A plastic bag drifted along Genesee Street like a tumbleweed rolling through the forgotten town of an old spaghetti western. The only trace of commerce on this downtown thoroughfare was an illuminated "Cash For Gold" sign in a window across the street. Painted on the side of a nearby building was the skyline of a much younger city, backlighted by a shining yellow sun with rays that stretched to every edge, and bearing the tagline, "Utica: Always Reaching Towards Greater..." The brick that held the final word had crumbled away, and its dust now lay in the weeds creeping through the sidewalk at the base of the building.
The few who have jobs here were all back home, far away from the urban decay to which they are tethered throughout the work week. And yet, on this Saturday morning, Utica had all the wonder of the first city I'd ever seen. I had found a sense of renewal in its midst.
It started out as a throw-away weekend. Utica College hadn't called my son since scheduling him for a football recruiting visit nearly a month earlier, and he already had his pick of eight other Division III schools that were making room for him on their autumn rosters. Besides, what parent wants to send his kid to school in central New York, where perpetually grey skies sink so low as to make a skyscraper out of the 14-story Adirondack Bank building? Not to mention, he'd be in the heart of Giants country, and Big Blue is an unappealing color for a Patriots fan to endure over the next four years.
That was my first surprise. The Mohawk Valley is practically a neighbor to the Canyon of Heroes, and although the convergence of recruits drawn predominantly from New York State leaned toward the Giants, there was a noticeable paucity of Eli Manning jerseys in and around campus. On a map, Utica appears to rest within the shadow of New York City's ebullience for professional sports, and on a still night you can no doubt hear the discharge of Plaxico Burress' firearms in the distance, but this is a region spilling over with a passion in amateur athletics. In the watershed of Jeremy Lin, who was raining jumpers on the Lakers in Madison Square Garden that night, the local television station's half-hour sports recap was focused on Proctor and Notre Dame high school action, previews of the Syracuse vs. UConn men's game the following day, and the Utica College Pioneers.
Division III athletics can be quirky, especially in the Northeast. There's a timid Division II football presence here, and without that buffer some ambitious programs compete with FCS (f/k/a Division I-AA) schools for recruits. Others fill their rosters with JAGs who cracked the starting lineup in their senior year of high school and aren't ready to quit playing just yet. Most are somewhere in the middle, small liberal arts schools in remote locations that can't draw enough fans from a captive student body on an otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon to fill up the single aluminum bleacher that is far too big for the family and close friends who've come up to watch their sons or buddies play.
Division III athletics can be the piece of field turf that America has forsaken, but in Utica it is the bright lights of Broadway.
Early in the weekend's meet-and-greet, coaches preached to recruits that Utica College has an unparalleled connection to its community, that fans throughout city and suburbs will come to them with their sports entertainment dollar. And they take it seriously enough that, as a Division III athlete, my son would have a considerable role in shaping the mood of an entire city each weekend. To give football recruits a February taste for what their autumns were about to become, their hosts brought them to the Pioneer men's hockey game at the Utica Memorial Auditorium that night. The Aud.
If the tarnish encasing professional sports could be dissolved in a single step, it would be the one leading through the second set of glass doors inside the Aud. The concourse was electric. A nearly continuous stream of white marquees advertising each concessionaire's wares ran off to the left and right, their flashing red lights illuminating the crowd for as far as the arc of the concourse would allow. People moved briskly through the cold interior air laced with odors of fried dough and overflowing beer, piling up before the opening face-off. The scene was a cross between the beach at Coney Island and the alley on the Strange Days album cover.
Through the gates, the air was still colder and even more charged, leaving little doubt that there was nowhere else to be in Utica on a Friday night than at Pioneers hockey. If you've never been in this arena, the effect is stunning. With the overhead scoreboard as its hub, silver cables radiate in all directions beneath the black under-roof like a giant bicycle wheel. It's actually part of a dual-cable system suspending the roof, believed to be the first of its kind in the world, and its design allows for an unobstructed view anywhere inside.
Excepting those seats reserved for season ticket-holders, which were designated by pumpkin-colored paper that the staff individually tapes to more than one thousand seat-backs before every game, you can sit anywhere. Imagine walking down the aisle with beers in each hand and a popcorn box pinned against your chest and not having to kick out the squatters hoping for a close-up of the resident superstar before having to take back their cheapie seats. Welcome to collegiate hockey.
The nostalgia of 1970s AHL hockey was overwhelming, induced in part by the rustic rink interior with its curtain-lined stage built into the wall just behind the home team goal, and in part by tacky local banners hanging on the blue exterior block walls. Tee shirts bearing Utica College's interconnected "UC" were fired into the crowd, not by an air cannon but by hand. I later learned that parts of the classic Paul Newman movie, Slap Shot, were actually filmed here, so the vibe was quite real.
I found a cardboard-backed telescopic seat in the lower section, another innovation ahead of its time. Of course, that time was 1959 and the upholstery has faded and worn away, just like the promising tagline of that brick wall downtown. A dad and his 10-year old son took up two seats to my left just as the National Anthem singer stumbled out of the blocks. She got as far as "Oh, say can..." before stopping, but the crowd filled in the "UC"' for her and she was back on her way.
The Pioneer men had fallen into a tailspin of late but were still clinging to a top ten national ranking when the puck first dropped. As dad took his seat, he told his son, "Let's hope they skate like they mean it tonight." He urged on each successive puck carrier by first name, in the same way that a Rangers wife might say, "Stop dicking around with it, Marian," or, "Take the trash out, Henrik."
Then, disaster. A turnover deep in their own zone put the Pioneers down an early goal. Dad stood and kicked his seat, and a little more fabric wafted to the cement bleacher floor. He stormed off without a word while his son, unfazed, shook a set of cowbells — orange in the left hand, blue in the right, the UC school colors — and eagerly awaited the next face-off. It occurred to me that I could use a set of cowbells, too, but for the remainder of the night, as hard as I tried, I could find none. These were a commodity that could no longer be purchased.
Other than one Jeter jersey and maybe one Giants cap, the arena was a sea of orange and blue. I had nearly forgotten I was in New York, but after a second goal by the now-hated Neumann Knights, the catcalls started. They went from lighthearted to mean-spirited as the deficit grew from one goal to three. Dad was going for beers after each goal and his weekend was on the brink of ruin, but otherwise, the hope and belief and cowbells never stopped. A coiled tee shirt dropped into the section next to ours.
There would be only one remaining regular season match after this, and it's a long summer until Pioneers football kicks off. To a fan, everyone was there to enjoy every last minute of the festivities. And when the horn sounded, they tied shoelaces to their cowbells, draped them over their shoulders, and turned their backs to the overhead scoreboard. Like Whos down in Whoville, they went out into the winter air with no presents in tow, grateful just the same.
I looked under a few seats for a stray cowbell or two to bring home to my younger son, but they had all been carried out with the exiting crowd. In the end, their sounds still ringing in my mind would be my only souvenir.
The next morning, I took a final stroll through downtown Utica. "People are all depressed around here," said a middle-aged woman sitting in front of the dormant fountain in the city square who claimed to live here all her life. "Nothing ever changes."
But on this weekend, something had.
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