Jumbo Jamming

Admit it, you were skeptical.

When you heard that the Tufts basketball team was going to have a slam dunk contest at last Friday's Jumbo Jam (if you heard at all), you probably shot your corn flakes straight out your nose.

Well you weren't the only one.

A dunk contest? What the hell were these guys doing having a dunk contest? This was ridiculous. I was picturing the dunk contests from back in high school, where you get the two guys on the team who can actually touch the rim to compete against each other, and the one who manages to actually dunk the ball one time wins.

So I really can't blame you for being skeptical. I couldn't picture our team having a dunk contest, and I've been covering these guys for the past two years. In all of the games I've seen over the past two seasons, I've counted at most maybe ten dunks, and about half of those came from Craig Coupe, now Trinity's newest center. Probably four of the remaining five came from Deyvehn East, who can elevate, make no mistake. But when he throws the ball down it's generally less than thunderous.

The only dunk that has ever made me leave my seat was the one Reggie Stovell made last year over Amherst All-American Steve Zieja. But the injured Stovell wasn't even participating in the dunk contest, so as I entered Cousens Gym last Friday, it was with more than a little doubt in my mind.

I guess all I can say is that I was wrong. If you were there on Friday night, I think you'll agree with me, these guys can dunk.

Even in the best case scenario that I played out in my head, the most I thought I'd see were a few, loud, straight on, two-handed dunks. Maybe even a few one-handed dunks, if we got lucky.

About five minutes into the contest, as I worked arduously to remove my foot from my mouth, it was pretty apparent that I was completely and utterly wrong.

The 300 or so people who showed up were treated to a show filled with 360 degree, reverse, one handed, acrobatic dunks that would have made Spud Webb proud.

We all knew that Dan Martin and Blaine Lay were athletic, but damn. It seems that Coupe's hold on the center position last year, along with some ankle problems for Martin kept the two sophomores too far out of the limelight. Call me crazy, but I'm kind of excited that Coupe's gone this year if it means I get to see these guys get more minutes.

My two favorite dunks of the night were two by Martin and Lay in the final rounds. In the first one, Martin banked the ball off the backboard from the left side of the basket, ran to the other side, jumped up, and with a fully extended right arm grabbed the ball and threw it down while falling away from the basket.

On Blaine Lay's contest winning dunk (my other favorite), he stood at the foul line with his back to the basket. He bounced the ball through his legs, off the backboard, and grabbed it in the air for the one-handed dunk. This one would have been cool even if he had missed the dunk -- do you know how hard it is to bounce a ball through your legs, off the backboard, and have it go where you want it to go?

It seems needless to say, but I was impressed. In fact, I was impressed by the whole Jumbo Jam event. The knock-out game between the men's team and women's team was awesome -- we all learned that John McGlynn's jumper might be just as sweet as his older brother's, and we also learned that Kate Gluckman's might be better than either one. We learned that, aside from McGlynn and Andrew Kaklamanos, the men's team might be starving for outside shooters this season after the men lost to the women in the three-point shoot out. And we also learned that, for a 5'7", 175-pound dude, senior lacrosse player Tom Mulcahy makes a mean Jumbo.

But maybe most importantly, we learned that, if you reach out to them, students might actually come out to athletic events. Jumbo Jam was on a Friday night and there was essentially no advertising, but there were still about 300 people there. Sure, about 90 percent of them were drunk, but at least they were there. Friday night's crowd was as big as any crowd at a basketball game last year, except for the men's playoff game against Middlebury.

Just imagine what the crowd could have been like if more people knew about it. But God forbid the Athletic Department ever advertise anything. At least put up some flyers around campus or buy an ad in some student publications. How are people supposed to show up for events they don't know about?

But advertising aside, Jumbo Jam was definitive success. Hats off to Blaine Lay and Jen Griffin for the idea. Instead of complaining about a lack of fan support, these two actually thought of an idea to fix it.

And now that you know that the women can shoot like they do, and that the men can actually dunk the way they do, aren't you a little bit curious to see if they can do it in a game? Well you're not the only one.