with ‘concept-based’ learning: the trends of the “Periodic Table of Elements“, the micro-particles that comprise atoms, and then chemical bonding. With the balancing of chemical equations, the class becomes more ‘critical thought-based’.
The ‘quantitative’ phase starts with the “Stoichiometry” chapter which permeates throughout the remaining chapters. This is the phase in which the calculator becomes one of the student’s ‘best friends’ as they must calculate decimals, express numbers using ‘scientific notation’, and sometimes calculate ‘log’ values. When calculating acids, bases and pH values, students also must be able to use the ‘^’ calculator function in some instances, which admittedly confused me as the tutor once. An important part of this phase is understanding and being able to convert ‘units of measure’ – converting grams to kilograms, and then grams to moles, Celsius and Fahrenheit to Kelvin, and so on.
The calculation of moles, percent compositions, percent yields and so on, leads the class to become highly quantitative and the students then must also keep track of various equations/formulas, and chemical/physical constants, while also integrating concepts from earlier chapters. This continues into the “Solutions”, the “Gas Laws”, “Kinetics” and “Thermochemistry” chapters. While specific calculations are used throughout the course such as the conversion of grams to moles, some chapters have their own unique equations, formulas and units of measure such as ‘millimeters of Mercury’ (mm Hg) in the Gas Law chapter which is a measure for atmospheric pressure.
Examples of chemical/physical constants include “Avagadro’s number”, and the “Universal Gas Constant”, which itself has many different values depending upon the units used. As we progressed through the chapters, one thing I constantly had to remind my students of was always keeping their Periodic Table of Elements handy. I consider this the student’s first best friend in the class, as it has pieces of information about every element necessary to answer questions in even the more advanced chapters.
This all sounds like a lot right? Again, it can be particularly problematic if the parents have no experience in the area. Once lost, students typically need extra help in the form of spending more time with the teacher or working with a tutor. When the above-mentioned keys are introduced and the student buys in, he or she can gain confidence, get back on track and find the class to be fun. Tutoring caused me to have to relearn some material I’d forgotten over the years, and to learn concepts we hadn’t covered when I was an undergraduate. In some instances I was learning along with the students I tutored. This was fun for me and created a sense of adventure.
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If you’re a STEM-professional, tutoring is a really good way to generate a second income depending upon the demand for your knowledge set in your area or elsewhere. With the technology available to us today, tutors can work with students remotely in some instances without having to physically be there. In either case, helping students to understand their subject matter, and ‘to get over the hump’, is a very rewarding feeling, and an accomplishment all in itself. It’s also gratifying when the parents thank you and stay on their children about when their next tutoring sessions will be.
What also helped me out during my tutoring experience was that I could go back and ask one of my veteran undergraduate Chemistry professors questions when I got ‘stumped’. In some instances, I needed to be refreshed on some of the nuances of some of the problems I was doing with my students. I don’t think he’ll mind me mentioning him, and I’m very thankful that he was willing to provide guidance when I didn’t know what to do. This underscores the importance of not burning your bridges and maintaining relationships with your professors long after you’ve earned you degree.
My former professor also pointed me in the direction of the Chemistry Olympiad Exams for challenging and fun practice problems. You can download the yearly exams as pdfs for free. The answers are in the back, so you can go over them yourself or with your student, and even work your way backwards to figure out the right answer, if either of you answered the question incorrectly.
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The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and two of its focuses are Career Discussions and General Education. Even after completing school and entering the workforce, it’s important to think about where your career and your field are going. This involves several steps and points to consider. The following contributed post is thus entitled, Staying Relevant in the Workplace: The Tips To Help.
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In a job market that is as competitive as ever, employers are likely to have higher standards than ever for their employees. So in order to stay competitive and stay marketable, you need to make sure that you are relevant and up to date. By checking that you are doing things to improve yourself and your career, as well as seeing how you are doing with things, it can help you to ensure that you are not coming up short. If you’re not too sure about how you can stay relevant in the workforce, then here are some steps to help you get there. Keep going on and on, and you’ll be able to stay relevant in your career. Then you can keep your career going and achieving the things that you want to.
No doubt you will have the main qualifications to be doing the job that you do. But there are can be plenty of new technology to learn and understand, as well as software or certain operating systems. But if you don’t get up to speed, then you are going to struggle in your everyday job, as well as struggle to stay relevant. If it is kind of implied that you should know how to do something, then now is the time to learn what you need to learn, so that you can execute your work well and show your employer that you know what you are doing.
Trade Shows
It will depend on what industry you are in. But if your industry is related to an industry that works with (or in) trade shows, then it is a good idea to get yourself there. It can be something to suggest to your employer if you are not already doing it, as well as going and arranging to go of your own accord. It gives you a good chance to network, as well as a good chance to see the latest in your industry, or how other industries could be impacting the one that you work in.
If you work in quite a niche industry, or plan to in the future, then it can be a good idea to attend trade shows to get ideas, as well as seeing what is happening in similar industries.
Get Social
Social media is a great way to get in touch with others in the industry, or it can be used as a great way to read up on latest news or blog posts about what is going on in your world of work. Being online on social channels in a professional way can be a good idea to help you to stay on top of all that is going on. Not to mention that there are plenty of HR influencers online, especially social sites like Twitter. They can be sharing useful updates and relevant content, to help you to stay up to date and stay relevant in your career.
Perfect Your Skills or Specialize
If you look at people in the medical profession, for example, the ones that are earning the most are the ones that are a doctor with a specialism, rather than just a general practice doctor. Being a ‘jack of all trades’ isn’t always the best thing for your career. It can be a really good thing to specialize and to choose one route to go down. You will be staying relevant as you will be much more marketable to that specific career area than if you just kept things quite general. So if you can, look for ways to train in something more specific, but still relevant and in-demand.
Follow Competitors
Whatever walk of life we are in, there will always be competitors. Have a look at them to see what they are doing and what they do so well. If they are having more success, then follow them to see what it is that they are doing differently to you. If people in the same niche are having more success than you, then it shows that there is market for what you are doing. You just need to be the one that people want to come to. So mimicking a strategy or style can help to boost your success, and it adds value to what you are doing, and keeps your role relevant.
As you can see, these are all pretty straightforward things to be doing. But it just takes some time to plan so that you can really focus on your career goals and staying competitive and relevant within that.
The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and two of its key focuses are Education and Career Discussions. Choosing a career is one of the most important decisions one can make in life. Unfortunately many students aren’t always guided properly in this area, and have poor career prospects on the back end of their education. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Common Mistakes Made While Choosing A Career.
When choosing a career, there are so many different factors that need to be considered. Of course, you want to make sure you end up with the perfect career for you. However, this is much easier said than done. How do you know if a job is right for you until you start doing it? Well, a good place to start is by avoiding some of the common mistakes that people have made before you. With that in mind, continue reading to discover more about the common mistakes you need to avoid when choosing a career.
Taking a job with limit growth prospects – The first mistake that a lot of people make when it comes to choosing a career is going for a job that does not offer anything in terms of career prospects and growth. One of the main reasons people get frustrated with their jobs is because they feel like they have hit a brick wall and they can’t go anywhere.
Choosing money before anything else – There is no denying that money is important when choosing a career. After all, we all need money to pay the bills and to buy the things we want in life. However, you have no doubt heard the saying that money cannot bring happiness. You are going to spend most of your life working, so it is important to love what you do.
Failing to map out your route – Choosing a career is one thing, but how are you going to get there? You need to understand what is going to be expected of you and what qualifications you need. Are you going to be able to achieve these? Let’s say you want to work for a trucking firm. Do a search of trucking companies near me online so you can find out what they look from when it comes to their drivers. This is the only way you will be able to plot out how you can make it to the career you want and determine whether or not this is really for you.
Ignoring the signs of industry decline – Last but not least, another mistake you need to avoid is ignoring the signs of industry decline. Industries come and go – they aren’t around forever. Sign painters used to get a lot of business. However, that industry was replaced with vinyl and large-scale printing. When choosing a career, you not only need to consider your passions and what you are good at but you need to think about the state of the industry too.
Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of some of the most common mistakes that people tend to make when they are selecting a career. This should give you a better understanding of what you should and should not do regarding your professional future. But if you do make a mistake, don’t fret about it! Lots of people end up changing their mind regarding what they want from a job.
The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a key focus is Education. When pursuing a college education, it’s important to know how to get the most out of the experience both in and out of the classroom so you’re as marketable as possible when you finish. What are some of the important considerations? The following contributed post is entitled; Making The Most Of Your Education.
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Making the most of your education is crucial, whether you’re going to college, university, or even doing an online course. You want to make sure you retain as much information as possible and that you are able to use what you’ve learned to do something great when all is said and done. Whether you want to start a business of your own or land your dream job, below we have three ways you can go about making the most of your education.
Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help
You can’t be afraid to ask for help if you’re struggling with something you’re supposed to be learning. Approach your lecturer, ask classmates, and even look at online forums that you can use to make sure you get it. Having a positive, solution focused attitude is everything.
Get A Part Time Job
A part time job can help to give you more money towards school supplies, and can even allow you a bit of a social life (if you can find the time). If you can get a part time job in the industry you’re looking to work in, or even just a voluntary position, this can support your learning and look great on your CV.
Find Your Learning Style
Finally, figure out what your learning style is so you can consume the course material in a way that is enjoyable and stress-free for you. Everybody learns differently. Some people are hands on, some are visual. There were 419 graduates from Effat university in 2016-2017, and chances are, the majority of those students figured out their learning style early on. Below, you can find more information on Effat university.
“Somewhere there was a disconnection between the parents and what the students should’ve been doing at home, particularly their homework. The parents should’ve been helping to reinforce our program at home. If we could’ve just gotten the parents on board, things would’ve gone more smoothly.”
The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a key focus is Education. Dad was a critical piece of my journey towards my earning my STEM degree and starting my career. I originally published this piece in the Examiner back in 2012, shortly after he retired from education. I lived with him for almost three years prior to starting my federal science career, and learned some things about his career in education simply through watching, observing and talking to him.
Dad taught in one of the ‘lower’ two districts in New York State’s “Capital Region”, and this account captures what it’s like for some teachers who work in ‘lower income’ communities. While Dad agreed to let me publish this piece, there was some deliberation over its content as he wanted to be truthful while not offending anyone. This piece raises several key questions. Do parents have a role in their child’s education? Is it the school’s job to do everything? Lastly, what are the ramifications for kids getting passed through the system without doing the work, and what ultimately happens to them?
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Dad retired from education after 20 years of teaching Life Science in junior high in one of New York State’s eastern central school districts. When asked about being an educator and the daily issues he faced, he focused mainly on the attitudes and preparedness of his students and their parents. He also focused on an administration that highly emphasized passing its students, probably due to outside pressure which eventually trickled down the to its faculty. The issues he discussed were not unique to his district, and were common in lower income communities across the nation.
“One of the hardest parts of the job was getting the students to believe that I knew what I was talking about,” he said. The adolescent years are known to be the start of a rebellious period in the lives of young people. It’s not only challenging for parents, but also for educators. He further added, “Many of my students came to school hungry and without having breakfast. It’s hard to learn that way!”
Dad spent a lot of time discussing parenting saying, “Somewhere there was a disconnection between the parents and what the students should’ve been doing at home, particularly their homework. The parents should’ve been helping to reinforce our program at home. If we could’ve just gotten the parents on board, things would’ve gone more smoothly.”
“Parents aren’t what they used to be. They seem to act as though they can just make babies and it’s the school’s job to raise them,” he lamented about parents who weren’t proactive and vigilant about their children’s education.
“When I came home, I frequently saw my father reading,” he continued. “In some families, kids come home and see Mom and Dad watching TV and not reading, and will do the same thing. For African American and Latino kids, reading is very, very important,” he said passionately.
Whether it’s a low income district or a high income district as described in the writings of Dr. Ralph G. Perrino of the former Northern Virginia Tutoring Service, strong parental involvement seems to be a key ingredient in the success of students.
When he visited the University of Michigan when I was in graduate school, the famous (and now maligned) neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson, originally from inner-city Detroit, openly acknowledged that he wasn’t a strong student early on in his life. He further acknowledges that it was his mother’s insistence that he read and continually expand his mind that set the stage for his successes.
Dad finally voiced his frustrations with the school system itself saying, “In many districts there is a lot of pressure on teachers to pass students who may not be measuring up to the teacher’s expectations and what’s outlined in the curriculum.” In short, whether intended or not, the expectations for his students were being lowered. He further encountered quite a few students and parents who expected passing grades without the work being done.
“The school district was phasing out effort, good behavior, homework, and classroom participation. My students’ grades were eventually based mostly on tests and quizzes,” he said. He closed by saying (with conviction), “The problem is that when these students go out into the real world, they’ll be in trouble in job settings.”
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I want to close by acknowledging all the educators who go to work every day preparing our future generations. It’s a very important and sometimes underappreciated career/job. I’ll always remember seeing Dad go away to school every day, grading papers on the weekends, and enjoying his summer vacations. His experiences weren’t unique, and they applied to many schools in other cities across the country.
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The first principle of my blog is “Creating Ecosystems of Success”. As a part of a book project I’m working on regarding my high school basketball experience and what it taught me about life, success and failure, I was granted an interview with Western New York coaching legend, Pat Monti who was the Architect of the LaSalle basketball dynasty. My book project is entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. I’ve already published parts one and two of the interview, but Coach Monti blessed me with enough material for one more piece. His was unlike any interview that I’ve done up this point, in that during the interview, he told numerous ‘stand-alone’ stories in addition to the question and answer portion of our interview.
The following are the numerous stories Coach Monti told about his coaching career and the LaSalle basketball program – stories which were too long to publish in parts one and two of our interview, but which also were too valuable to not share. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. The pictures in this interview come from an archive of Western New York basketball assembled over the years from issues of the Buffalo News, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, and Sections V and VI playoff programs by my first Coach at Hutch-Tech High School, Dr. Ken Jones. Other pictures were generously shared by Coach Pat Monti himself. Click on any of the images to enlarge them.
The Syracuse Parochial Schools
Back in Syracuse we had what we called the “Parochial” league which were ten small Catholic schools. You went to school and right across the street was a church. All we had was basketball and baseball as our sports. It was an unbelievable basketball league – phenomenal. We used to beat up on all the public schools. I went to St. Patrick’s High School in Syracuse, but there was also St. John the Baptist, the Evangelist, St. Lucy’s, Cathedral, Assumption – there were ten and none of them exist anymore obviously – they just got devoured and private education was taken over by a couple of bigger Catholic schools.
The 1975-76 Explorers – Coach Monti’s First LaSalle Varsity Team
First off, a little background how I landed the Varsity job. As you know I graduated from Niagara University in 1968 but being from Syracuse and not being local, there were politics like everywhere else, and I was unable to get my foot in the door as a coach even though I was teaching in the district. So, in 1968-69 I landed the Freshman job at St. John Neumann under Johnny McCarthy, former Buffalo Braves and Canisius College Coach. I did that for one year, and then the late Bob Laurrie who was the Varsity Coach at Bishop Duffy which became gave me a job as his Junior Varsity (JV) Coach for the next three years from 1969-72 which was great because I was close to home and LaSalle where I taught. By the way Niagara Catholic just closed its doors this summer.
Finally, after applying for years, I got hired as the LaSalle JV Coach from the 1972-73 season thru the 1974-75 season. At 29 years of age, I then landed the Varsity job at LaSalle replacing legendary coach Matt Mazza for the 1975-76 season. After coaching those previous three years as the JV coach, if memory serves me we had records of 15-3, 12-4, and 16-2. The Varsity team with most of those kids I coached on the JV were struggling big time. They lost their last seven games of the 1973-74 season and then went 0-18 in 74-75. I guess the administration had had enough after the 25-game losing streak and hired me for the 1975-76 season from a pool of quality applicants.
So obviously going into my first season I had nothing to lose, and we went 8-10 and became fairly competitive. Our starters on that first team were led by: Co-Captain Edwin Keith Ridgeway and “Buckwheat” Harris at the guards, Kevin Downey and Keith Taylor at the forwards, and Wayne Gould at center. Co-Captain Mike Roberts was the ‘sixth man’ and became the starter with Ridgeway when we lost Harris to grades. The rest of the squad was comprised of: Chris Hyla, Ricky Williams, Dan Ciszek, Mike Amato, Dan Coombs, and Alan Valentine!
We went 8-10 that first season and almost made the Sectionals under the leadership of seniors Ridgeway and Roberts – two very solid players and really great kids who almost immediately bought into what I was trying to accomplish with the program. With Downey and Taylor, two outstanding very strong forwards returning and many of the returning players who were juniors that first year, we went 9-8 the following season including going 8-7 in the regular season, and then winning in an upset at Amherst – the first sectional win for a LaSalle team in many years! Back then you had to qualify for Sectionals with a 0.500 or better record! We beat Amherst on the road in that 1976-77 season on a buzzer beater from Alan Valentine on a great pass from Billy Clingersmith who had come over from Niagara Falls High School that year.
It was a HUGE upset and the kids went crazy it was as if we won the Sectional Title instead of simply a first-round game! Well that was the start of it all, and the players the following years started understanding that it was all about: fundamentals, no nonsense and structure. Things at LaSalle turned around and by the 1979-80, and the 1980-81 Michael Freeney-teams, we won consecutive Niagara Frontier League (NFL) titles – the first and second of our 13 league championships. LaSalle High School basketball had arrived on the scene in Western New York after many years of mediocrity!
LaSalle’s Late 1980s matchups with Christian Laettner and The Nichols School
During Christian Laettner’s (pictured) junior year which was 1986-87 – they beat us twice – both times were single digits – six to seven points, and we hung right there with them. After not losing a game his junior year, they won the Class C state title. The next year 1987-88 was his senior year. We went to Nichols’ little dingy gym in late December and I don’t know if they took us for granted which would’ve been crazy because we had everyone back, and they lost their point guard, even though they still had Laettner.
You can look back at my teams, especially when we got really good starting in the early 1980s all of the way up until the school closed – my teams were really run and dominated by guard play. We never had any size to speak of, and that year Eric Gore was probably our best player. I had to use him inside at 6’4” though he ended up playing the two-guard position in college down in Texas. We went down to their gym and blew them out. We turned their guards over and took Laettner out of the equation because their guys couldn’t get him the ball the way they needed to and I think we beat them by 17 points.
We then went on a run where we were 19-0 and they were 18-1 – we were ranked the top ‘Large School’ and they were ranked the top ‘Small School’ in the Buffalo News, and they came into our gym for the last regular season game in the Niagara Frontier League. It was unbelievable – a zoo. If you were a Junior Varsity (JV) player, you had to be crapping in your pants. The JV game started at 6 pm, and if you didn’t get into the gym at quarter to five, you didn’t get a seat – our gym held well over 2,000 people.
Everyone was there – Mike Kryzewski (Duke) and Digger Phelps (Notre Dame) – all the bigtime coaches. It was a game for the ages. I can still see it as if it was yesterday, and it was 1988. Nobody led by more than four – they didn’t take us for granted this time – they were very well coached.
It was back and forth, back and forth – just an incredible high school basketball game. I think that with about a minute or so left, we might’ve been up four. They came down, scored, called time out and cut it to two. I only had one time out left and I’ve always taught my young coaches to save your time outs for the fourth quarter. If you know, you’re going to be in a tight ballgame, don’t waste time outs. It’s amazing how simple it sounds and how important it is in coaching.
They obviously knew us inside and out, and I should have been smart enough to change our ‘press-breaker’ but I didn’t, and they pressed us. They double teamed my point guard Michael Starks – great player – 6’1” or 6’2” – really smart with the ball – a good decision maker. His brother Frank was a 6’2” 210 lb. rebounding machine but didn’t handle or shoot the ball very well. They took Michael away and Frank had the ball coming up the right side of the court across from the benches. I couldn’t get my timeout fast enough and it was so loud that the referees couldn’t hear me. I could see it coming but it was too late.
Laettner left Gore and Frank Starks is dribbling the ball above his waist – it looked like he was dribbling a beach ball. Laettner stripped him clean and went in for what would have been a thunderous dunk which would have sent the game into overtime – there were 20 seconds left at the time. He was the only guy across half court now. He looked up just as he crossed near the foul line – I think to see where he was with relation to the basket, and he kicked the ball out of bounds believe it or not.
So, I called my final timeout and drew up a different press-breaker. At the time I didn’t give it a name, but since then I called it my “One-Breaker” where my point guard takes the ball out of bounds. Because we’re leading the game, they must go trap the ball. We got the ball back into Michael Starks’ hands. He got fouled and made both shots – we beat them by four 61-57 – we went on and went 20-0, we won the Class B Sectional pretty easily, went to Rochester and won that pretty easily, and then we went to Glens Falls and beat some really, really good teams – the state’s ‘Public School’ part of it.
The 27-0 1988 Class B State and Federation Championship Team
We beat a local team out of Gloversville that had two brothers – stars and both great basketball players – one was a quarterback who I think went on to play at Boston College – one of the Boston schools for football. But they were local – right outside of Albany in the Glens Falls area. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Glens Falls to watch basketball, but the Civic Center is a beautiful venue for watching basketball – very unencumbered, no pillars in your way. It holds about 7,000 people and the place was a sea of red – Gloversville fans galore and the game went back and forth, back and forth. We ended up beating them in a tightly fought contest in overtime.
It was funny because we used to play the semifinals on Friday nights and the finals on Sunday – later in my career it was Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, our kids would go and watch the Cs, the Ds and the As, and the talk all over the Civic Center, and even the local newspapers was, “How is little LaSalle going to handle this Nottingham team out of Syracuse with Dorsey Levens?” – the great running back who would go on to star for the Green Bay Packers. He was a tremendous basketball player.
Jason Buchanan went on to star at St. John’s as a point guard. They had won something like 45 straight games, they were the defending state champions, and they were undefeated as we were so you had two great teams. We ended up beating them and people were talking as though they were going to blow us out of the gym by 30 because we barely beat Gloversville 61-60 who was good, and they crushed a team from Section XI on Long Island by 35 points.
But what they didn’t see was the real Eric Gore because he was scoring 27 points a game, and I hate to say it but against Gloversville it was a ‘home job’ – a setup, and the poor kid couldn’t breathe without being called for a foul – it was ridiculous. He finished the semifinal game zero points. He got his third foul at the start of the second quarter. I joke with my old assistant coach who is still works in the Niagara Falls school system Frank Rotundo, who coached for a while at Niagara County Community College.
Frank came down to me with about five minutes left in the game and we were up by six against this great Nottingham team out of Syracuse coached by the legendary Jim McGrath. Coach Rotundo said, “Look at Eric. His head is down at the end of the bench.” I said, “We’re doing okay.” We had Elon McCraken who played at Niagara who stepped in as a junior at Eric’s spot for me and we were handling them with no problem.
Coach Rotundo asked, “Would we be here without Eric?” It gnawed at me and gnawed at me, so I put him in. We had the game basically won. We had no shot clock back then and I ran a really good “delay and strike” game back then where we could kill the clock and surprise you with a back-door layup every once and a while.
I shouldn’t have put him back in, but I listened to my assistant whom to this day I jokingly say to Frank, “You know that’s the last time I ever listen to an assistant.” Eric having such a bad performance got in the game, turned it over, took a couple of bad shots and before you know it, here we are tied in a game that never should have been like that. It ended up going into overtime and Eric fouled out in regulation anyway.
We were down three to Nottingham with ten seconds play in regulation. We had just fouled Dorsey Levens. It was a ‘one and one’, and I called one of my timeouts. I told my players, “Okay remember the power of positive thinking,” hoping it happens but never expecting it to.
They had just instituted the three-point line. If Dorsey missed his shot, we’ll fire up the court and if we don’t get a good shot, we’ll call a time out, draw up a play and get the ball in Michael Starks’ hands. He misses it, and Frank Starks his brother gets the rebound – the player who turned it over against Laettner and Nichols. We never let him shoot it beyond eight feet because he has no touch at all. He pulls up right in front of our bench – it was almost an NBA three – nothing but net, we go into overtime and we win the game going away. It was an incredible game.
That week after we won the State Championship for the public schools, we had to go back and play for the Federation Championship. We played two really good teams out of the Public School Athletic League in New York City – Samuel Gompers and then Nazareth out of Brooklyn who had Robert Phelps who went on and started at Arizona. We beat both of them and ended up 27-0 and I still think that’s a Western New York record. We had successes before then but nothing like that.
The Closing of LaSalle Senior High School and Retiring
Don’t get me wrong, Niagara Falls High School was built in the 1920s and it needed to be replaced, but if it were up to me, I would’ve built Niagara Falls a new high school downtown somewhere on Main Street to try to revitalize the inner-city area there. Leave us alone and let us have the 1,200-1,250 kids like we had. That was another amazing thing in New York State – you had some of these Class A schools who had 3,000 to 4,000 students, and we had 1,250 kids when we would go to Glens Falls and play some of these schools from around the state, and some of the New York City schools.
To me building that one big mega-school with the four towers was crazy. You had teachers who didn’t like each other. You had students who didn’t like each other because of the rivalry and that’s when I retired. Niagara Falls High School has only won one New York State title in 18 years with twice the enrollment since the two schools combined in 2001. That was the year they had Paul Harris and Jonny Flynn amongst other Division I players.
Coaching at Niagara Catholic after the closing of LaSalle Senior High School
“Coach I know you’re not going to the new high school. Would you be interested in helping us out at Niagara-Catholic?” When they tore LaSalle down in 2000, that was it for me, and because my wife was still working, the President of the Board of Trustees at Niagara Catholic Judge Bobby Restino reached out to me. I was down here vacationing in my condo in Naples, FL at the time during Easter when LaSalle was closing.
“You just hired a young guy who graduated from Niagara last year, and he did an okay job for the amount of talent that he had,” I said.
“Well if we can get a Pat Monti, we’d love to have you come in,” he replied.
“You know what, when I get back from Naples Judge, I’ll sit down and talk with you,” I said.
“Your gym is atrocious. You have to renovate it,” I told him – I had some demands.
“It’s in the budget for next year,” he said.
“Well if it can be done this year, I might consider it. Plus, I’d have to bring my assistant Frank Rotundo with me, and Modie Cox,” who was helping us at the time I continued.
“Let me bring it up to the board’s attention,” he said and did, and they agreed.
We were the little guy and I’ll never forget our first time playing St. Joe’s. We had some great run ins with St. Joe’s when I was at LaSalle, but I didn’t have that kind of talent when I was at Niagara Catholic. The year before I want to say that St. Joe’s beat Niagara-Catholic by 54 points. My first year at Niagara Catholic, we lost by two and it was like we had won the freaking NCAA championship and we lost the game.
I coached there three years while my wife was still working and had a lot of fun building up the Niagara Catholic program. Matty Clingersmith who is the really good Baseball Coach at Niagara Community College now. He’s taken them to the National Junior College Tournament just about every year – last year they lost in the National Championships. He was a junior the year before I arrived and sitting the bench at Niagara Catholic. We turned him into an All-Western New Yorker his senior year – he led us in points and rebounds and I want to say that we probably went 15-5 – the year before they might’ve gone 6-14.
The only schools we lost to were the big schools. That was the last head coaching I ever did. Even though in name I’m not the Head Coach, I’ve really called a lot of the shots most of the years I’ve been coaching down here. My system is in place – a lot of the ‘gimmick’ defenses I used to use to shut down big-time scorers, we still use down here. So, I did that at Niagara Catholic and I see this year they had a really good year.
Coach Monti on what should’ve been his first State Final Four team
I’ll be honest with you, what I thought should’ve been our first Final Four team in Glens Falls was our 1983-84 LaSalle team. I had an unbelievable team I thought – no tremendous size. Joe Etopio played at the University at Buffalo (UB) – a 6’4” kid with monster hands (pictured to the left in the middle). If you got him the ball inside, he either got a layup and got fouled, or he just got fouled. I had a really good point guard, “Rockin” Rodney Ingram (pictured above to Joe Etopio’s right). That should’ve been a Final Four team but unfortunately, we just had a bad break.
We played in “The Aud’” (Buffalo Memorial Auditorium) and we were leading South Park who was heavily favored by 15 points in the third quarter. Joe Etopio goes down with a horrendous “charley horse” cramp where he couldn’t even bend his leg so obviously I couldn’t play him. So, they worked on him, and worked on him, and little by little, South Park whittled the down the lead and towards the end they started fouling us – we missed so any freaking front ends of one and ones. It ended up becoming a one-point game with 15 seconds to go. I called a time out, and I asked Joe, “Do you think you can go back in and just throw a pass?” He said, “Yeah Coach I can do that.”
So just inside half court, I drew up an unbelievable ‘big box’ play with some ‘misdirects’. One of our non-scorers was Darnell Bones – a tremendous rebounder on that team and the least likely scorer out of the five starters. I ran a middle misdirect where they thought my guard was going to get the ball, but my guard basically threw a screen while my two big guys cleared out underneath. I had Joe Etopio throw a baseball pass from half court right to the rim to Darnell Bones.
To this day I can see this because there was no three-point shot at the time and I knew that if we got the ball in the backcourt they would foul us, and I didn’t want that the way we were shooting one and ones. I decided to get the three-point lead and the game would be over. With about 15 seconds to go, Joe threw a beautiful pass, the lane was totally cleared out – Rodney threw a beautiful screen on Bones who curls around, catches the ball and goes up.
Back in the day the expansions came off the floor – they’re not bolted to the ceilings the way we do it high school – they’re a little ‘loosey-goosey’. Darnell goes up and who knows why to this day – he was a strong kid at 6’2” – but instead of just laying the ball up, he slaps the backboard and the ball rolls arooound the rim and comes out. One of South Park’s many big guys – they had a big team, threw a full court pass down the left side, and this kid from South Park, their best player catches the ball on the left corner, fires it up on the buzzer and it freaking banks in and we lost by one! That should’ve been the first team to go.
On when the program became successful and point guard Tim Winn
Little by little each year, the persona of the team changed – everything was built around all of our point guards, and it culminated in the last two with Timmy Winn – he’s one of the kids we brought up as a seventh grader, an eighth grader, and then halfway through his ninth-grade season he was on the Varsity team. We went to Glens Falls all four years he played Varsity ball – I don’t know if anybody has ever done that. He played in Glens Falls four years in a row, and he was the MVP of the state tournament his junior and senior years.
He was a tremendous ‘lock down’ defender, and a scorer. His scoring was overshadowed by his defense, and he had a phenomenal career at St. Bonaventure. People think that he went to a little school – St. Bonaventure was a big-time basketball school. He was recruited by a lot of big schools. Bobby Cremins from Georgia Tech at the time which I called ‘Point Guard U’, they wanted him badly and that’s where I wanted him to go because I thought it would give him a better opportunity to play at the next level. He opted to go to St. Bonaventure because of Rob Lanier who played back in the day in Buffalo – Bob Lanier’s cousin – he’s the top assistant for Rick Barnes at Tennessee now.
He used to be with him at Texas, and I think Rob might’ve had a little coaching stint at Siena, but Timmy fell in love with him after he recruited him for Jim Barron who ended up going to Rhode Island. Timmy just like the proximity and being close to home – people could come and see him play in the “Atlantic 10 Conference” which is a good league, and Tim is now in their St. Bonaventure Hall of Fame. He played overseas, and in the old Continental Basketball Association and now he’s in Charlotte with a nice job at Wells-Fargo he’s got a nice family and is doing well.
As a matter of fact, I got inducted in my sixth Hall of Fame last December. I never even knew that Section VI had started a Hall of Fame, but somebody contacted me and said, “You know you’ve been nominated for the Section VI Hall of Fame.” I said, “What the hell are you talking about?” The person replied, “Oh about two to three years ago, they started a sports Hall of Fame and you’re going to be inducted on December 8, 2017.”
I couldn’t believe it, but Timmy drove up that morning from Charlotte to be there. Several of my former players showed up. The last year before the school closed, Dewitt Doss who starred at Canisius – a former gym teacher and now the Athletic Director in the Baltimore Public School System now – he also drove up from Baltimore to be there.
If I had my choice, I’d say give me a great point guard over a big man any day of the week at the high school level and you’ll win. That’s your coach on the floor. Point guards just step up and do the job! I saw in your article with Jason Rowe that we played Buffalo Traditional, but Timmy came up with a severely sprained ankle, and we still gave Traditional a heck of a game because of Jody Crymes and Terry Rich. I think they ended up beating us by three. At that time, those two kids were by far the two premier point guards in the area – Tim and Jason.
On Coaching and Teaching
There’s so much talent down here in Florida and I watch it and there’s no shot clock, but you can put in a 10 second shot clock the way that some of these teams play. It’s like being at the YMCA, it’s crazy – there’s hardly any real coaching going on – they just let them do what they want to do. I never allowed that. We did drills every day in practice – drill, drill, drill and drill again.
Whatever offenses or defenses we ran, we did it again, again, again and again until it became second nature. It was homework and I’d tell the kids, ‘This is what you need for tomorrow. This is your homework.’ I always used to say, ‘This is my classroom – the classroom after the classroom!’
I teared up at one of the hall of fames I got into – it might’ve been the Niagara Falls Sports Hall of Fame – one of my buddies who has since passed away, he was my presenter and the last thing he said before he called me up for my award was, ‘People probably don’t know this, but Coach Monti is a better classroom teacher than he is a basketball coach.’ That really resonated with me – it gave me goosebumps honest to God.
That’s probably why I never went to coach at college where I had some other coaching opportunities – nothing to blow your socks off, but I enjoyed the class room as much as I did the court from a teaching standpoint and that’s why I’m still doing it 50 years later – because I really enjoy sharing what I’ve learned and what I’ve been taught with these young coaches and these young players – teaching them the right way to play the game.
A special thank you is extended to Coach Pat Monti for taking the time out to discuss his story and the LaSalle basketball program. I’d also like to thank Coach Monti’s Wife Kathleen for proofreading this three-part series and polishing it up for us. In case you’ve missed them, see parts one and two of my interview with Coach Monti. Also see my interviews with legendary LaSalle point guard Tim Winn, legendary Buffalo Traditional point guard Jason Rowe, some of my personal basketball stories surrounding my book project, and a piece I wrote up regarding former college and professional basketball player Chris Herren who now tours and speaks about substance abuse and wellness for teens:
I intend to create more promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story, both via print and video as I journey through the final steps of completing the book. I created a page on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book and grouping all the promotional pieces, such as this in one, for interested readers.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Best Regards.
“It’s my job to prepare you for wherever you go after you leave my lab. When you go into a company, no one is going to tell you if your presentations and writings are sloppy. You won’t get promoted and you’ll never know why!”
In my post entitled, Who will benefit from Apple’s $350 billion investment?, I cited data stating that less than 10% of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) degree holders are African American – a staggering number as these are some of the highest paying careers today. With the first principle of my blog being “Creating Ecosystems of Success”, and one of my focuses being awareness of the STEM careers, I wanted to tell my story.
Thus far I’ve published posts discussing the ‘Biomedical’ sciences I’ve been trained in, ‘Regulatory’ science, the ‘Applied’ sciences, and the ‘Transferrable’ skills learned when earning STEM degrees. In these posts I’ve attempted to make these sciences easily understandable for students and families with backgrounds like my own (see the story of my blog). Potentially the most important story of all though is how one becomes a STEM professional.
I’m a firm believer in teaching the ‘how’. It’s important to encourage participation in the STEMs, but as a student who walked into my training not fully understanding the opportunity in front of me, I think it’s also important to share what went into earning my STEM degree in a very open and honest way – the good, the bad and the ugly – no fairy tales and no magic. In this post, I’m thus revisiting both my learning points science-wise, and some personal challenges during the process as an African American male coming from Buffalo’s east side. The latter challenges may surprise you.
The majority of the visuals used in this piece are materials from my thesis. Click on any of them to enlarge them. Lastly in this piece I refer to my thesis project without getting into its specifics. I describe it in greater detail in my Basic Sciences and Basic Research post.
Learning how to do Science
I fell in love with “Life Science” in the seventh grade at Campus West in Buffalo, NY. I followed that love into Hutch-Tech High School where I majored in ‘Biotechnology’ (AP Biology). At Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), I distinguished myself as a ‘A’ student in my core courses as a Biology major which led to my participation in the Ronald E. McNair Program, where I worked two summers in a Hepatic (Liver) Physiology lab.
It was my first time performing ‘Basic’ scientific research (see my Basic Sciences and Research post). I earned an undergraduate fellowship from the Environmental Protection Agency my last two years at JCSU. This precluded my participation in the ‘Minority Access to Research Careers’ (MARC) Program where I would’ve worked on a research project year-round, and would’ve gained more valuable experience.
Having participated in the McNair Program, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Pharmacology, thinking that working in a Pharmaceutical company like Pfizer or Merck would provide stable employment. Thus, the sole focus for my science training was finding a job. While a Ph.D. in Pharmacology would help me get there, I didn’t completely understand what the road to a Ph.D. in this particular STEM field entailed, as I didn’t yet know how to do science fulltime.
Rigorous Scientific Research
“Anwar has never done rigorous scientific research before,” my Graduate Advisor, a fellow Western New Yorker, wrote in my evaluation for my second lab rotation within the Department of Pharmacology of the University of Michigan. He gave me an ‘A’ which I was happy about, though based upon his statement, I wasn’t sure how I’d done in the lab. Did I perform adequately over those four months? Did I underperform, but still received an ‘A’ just because? Either way, he allowed me work under him for my thesis project – perhaps seeing some potential in me.
What made me want to stay in his lab? After my summers in the McNair Program, I knew something about the enzyme my Graduate Advisor’s lab worked on; “Neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase” (see my Basic Sciences and Research post). I was also encouraged by two more senior students in another lab to stay based upon my advisor’s: talent, his productive track record and the productivity of his students.
By the way, in the coming years when prospective students would visit our department, my Graduate Advisor was always very adamant about the prospects getting the current students’ perspectives on the department. I think his reasons were that doctoral research is a significant life and time commitment as you’ll see later, and it’s in a student’s best interest not to walk into a department ‘blind’. Ideally, they should have a feel for the overall climate of their prospective department; its culture, its faculty and whether its students go on to establish their own careers.
The Basic Sciences and Research
The Basic Sciences and Basic Research are worlds all in themselves, worlds I initially didn’t know how to succeed in. Aside from some of my teachers in high school, there were no STEM professionals in my ecosystem in Buffalo. Also, once again, while my summers in the McNair Program gave me a taste of this new adventure I was embarking upon, they didn’t show what the experience would be like fulltime.
What qualities and attributes were needed to earn my Ph.D. in the STEM field I had chosen? One very important quality/value I received from my home ecosystem was that of hard work and the importance of doing quality work. I’ll credit my mother for this and her many years of making us do chores at home, which instilled a sense of personal responsibility and pride in my work. Also, the adversity-filled experience on my high school basketball team taught me how not to quit on things when they got hard – another valuable tool. Lastly, I was always naturally very malleable personality-wise, and open to being taught.
My Dad’s words about excelling in my coursework helped me to get into Graduate School and were useful until the end of my coursework. Once the fulltime research phase began however, it was a whole different ballgame, as working for my Graduate Advisor required a host of other ‘tools’.
I myself was a ‘project’ going into my Graduate Advisor’s lab – one which needed to be built from the ground up. There were plenty of challenging times for both of us as my first two to three years were spent literally just figuring things out. Fortunately, he was willing to teach me as long as I was willing to do the work and be taught. What do I mean by figuring things out? The following is a summary of what I learned as I worked on my thesis project:
Learning to ask Questions, to be Inquisitive and to Talk about Science
I added this learning point in last, but it may be the most important of all. I’ll credit the whole department for teaching me this lesson. One classmate and one professor stand out here. Verbally asking questions is essential to doing science. In my Basic Sciences and Basic Research post, I described how our experiments were questions themselves, but it’s also very important to be able to verbally ask questions of peers about their science both one on one, and in group settings in a respectful way.
During graduate school, I sat in on numerous seminars, and I was initially afraid to ask questions in front of everyone else. Part of it was a fear of sounding foolish. The other part of it was that while I’d excelled in my coursework as an undergraduate, I didn’t regularly talk about science with my classmates at my undergraduate institution. Over time I overcame my fears and got to the point where getting my questions answered superseded everything else.
Seeing and Understanding the Science through my Advisor’s Eyes
“You’re going to have to drive the project!” My biggest learning point was learning to see the science through my Graduate Advisor’s eyes, and not just in terms of obtaining my Ph.D. and finding a job. There was an ‘art’ to science, a thought process, a methodology, a culture and a lifestyle. It took about five years of training to get to the point where I could start see the science the way he saw it, and even talk about my project the way he talked about it.
I needed to understand the science in its entirety and appreciate the process, and all the challenges involved. I needed to approach my research like a professional; to design my experiments systematically and proactively – to think about the limitations of our experiments and the data we generated, to think of the next steps, and to always think about the final published paper.
Doing Science in the Lab Everyday vs. Learning about it in the Classroom
There’s a major difference between learning about science in a classroom setting, and actually doing quality science fulltime. For me that involved being proactive about my work, and being consistent in everything I did experimentally, in my writings and my presentations. Our experiments were questions, the results were the answers, and we needed the answers in a timely fashion. Everything needed to be approached with a sense of urgency, and in a way, time was our enemy. It also involved thinking about the project when outside of the lab – something my Advisor and his peers and competitors did – sometimes at the expense of other things.
I was now out on the edges of science in the ‘trenches’, trying to discover new knowledge. A major part of this involved approaching my thesis project like a job. And in many ways it was, as my peers and I received stipends. It wasn’t a high-paying job in terms of salary, but instead the payment was knowledge and wisdom which would equate to greater financial compensation later.
Graduate Research is in part a Job or an Apprenticeships line one of the Skill Trades
“This is your job now!” My Graduate Advisor and I had this conversation after my completing two years of coursework and starting my thesis project fulltime. I hadn’t made the connection yet that my research involved being in the lab 100% of the time. It required being on time in a job-like setting where I’d work on my project daily at a work bench – sometimes at night and on weekends. The data generated from my project would be published in scientific journals, as well as when my Graduate Advisor sought to renew his own research grants. Finally, it would be the basis for my completed dissertation, in addition to a record of my productivity after eventually leaving his lab.
Learning to Multitask
I had to learn to work smart, and not just hard. My Graduate Advisor instilled in me the ability to multitask and to, “have multiple things going at once,” as he always emphasized. In addition to working on my own project, I was also responsible for growing the stocks of proteins that the entire lab used, which was a huge responsibility. I was also the lab’s “Chemical Safety” officer who was responsible for all the lab’s waste disposal – chemical and radioactive. Multitasking was what he did on a grander scale all year. As a student, it seemed unfair at the time, but it’s a skill that has transcended our lab into other arenas, as with everything he taught us.
Learning to Compete and the Culture of Science
“You have to know where the line is, and then do your best to stay above it,” my Graduate Advisor told me years later after I graduated. Though I didn’t understand it at the time, he was teaching his students how to compete and survive. It’s not widely discussed, but science is about competition, especially in academia where at any given time, multiple labs around the country, and even around the world, are working to make the same scientific breakthrough. It’s an arena where ultimately, the group who makes the finding first gets the fame and notoriety, and future grant funding.
There was such a thing as being ‘scooped’. This is when another lab made the finding first, leaving its competitors to either disprove it, to add something to it, or to work on something else altogether. Because my Advisor was so talented and hungry, it never happened to us, but I saw it happen to some of my peers and their labs. Nothing was guaranteed. Just like he had to fight and claw to keep his lab running, I also had to fight and claw to push my project through to completion. I further had to fight and claw to stay in the department and finish my degree. Science and life are about competition.
“I know that I drove you guys pretty hard,” my Advisor shared with me years after I graduated, which we both smiled about. At times he was very abrasive, aggressive and very demanding of us. It was for a reason though and I realized during my training that working for brilliant and driven people is hard, but if you can stay in the process and take their coaching, you’ll be better off for it later.
Driven by Their Research
My Graduate Advisor attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an undergraduate, the University of Michigan for graduate school, and then the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for his own postdoctoral training before becoming a professor at the University of Michigan. We never talked about MIT in my ecosystem in Buffalo, and I just started understanding my Advisor’s pedigree towards the end of my training. His father was a scientist as well, and he thus had exposure to science at an early age, and even earned a couple of patents before starting college. Don’t get me wrong, having parents in the STEMs isn’t a necessity to getting into one of the fields yourself, but the early exposure can pay huge dividends later.
This is a good place to state that my Graduate Advisor, his peers, and scientists at most research universities are driven by their scientific research, and they’re always thinking about it; late at night, and even on family vacations. The argument can be made that their research is their purpose for living. The truly talented ones are further tough enough to withstand any environmental changes such as when the second Bush Administration cut the NIH’s budget, causing many labs around the country to downsize or perish altogether, while others figured out how to survive.
“You all are very different than we were! When I was a graduate student, we fought over the latest issues of theJournal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (JPET),” said one of the more senior and celebrated faculty in our department who was jokingly said to have invented the Heart. He felt that we weren’t studying up on our field enough in our spare time beyond our core curricula. Most of us were only doing the minimum reading and studying, something my Graduate Advisor also stayed on me about during my training.
Learning to Manage my Life outside of the Lab so that I could do Science
Learning to manage my life outside of the lab so I could do science
The accompanying newspaper clipping is from one of Buffalo’s local weekly black publications, The Challenger. My mother proudly submitted the story and that’s her handwriting on the top of the clipping. It was a big deal back home and she even shared with me that I’d exceeded her expectations which was very gratifying. When looking at the clipping, it’s something to proud of, but what you don’t see there is that there were a host of personal learning points outside of the lab as well – experiences which could’ve derailed the whole thing.
Being African American and ascending in education and a career often leads to discussions of “forgetting where you came from”. So, I want to close with what I learned about how life outside of the lab can affect one’s ability to do science and be a professional. Sometimes it’s actually necessary to leave certain parts of your old life behind. I learned on numerous occasions during my STEM training that I had to protect both my project and my life. That is, I had to make strategic decisions in my personal life that would increase my chances of finishing my degree and surviving to talk about it.
While working on my thesis I got involved in a very chaotic romantic relationship which compromised my mind, spirit and overall well-being at times; nearly derailing my project and potentially adversely affecting my Graduate Advisor’s entire lab all at the same time. There was one day I consider a near death experience – something I’ve discussed with friends and relatives only in bits and pieces. Fortunately, I survived, but this type of thing wasn’t restricted to my significant other.
There were two instances involving two close friends whom I consider my second and third brothers. One incident transpired over a Thanksgiving holiday and the other a Christmas holiday – both of which involved nearly getting pulled into violent confrontations late at night at nightclubs and parties in my hometown of Buffalo, NY. One friend had too much to drink and in the process of having his own fun, inadvertently splashed another guy with his beer. The guy who got splashed was unhappy about it and started following us around the venue. While I thought bullets might fly, my friend got away with just getting punched and knocked out temporarily. Fortunately, we both made it home safely.
In the second incident, another buddy wanted to stay and confront some guys over a female outside of a nightclub. Apparently, he was looking at the guy’s lady and there was an initial confrontation I didn’t see inside the venue. My friend didn’t want to appear afraid and wanted us to take our time leaving. When I realized what was going on, I wanted to leave immediately – something he and I clashed over afterwards. Fortunately again, nothing happened, and we got out of there safely.
Neither of these incidents were worth the potential price to be paid. Neither my significant other, or either of my friends considered the possibility of my showing up to the lab in a cast, with a black eye, or with teeth missing, or maybe being laid up in a hospital, unable to continue my research. The take home message from all of this is that you must be your own best advocate in life. None of us can avoid tragedies, but there are some things we can avoid.
You must protect what you’re doing, sometimes from people around you in your family circle, friends or significant others, because someone else’s selfishness and bad decisions can hinder your life and professional aspirations. In my case it was earning my STEM degree and starting my career.
Closing Thoughts
“Give a man fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
I included this famous quote from the Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu because the road to my STEM degree was literally like learning how to fish. The opening quote from this piece is from one of my many talks with my Graduate Advisor. In some ways our relationship evolved into that of a father and a son which I’m very, very grateful for as not every student had this. I saw several peers leave partway through their graduate training without their doctorates either due to a loss of hope, or irreconcilable differences with their advisors. Some were African American, but not all were.
This is my STEM story and there are many others out there. I want to point out that the point of telling this story was not for my glorification. As I said in the opening, I think it’s critical to explain all sides of the process in addition to simply encouraging students to get involved in the STEMs solely because of our under-representation as African Americans, and because of the monetary benefit. The how is very, very important. If you’re a STEM professional, I encourage you to also tell your story to STEM-hopefuls in an age-appropriate way.
I’d like to end this story by acknowledging the late Dr. Minor J. Coon. Dr. Coon was not only a member of my Thesis Committee (on the program above), but he was also a legend and a pioneer the in the study of Phase I Drug Metabolizing Enzymes – Cytochrome P450s particularly. Dr. Coon actually trained my Graduate Advisor who subsequently suggested asking Dr. Coon to be on my committee – something that surprised me as we all looked upon him with great reverence. Growing up on Buffalo’s east side, I never dreamt of being a part of such a well accomplished tree of scientists.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy:
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Best Regards.
“It doesn’t matter what sport it is. It doesn’t matter what realm of life it is, if I approach it with same approach I used on the court at LaSalle, I’m going to win. Period.”
This is part two of my interview with legendary LaSalle Senior High School point guard Tim Winn. The interview was a part of the research for my two-part book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. In part one, we discussed his background, how he started playing basketball and how he became a LaSalle Explorer. In part two, we talk more about playing in the LaSalle basketball program, where Tim played college basketball, the closing of LaSalle Senior High School, and finally, how basketball has changed.
The pictures in this interview come from an archive of Western New York basketball assembled over the years from issues of the Buffalo News, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, and Sections V and VI playoff programs by my first Coach at Hutch-Tech High School, Dr. Ken Jones. Other pictures were generously shared by Tim himself, and his Head Coach at LaSalle Senior High School, Pat Monti. Click on any of the images to enlarge them. Links follow up video interviews with Tim, Modie Cox and other LaSalle coaches and players are at the end of this interview.
Anwar Dunbar: So, with your team having its eyes on Glens Falls the entire time, it sounds like even though you were getting everyone’s best shot every night, you weren’t very concerned with any of the other Section VI teams.
Tim Winn: Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of tough teams in Western New York, but there wasn’t one game there that was going to take us up too high, or take us down too low no matter what the results were, because our goal every year was Glens Falls. It’s like the Cleveland Cavaliers right now. Yes, Boston is tough, but for the Cavs it’s championship or bust. Once you get to Glens Falls a couple of times, you’re not accepting anything else. No matter what the ups and downs are during the year, your eyes are still on that prize, and it’s all that really matters to you.
AD: Were there any games in Section VI that you had circled? Niagara Falls High School, for example. That was a ‘rivalry’ game wasn’t it?
TW: It was a rivalry game. It was great for the community. You can compare it to St. Joe’s, Canisius. For us it was a great game. It brought the community together. You might be playing some of the most intense basketball against one of your cousins. You had family at both schools and everyone came out.
It was probably one of the best traditions our city doesn’t have anymore. We looked forward to playing against St. Joe’s. Obviously Buffalo Traditional, the team played them my senior year, but I didn’t because I sprained my ankle working on my jump shot in an open gym. Everyone in the world was waiting to see that game.
AD: So, Tim, what was your game? Were you a penetrator? Could you eventually do everything offensively?
TW: By my senior year, I could do everything. My staple though was defense. I would lock anybody up – that’s just how I felt. I was 5’9” and 165 pounds, but my heart was as big as Isaiah Thomas’. Coach Monti put me on anybody and it didn’t matter their size – I was locking them down. That was my greatest skill set by far, and it was probably the most aggressive part of my game for my entire career. I didn’t develop what I would call a ‘well-rounded’ offensive game until my senior year in high school, and that’s with me averaging 23 points a game as a junior. At that point I could get to the basket and I could shoot; whatever the game presented to me.
AD: What kind of student were you while you were playing for LaSalle?
TW: At LaSalle you didn’t have any choice but to be a good student. I talked about not being able to play if you didn’t defend, but also if you didn’t go to class you couldn’t play. Coach Monti had a program that really set you up for life and for me that was a really big deal. From the start I was wondering what I would have to do to get into college. From the start it was like, ‘You’re going to take this level of classes, we’re going to have progress reports every five weeks for everybody, and if you don’t perform academically, you can forget about it.’
It didn’t matter who you were, you were held to these standards and there was no favoritism. You were going to walk a certain way, and you were going to carry yourself a certain way in the classroom. School was going to be more important than any state championship, and if not, then it may not have been the program for you.
AD: So Coach Monti was actively monitoring your grades then?
TW: Everything. He monitored how many steps you took down one hallway. It was the best thing that ever happened to me – to have someone care about your development that much as a young man. It wasn’t just about basketball – he treated all of his players like family – like his sons.
AD: Was there a particular quote he used to tell the team regularly?
TW: No, there wasn’t necessarily a quote as much as it was a philosophy. You just knew when you were dealing with him, you had no choice but to walk the straight and narrow. There is a lot of structure that young men need that a lot of them don’t get these days. You knew that if you weren’t handling your business in the classroom, you had a problem on your hands and you did not want to make it to his classroom. That type of program for me and my teammates was everything. You still hear guys talking about it right now, ‘If Coach Monti was here, if Coach Monti was in the Falls,’ just because of what it did for us.
AD: When did the colleges start recruiting you?
TW: I think I started getting recruited in my sophomore year. During my sophomore year all the local schools started recruiting me. The summer after my sophomore year, after we made it back to Glens Falls, it picked up because I went to a couple of camps where I did pretty well. I’d say beginning to mid-sophomore year and onward.
AD: Which schools came calling?
TW: I turned down Syracuse and Georgia Tech. Amongst my circle, we still talk about it all the time. I was ‘signed, sealed and delivered to Syracuse,’ but the young and naïve me not having anyone else in my family who went through the experience, I pulled out of it at the last minute. I remember being at the State Fair in Syracuse and I was supposed to go verbally commit. My friend, Romell Lloyd, went the next year and Malik Campbell (Turner/Carroll, pictured below in the All-Western New York photos) was at the Fair at the same time. We were all supposed to go, but I pulled out at the last minute.
AD: Why didn’t you go?
TW: It was a last-minute change of heart. Rob Lanier had watched some of my games at the ABCD Camp and I told him that I was still open, and then St. Bonaventure started recruiting me.
TW: I didn’t and that was the young me. I didn’t tell anybody about it. He’s from Syracuse and I know for a fact he wouldn’t have let me pull out of going to Syracuse. It’s one of those things. I don’t have regrets now, but as an older man, sometimes I think about it.
AD: So you went to St. Bonaventure. I remember seeing you on TV. What was it like playing at St. Bonaventure?
TW: Anytime you go to college and away from home, there’s going to be an adjustment. I sold my family on my not going to Syracuse and going to St. Bonaventure instead by telling them that, ‘I can go to Syracuse and be expected to win 20 games every year, right? I can win 20 games there and go the NCAA Tournament and I’m just one of the guys. St. Bonaventure hadn’t been to the NCAA Tournament in 30 years, and if I can get them there, I’ll be a legend.’ It meant more to me to leave that type of legacy behind.
AD: Did you play all four years? And did you make it into the NCAA Tournament?
TW: We made it my senior year. We played Kentucky in the opening round. It went into double overtime.
AD: By the time you were a senior were you leading the Bonnies in scoring or assists?
TW: I think my junior and senior years I was leading my team in scoring, assists and steals. In my junior year, I was second in the nation in steals behind a guy named Shante Rogers from George Washington University.
AD: So you said you learned the most basketball at LaSalle. Was it an easy transition to go play for Jim Baron at St. Bonaventure?
TW: It was. The only adjustment was getting ‘college-strong’, getting my body on the level. There wasn’t anything that I wasn’t prepared for, so it was just a matter of getting up under one of those weight programs and getting my body to catch up with my mind.
AD: I know a highlight for Jason was playing against Allen Iverson. Were there any particular matchups that stand out to you?
TW: Tim Hardaway and I were teammates for an All-Star game in the ABA. For me, Tim Hardaway is a pretty big deal. I’ve played with Olden Polynice. I’ve also played with Keith Claus. I’ve played a bunch of guys who played in the NBA, who came down to the minor leagues.
AD: How many years did you play Pro-ball?
TW: I stopped playing in 2007, so about seven years. I could’ve kept playing, but I chose a ‘regular’ life to put that degree to work.
AD: Were you getting tired of all the travel? The sleeping in hotels?
TW: It’s very tiring. The minor leagues are a year-round job and there’s really no offseason. It gets tiring after a while. You don’t have the NBA’s budget to take care of your body so it got taxing after a while.
AD: What career did you settle into when you left basketball?
TW: I was the Vice-Principal in a school in Buffalo called “Sankofa Charter School”. That came through a basketball connection. I did an appearance at the school. The kids liked it, and I was asked to become the Dean of Students which was the equivalent of being the Vice-Principal in the charter school environment. I did that for a couple of years and the school closed. Then I moved my family to Charlotte, NC.
AD: Are you still involved in the game in any way? Are you coaching an AAU team? Do you still compete in any way?
TW: It’s crazy. I’m cold turkey. I’ve been asked on numerous occasions to help coach AAU. Jeff Bishop is down here and he’s asked me on several different occasions to help him out with his AAU program. My son plays baseball and is nine years old, so I really don’t have the time to dedicate to something on that level. I wouldn’t want to cheat a group of kids by me not being there consistently. I don’t play at all and all I have left are old stories (laughing).
AD: Interesting.
TW: And I’m cool with it.
AD: Yes, it sounds like you’ve done just about everything with basketball. Going back to the LaSalle days, do you remember what your best game was? Was it one of the state tournament games? Was it one of the Niagara Falls games?
TW: It was a bunch of games. Locally, I gave Turner/Carroll 39 points, and that’s a big deal because Antoine Sims was always a great competitor and to have a great game against Turner/Carroll and that caliber of player, it’s going to stay with you for a while. I had 52 points in a game which broke Carlos Bradberry’s record; regarding records that was a big deal. My senior year in Glens Falls in the semifinal game, I scored 35 points. We were down big in the fourth quarter and then scored 39 points as a team to come back and win to advance. It was a big stage and that was against Hempstead who beat us when Carlos was a senior, so it was a little bit of payback.
AD: Of all four of your years, was there one that was your favorite?
TW: Easily. It was my junior year by far. We had a three-guard lineup and as humble as I can be in saying this, there was not another guard combination in Western New York who could stop us. You don’t really feel it when you’re in it, but now that I’m older and I’m watching the tapes, it’s just unreal to watch that team and those three guards – me being one of them.
You couldn’t key on me because Jody Crymes would give you 20 points. You couldn’t key on Jody because Terry Rich would give you 20 points. We were a well-oiled machine, and I think all three of us had over 100 steals apiece that season. It was a lot easier than my senior year.
AD: And you guys were able to nullify any height advantage your opponents had?
TW: That was our thing. You might have height, but could you run? And then, can your guards get you the ball? We didn’t lose sleep playing guys who had players 6’8” because the chances of them getting the ball over half court were slim to none.
AD: Was there anything that surprised you during your time at LaSalle?
TW: I didn’t really know how to score until I played alongside Carlos Bradberry (pictured to the left). Prior to that, all I did was steal a bunch of different skill sets from a bunch of different players who came before me. I put my attitude and personality behind me, figured out where I still had weaknesses and worked on it. Playing with Carlos my freshman year, taught me how to score; just watching how he would get buckets.
I may be the all-time leading scorer in LaSalle’s history, but I had 500 steals. Carlos had at least 1,600 points, but they were straight buckets. I keep mentioning Modie Cox – knowing that he’s in the program and living a couple of houses down from me as well – being able to watch that and watch him lead a team as a young kid meant a lot. In my junior year, we were in the semifinals in Glens Falls. Jody Crymes came down on four different possessions and scored. I’ve never been in a game where someone else besides me said, ‘We’re not losing today.’ It was one of the ‘awe-moments’ for me.
AD: I remember trying out for the Empire State Games in my sophomore year. Jody (pictured to the left) showed up with Curtis Ralands. I was on Jody’s team before the first cut.
He was lightening quick, and on one play he penetrated down the lane and I followed him down the lane looking to get a potential offensive rebound. He threw a no-look pass behind his head to me, and I didn’t expect it so it sailed right passed me. He turned around and looked me with an expression like, ‘What happened?’ I wasn’t used to playing with that caliber of player, and you guys played at that high level, and I can only imagine the three of you on the floor at once.
You went to Glens Falls all four years. For kids who never went, what’s the experience like?
TW: I guess when you win a lot, you don’t know what it’s like to not be in the environment that you’re in. I never experienced a down-time or a losing situation. To not know what it’s like to be in front of a packed house, to not be in the hotels, to not go to Glens Falls, I’ve never experienced that. Not going would’ve been a failure for us. So, for me it was what we were supposed to do, and it was how we were supposed to be treated. The message was, when you win, this is how it’s supposed to go.
AD: That’s fascinating because there were many kids who were happy just to qualify for the sectionals, but for you and your team it was getting to and winning in Glens Falls. Otherwise, it wasn’t a successful season. So, there’s something here about where you set your sights and what you shoot for.
TW: If we had lost in the sectionals it would’ve been the biggest tragedy for our program ever. Once we beat the Rochester team my freshman year (McQuaid Jesuit) in the Far West Regional, it moved to that, and I felt like we were never not going to play in this game. We knew what it felt like to win that game, and we knew what defeat felt like because John Wallace’s team (Greece-Athena) beat us the year before. Being an eighth-grader and being exposed to that game, I felt like one day I would be the guy to lead us.
AD: There are whole generations of kids who know nothing of the LaSalle Explorers except in legends and old wive’s-tales. Where were you when you heard that they were going to close and demolish LaSalle Senior High School? How did you feel when you heard it?
TW: I’m still in disbelief. So much tradition came through there, and so many success stories; not just basketball, but in general. Imagine that you buy a house and it’s in your family for 30-40 years and then you come home and the house is torn down. It felt like they tore down the house that’s been passed down for generations in our family.
I’m also bothered by the fact that when they combined the schools, Pat Monti wasn’t named the Head Coach of the Varsity program. That let me know that there is a gift and a curse to winning all the time.
AD: Okay, we’re speculating here, but does that mean there was some sort of conspiracy to keep Coach Monti out?
TW: It’s all politics. How does the best basketball coach in Niagara Falls history not get that job? He was the best coach to come through the city, one of the best coaches in Western New York. He’s in four to five different halls of fame. It’s one thing to close the school down, but to bring politics into the equation and not give him the next job? It wouldn’t have hurt as much if he had gotten the next job because the tradition would have still been in the city. Since LaSalle closed, there’s only been on state champion out of Niagara Falls, and that’s when my little cousin Paul Harris and those guys won it.
That’s the only state championship since we closed. But if you look at the rosters at Niagara Falls High School since LaSalle closed, they should have at least six or seven state championships.
AD: We can keep this off the record, but do you think there were parties that were looking at all of Coach Monti’s success and felt that you all had an unfair advantage, or were they just ready to see the brown and gold go away?
TW: As great as Coach Monti was, the people he beat up on all the time didn’t like him. Imagine being beat for years. Just think about our rivalry with Niagara Falls High School. I think we won 40 or more straight games from the late 1980s until the school closed. All of the coaches and superintendents who are responsible for the new school opening were not going to let him be the coach after kicking their asses for all of those years.
AD: Well I did ask Coach Monti that – were all the other coaches happy to see you go once word got out? He laughed. We have a few more questions, Tim. How have players changed since the days you were at LaSalle. I hear they have ‘trainers’ now, and Jason Rowe said everything is on social media. How has basketball changed?
TW: Winning has taken a backseat to stats. It no longer dominates the emotion and I don’t know when it went out of style. Your stat-line dictates everything nowadays.
In the past, winning dictated everything. You see a ton of players who don’t know how to play the game. Because winning doesn’t dominate the emotion anymore, it’s hard to call a kid on it. When winning doesn’t come first, it’s hard to complain about anything a kid does in a game. To me, that’s the biggest difference between now and back then.
Jason and I spent a lot of time together back then. I knew what it meant to him to win. Triple-doubles aside, to not win – we’re from that era where winning was everything. Yes, I had 40 points, but we won. That dominated everything for us. You worked on your jump shot so you could win. You worked on your handle so you could win. Everything was set up so you could be better placed to win the following year.
When Jason and his team weren’t winning the Rochester game, I know that he and “Mush” (Damien Foster, pictured below) went to work in the summer so they could win that game. They didn’t go to work so they could come back and average 25 and 30 points – it was time to win a state championship. There’s enough talent back home where they should be winning on a high level, but you can’t make kids approach it like that.
AD: You know they say kids today are softer, they don’t communicate the same way.
TW: Everyone is friends and that’s one of my biggest pet peeves. I love Jason and he’s my guy. We’ve been friends since he was little. I swear to you that when it came to “checking the ball up”, he was my worst enemy. There’s something missing in competition these days.
If you put Jason and me in this era, I don’t think we would be as good. I’m talking about mentally, because we would’ve been too cool with each other. Talent-wise we would’ve killed this day and age, but I think one of the best things we had in us was that we were fierce competitors, would go to war with each other and literally go get a burger later.
AD: So, Tim, is this kind of a LeBron James–Kevin Durant type of thing where it’s okay to go make a team versus building your own?
TW: Yep, it is. It always starts at the top. The players these kids look up to are all friends. Kevin Durant and LeBron James are really, really good friends. For me, I could never be that good a friend with someone to where it would impact my approach on the court. It didn’t matter who you were, I wanted to go through you on the court; family included, friends included. It didn’t matter; my mother couldn’t get a bucket on me.
Again, it’s different eras, and just like Jason (pictured with Tim to the left) said, with the impact of social media, it’s required for you to have personality. Everyone wants to be cool now and it’s just completely different than when we were young. At that time your game spoke for you. You didn’t need social media. You didn’t have to talk anywhere else. When you were on the court, it was ‘Check it up. Check ball!’ There was no greater voice than ‘Check ball!’
AD: Alright, two more. For youngsters aspiring to play basketball or to pursue any other life goal, what advice would you give them?
TW: If you’re serious about it, treat it like a job. Go to work every day. There’s a ton of kids who have trainers, and to me that work ethic is missing in today’s kids. You know which kids are working from a mile away. If it’s something that you’re serious about dive in, dive all the way in. Don’t dive halfway in and want all the results. There are a lot of kids who will give you 15% effort, but want 120% back in terms of the results. It doesn’t work that way and this is a game you really, really must go to work for.
AD: So do you think it’s unusual that they would need trainers?
TW: I think it all depends on whose hands you’re in. To me that’s everything. There are a million trainers now, a million guys like Jason Rowe and Mark Price. I would send my kids to them because I know where they’re from. I know them personally and I know their games and their resumes, so I don’t have to question what they’ll do for my kid.
One of my biggest pet peeves is kids can’t workout unless they have a trainer. Whatever happened to dribbling the ball down the street to the park? Kids won’t just go to the gym and play pickup ball anymore and that’s the era that we live in.
AD: Wow. That is strange.
TW: I’ll ask kids, ‘Are you working out?’ They’ll say, ‘I’m trying to get a trainer.’ No! Whatever happened to just getting your ball and dribbling down the middle of the street? One, two, three between the legs. One, two, three between the legs and crossover. I’m all for trainers getting their money, but I must know that it’s on the level of a Jason or Mark training them.
AD: Okay, the last question. What did playing at LaSalle for St. Bonaventure and then playing professionally teach you about life and success?
TW: For me it was one thing playing in that program. It taught me how to be a young man, and the success of the program made me feel like I could do anything. I don’t know losing, so I approach everything the same way I approached those games back then. I expected to go to Glens Falls, so when I’m in a job interview now, I expect to win.
I’m currently at Wells Fargo on the technology side and I expect to win. Playing for LaSalle, I’ve carried myself a certain way all my life because of that experience. It’s confidence, it’s borderline cockiness sometimes.
I always believe that if I approach it with the right work ethic, then it’s game over. It doesn’t matter what sport it is. It doesn’t matter what realm of life it is. If I approach it with same approach I used on the court at LaSalle, I’m going to win. Period.
And you can ask any of the teammates that I’ve had. It’s just something that’s in you. It just did something to us as kids. We just always believe that we’re going to be alright.
AD: Well Tim, that’s all I’ve got, unless you have any other comments or stories, thank you for telling your story.
TW: It’s been an honor to speak on this.
A special thank you is extended to Tim Winn for taking the time out to discuss his story and the LaSalle basketball program. In case you missed it, see part one of our interview. Also see parts one and two of my interview with legendary LaSalle Head Coach Pat Monti, my interview with legendary Buffalo Traditional point guard Jason Rowe, some of my personal basketball stories surrounding my book project, and a piece I wrote up regarding former college and professionals basketball player Chris Herren, who now tours and speaks about substance and wellness for teens:
I intend to create more promotional/teaser pieces for The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story, both via print and video as I journey through the final steps of completing the book. I created a page on Big Words Authors for the purpose of giving a background of the book and grouping all the promotional pieces, such as this in one, for interested readers.
The Big Words LLC Newsletter
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Yours in good sports. Best Regards.
“In addition to understanding the fundamental principles of one’s field, a major part of understanding Basic Research and Science is understanding the instruments and technologies used.”
One of the focuses of my blog is awareness of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Thus far, I’ve written posts covering the “Biomedical Sciences” I’ve been trained in including: Pharmacology, Toxicology, ADME/Drug Metabolism, and Inhalation Toxicology. I’ve also written a post discussing “Regulatory Science” in the Public and Private sectors, in which I discussed the “Applied Sciences” and “Research and Development”. In this post I want to discuss the “Basic Sciences” and “Basic Research”, the foundations from which we receive all our new scientific knowledge.
The foundations of any of our commercial scientific and technological innovations are the Basic Sciences and Basic Research. A simple Google search led me to a site which stated that the four major Basic Sciences are: Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics. Many people consider Physics to be the ‘Grandfather’ of all the sciences because each of the others rest upon its shoulders in some way. Any of the other Basic Sciences fall under one of these four branches.
For Biology for example, many of the sciences underneath its vast umbrella include: Biomedical Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Environmental Sciences, etc. Within the Biomedical Sciences there are the sciences I’ve written about, as well as: Cellular and Molecular Biology, Genetics, Microbiology, Virology, etc. The same is true for Chemistry under which there are: Analytical Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, etc. While Physics is its own discipline with its own subdisciplines, as you’ll see later, its principles permeate throughout the other major sciences, especially when you’re carrying out ‘Basic’ scientific research.
Basic Research is simply the pursuit of new knowledge and the understanding of a specific area of focus. As described throughout my blog, my Ph.D. is in Pharmacology, with two and a half years of training in its sister science, Toxicology. In the Basic Research world scientists known as ‘Principal Investigators’ run labs at major research institutions, like the University of Michigan, where they have specific research areas of interest.
Principal Investigators ask specific research questions in their areas of focus through their research projects. They arrive at their answers for these questions through experiments and report their results in papers published in scientific journals. To carry out their research, which I’ll describe later, Investigators usually receive grant funding from federal sources such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), or from the Private Sector. As you’ll see there is a business side to research, both in academia and in the private sector.
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As described in my Pharmacology post, there are numerous sub-disciplines within Pharmacology. My Graduate Advisor’s area of focus was ADME/Drug Metabolism which involved some aspects of Biochemistry and Cell Biology based upon the questions he was asking. For the remainder of this post I am going to discuss my thesis project in his lab to give readers a feel for what Basic Research is and why it’s important. Some of the terms I’m going to use will be on the esoteric side, but I’m going to do my best to keep the discussion as simple as possible.
The title of my thesis project was the “Labilization and Proteasomal Degradation of Neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase” – a mouthful for anyone unfamiliar with the field. If you google me, you’ll find two ‘first author’ publications that I published in my Graduate Advisor’s lab with the assistance of my lab mates; fellow students, postdoctoral scientists, senior scientists, and technicians. I’m crediting the entire lab because, while I was the first author on these papers and it was my thesis project, my colleagues also contributed their expertise and man-hours. Everything in our lab was done as a team. I also contributed to my lab mates’ work. My two first author publications are:
What does all this mean? In simple terms, our bodies are made up of numerous organs, systems and tissues. These are, in turn, made up of cells, nucleic acids and proteins which do the work on the ground level in our bodies. When we become ill, infected with a bacterium or a virus, poisoned by a toxicant, or develop cancer, there’s an underlying biochemical change that has occurred on the cellular level. It could be the enhanced production of viral particles, DNA damage leading to tumor formation, inhibition of an enzyme’s function, or the breakdown of key cell signaling pathways.
In Type II Diabetes, for example, the cells of our bodies become nonresponsive to endogenous ‘Insulin’, which naturally allows them to take up glucose from our bloodstreams. The breakdown of this intracellular signaling pathway leads to the hallmark maladies associated with Type II Diabetes. Pharmaceuticals likewise exert their therapeutic effect by modulating these same cellular processes. But how do these processes occur? And how do pharmaceutical companies design drugs we use to treat diseases? The answer is Basic Research.
My Graduate Advisor, a Pharmacologist and a Biochemist in training, was very interested in how exogenous chemicals could selectively control the fates of proteins within cells. Prior to my entering in his lab, he discovered that an anti-hypertensive drug called ‘Guanabenz’ could inhibit the metabolic activity of the protein “Neuronal Nitric Oxide Synthase” (nNOS), and then cause the loss of the protein itself in rat penile tissue. Other chemicals also inhibited the protein’s activity but didn’t cause a loss of the protein. So again, there was something unique to each chemical and their effect on the protein in the cell. There was a trigger that made the protein go away in certain instances. But how was this all happening?
In my earlier posts, I discussed how animals are used as models for studying human health based upon shared organ systems and metabolic pathways. My thesis project investigated this phenomenon in rat penile tissue using an in vitro system, meaning that it all took place in test tubes in a ‘cell-free’ system where we could mimic the cellular environment and control the conditions of our reactions. This allowed us to ask questions we couldn’t ask in cell or animal models.
My first finding was that our protein of interest had to undergo a major structural change for it to degrade. Chemicals like Guanabenz triggered this structural change by causing the breakdown of the homo-dimeric active protein form to its inactive monomeric form. Other chemicals prevented this structural change and protected the protein from degradation. What was even more fascinating was my second finding. This structural change was triggered by loss of a specific intracellular Cofactor which was important for maintaining the homo-dimeric form of the protein. It was the loss of this cofactor that triggered the subsequent toxicity in the rat penile tissue.
My project was a very ‘mechanistic’ project in that we were going down into the ‘weeds’ to figure out how the effect in the whole animal occurred. Why was this important and what could be done with this information? Several things. It could be used to create new drug targets, and it could also be used to predict and understand similar toxicities by chemicals with similar structures. These are all things Chemical and Pharmaceutical companies, and Regulatory Agencies consider when bringing new products to the market and when protecting human health.
During my thesis I performed ‘Bench Science’. I literally had a work bench and performed experiments every day, working to generate quality data I could publish. As I worked to answer my research questions, I also learned a wealth of research techniques and technologies, in addition to learning how to perform scientific research (discussed in the next post). While it was a biological project in nature, my thesis project involved the use of numerous analytical chemical tools and technologies, many of which involved some understanding of Chemistry and Physics.
In this section I’m going to introduce a few terms commonly used in the research world which were foreign to me when I started. ‘Assay’ for example, is just a fancy term for an established and widely used experimental method. The others will be explained throughout and should be easy to follow. The devices and technologies described are hyperlinked. The methods, tools and processes I utilized during my research included the following:
• Cellular and Molecular Biology techniques: We used numerous cell models to: generate large quantities of our protein of interest for our in vitro experiments, and we had other cell lines to ask questions about the fate of the protein within cells. The latter involved inserting (transfecting) the DNA of the protein of interest into cells. This involved the use of Cellular and Molecular Biological techniques, and the use of Cell Incubators and, in some instances, Orbital Shakers to culture (grow) the cells, depending on the cell line. • Stoichiometry: This key aspect of General Chemistry was a critical part of all our experiments. Specifically, it was central in the calculation of ‘Molar’ concentrations when preparing the numerous ‘Chemical Reagents’ that were used including: buffers, cellular media, solvents, matrices, resins and so on. • Column Chromatography and Protein Purification Methods: We used numerous protein purification methods, particularly Affinity and Size Exclusion chromatographic methods to create clean preparations of our proteins of interest and other preparations. This allowed us to study its activity in isolation, its protein levels and ask questions about any structural changes. • Gel Electrophoresis and Protein Detection Methods: We used electrophoretic and antibody-based detection methods for measuring actual protein levels for visual analysis and quantification. The bread and butter technique of my experiments was called the ‘Western Blot’ analysis, whereby the proteins in my in vitro assay were separated by size, then detected, and finally, quantified using a radio-labeled antibody. One of techniques used in the lab was the Protein Assay, which allowed us to quantify the amount of protein in various preparations using a 96-Well Microtiter Plate Reader; arguably the workhorse for not just our lab, but also for neighboring labs. The Microtiter Plate Reader contained a Diode Array that measured changes in absorbance which helped inform us of the concentrations of the protein preparations (Beer’s Law). One of the 96-Well plates used in the Microtiter Plate Reader is picture below without any dyes or solutions. • Enzymatic Activity Assays: We used numerous assays to measure the activity of our protein. The primary assay used for measuring the activity of the protein was the “Oxy-Hemoglobin Assay” where we measured the conversion of Oxy-Hemoglobin to Met-Hemoglobin. We used this conversion to quantify the amount of Nitric Oxide produced by our protein with and without inhibitors/inactivators. This assay relied u9pon measuring changes in absorbance and thus, once again, the Microtiter Plate Reader was the primary tool for asking questions about the activity of our protein of interest. In some instances, other methods were used to measure activity as described next. • Physical and Analytical Chemical and Detective Methods: Consistent with most ADME/Drug Metabolism labs, a tool we heavily relied upon was High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) – a classic detection tool used for measuring the following: cofactors, molecules, metabolites, and proteins; based on their chemical properties and how they behaved in specific organic and non-organic solvents. Later in my thesis project, our lab purchased several Mass Spectrometers, which is the most sensitive chemical detection tool. However, my projects didn’t require me using them.
In addition to understanding the fundamental principles of one’s field, a major part of understanding Basic Research and Science is understanding the instruments and technologies used. As the researcher, understanding these technologies is critical to understanding what your data are and are not telling you. If you’re listening to a peer’s seminar, or reviewing their publication, understanding the technologies also helps you understand their work. In some instances, a researcher’s understanding of the technologies gives them ideas about combining them to ask unique questions.
What’s the measure of how good a scientist is? It’s their publication and funding records. The top scientists and their labs continuously come up with good ideas, then publish their work in competitive scientific journals. When scientists continually come up with good ideas and continue to publish quality work, they’re more likely to continue to secure funding and ascend in their field. The reciprocal is true for scientists who don’t come up with good ideas and don’t publish.
It’s worth noting here that the rules for publishing are different in the Private Sector vs. Academia. Research projects in the Private Sector are usually geared towards innovation and selling a product. As a result, research findings are considered ‘Intellectual Property’ which companies own and may not want to disclose out of fear of losing a competitive advantage to other companies in their sector. The research projects are also very focused, and the scientists have less freedom in terms of what they can work on. Employment is also heavily dictated by that particular company’s economic health and overall direction.
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A byproduct of training in the Basic Sciences and performing Basic Research is acquiring the knowledge and expertise which the Applied Sciences and the Private Sector use to bring new products to the market. The training can also be used to form Consulting groups (see my Regulatory Science post). If a scientist is thoroughly trained, he or she will also acquire a separate set of skills described in my blog post entitled;The transferrable skills from a doctoral degree in the basic sciences. In my case, the discipline was Pharmacology, but this applies to pretty much any of the other Basic Science and Basic Research disciplines.
How long can it take to earn a degree in a STEM? It depends on the STEM area. The path I chose took roughly 5-6 years. That length of time was impacted by my first learning how to do research (discussed in my next post), and then working through the complexities of my project. If the systems and tools for asking your scientific questions are already established, then it’s a clearer path. If you’re establishing your methods for the very first time though, it could take a little longer.
If you’re building upon someone else’s work, you must also hope that they’ve reported their methods and results honestly and accurately. If so, their work will be easier to reproduce. The hard part when doing Bench Science is that many experiments don’t work initially, and it can take time to get your systems to the point where you can start generating quality, publishable data. During my thesis, I easily performed hundreds to thousands of experiments. It took time to establish my systems and their conditions, and then it took more time to generate quality, publishable data to answer my scientific questions.
Having role models is critical when training in the basic sciences. Your graduate advisor typically plays this role. Why is it important to have role models? Having inspirational figures to look up to whilst studying can be extremely important. They can provide motivation, career guidance, representation, and inspiration. These can serve as examples of what can be achieved with hard work and dedication, and they can provide invaluable advice on navigating the industry’s challenges. In addition, people who have managed to earn their way into the science industry by their own merit, such as Monica Kraft Duke Settlement, can be great motivators and inspire you to create your future.
The Basic Sciences and Basic Research are vast. This post just focused on one aspect of Pharmacology – a Biomedical Science. Whether it’s a: pharmaceutical, an industrial chemical, a medical device, a GMO crop, a Blockchain Technology application, or one of Elon Musk’s new SpaceX rockets, someone had to do the underlying research which gave rise to the innovation. I’m going to close by reiterating something from my Pharmacology and Toxicology posts, which is that each Basic Science has its own professional society and annual meeting. Thank you for taking the time out to read this blog post. I hope I was able to give you an understanding of Basic Sciences and Basic Research.
The next posts in this series will talk about my personal journey towards becoming a Scientist and earning my STEM degree. If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy:
For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Best Regards.
The first 
After starting my federal science career, tutoring not only allowed me to supplement my income, but it was a very educational experience for me as well. When applying to work as a tutor through the Northern Virginia Tutoring Service, I listed 
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Finally, I impressed upon my students the importance of learning to pay attention to several key details. 
What also helped me out during my tutoring experience was that I could go back and ask one of my veteran undergraduate 
