To the Editor:
Thoughts on Fame and Time.
Do you know who Bob Dee is? Not likely. What about Harry Oliver or Charlie Hoefer? Don’t think so? I’m not surprised. Dee, Oliver and Hoefer were star athletes on the original Boston Patriots, Bruins and Celtics. You might call them foundation blocks in the building of their respective teams – teams that would go on to become successful examples of hard work, perseverance and excellence for which their organizations are known. Unfortunately, their names and individual accomplishments have been lost to time.
Not long ago Buddy Thomas, writing in New Bedford’s The Standard-Times, proclaimed the top athletes on the SouthCoast in basketball and football in the last 50 years. Michael Conceicao wrote a fine article in The Standard-Times presenting his personal top 100 SouthCoast basketball players of all time. “All time” started in 1972. Thomas chose his time frame because those are the years he had been covering sports in the area. Conceicao’s “all-time” list reached back to his high school years.
It is human nature to view things in the perspective of one’s own experience. Outstanding athletes, politicians, or movie stars fade in memory and become mere footnotes in history. When their names do come up, we may not view their contributions in the context of the era and instead judge them by today’s standards.
Recently, the Old Rochester Sports Hall of Fame … an organization dedicated to honoring outstanding athletes’ accomplishments … named their latest class of seven inductees. All of the Hall’s 34 individual members are deserving of their honored place in the school’s sports history. Alas, only two played before 1966 and only one in the school’s first three years of existence. It is true that records are lost and statistics often pale in comparison to today’s bigger, stronger, faster and dare I say, smarter student athletes. While it is also true that the school had only three major sports in those early years (1961-64) and that all deserving athletes cannot be inducted at once, there are many who should not be forgotten. It is my hope that in the future, those that choose the honorees give thoughtful consideration to other factors in addition to statistics and records, newspaper clippings and familiarity.
Those outstanding athletes who were there at the beginning, many of whom are now in their 70s, must be considered foundation blocks in the building of Old Rochester’s long sports tradition of hard work, perseverance and excellence for which it has become known.
Richard Morgado, Mattapoisett
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