Call it "Family Day" at Stony Brook

Over the next few weeks, all across the country, in every division, on every campus, a college basketball rite of passage will take place: senior day.  We are no different at Stony Brook as on February 26^th, we will celebrate the careers of our four distinguished seniors who play in their final home game.  Three of these seniors, Bryan Dougher, Dallis Joyner and Danny Carter, have been with our program for four years while Al Rapier joined our basketball family two years ago.  It will certainly be a melancholy day on this season finale when I hear the public address announcer call their names for a final time.  I will argue that no group has meant more to any program in the country than these four.  In the first three years prior to their arrival we as a coaching staff had a total of 20 wins.  Since their arrival in September 2008, we have won 71 games (and counting), captured a league regular season championship and competed in the NIT in 2010, advanced to a league championship final in 2011, and at the time of writing this, share the top spot in the America East standings. Bryan, Al, Danny and Dallis have been great players, but they have been better kids.  They are all unique in their own way, ye they do have one very important thing in common: awesome families.

Kevin and Donna Dougher have been at almost every game that Bryan has started…that would be all of them!  During the season, an oil change on the Dougher family car is a weekly event.  They are at home games, road games, tournament games and even games in Dublin, Ireland.  They have a younger son, Patrick, who plays at Lycoming and they support him just as much.  As good as Bryan is, and as many minutes as he has played, I know they would do the same if he was the last man off the bench.  If there was a Hall of Fame for parents, Kevin and Donna would make it on the first ballot.  I will miss looking up next year and not seeing them in their usual seats.   

Al is a Chicago native who joined us two years ago as a JUCO transfer and quickly integrated himself into our basketball family.  Like Bryan, Al is blessed with great parents, Homer and Bernadette.  I know Al’s dad the best.  A great man, a hard working, blue collar guy who is a member of Chicago’s finest.  It is not unusual to see Al’s dad at many of our games despite the travel challenges that come with living in the Midwest. On a recent trip to Albany, Homer flew in to see us play on a Saturday night.  The next morning he took a bus to Boston, rented a car, and joined us in New Hampshire for a Monday night game.  We went 2-0 on the road trip and Homer was undefeated as a dad in my book.

Every year I see hundreds of parents hysterically crying as they drop their children off at college for the first time.  At Stony Brook, these are usually the parents who live on Long Island!  Can you imagine putting your son on a plane to travel to another country, to attend a college you have never seen?  That’s exactly what Janice and Mike Carter did when Danny left his hometown of Windsor, England to attend Stony Brook four years ago.  The Carters may talk a little funny, but they are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. My fondest memory of our 2011 summer tour was the back yard barbeque they hosted for our entire travel party.  Dad on the grill, mom the gracious host, Danny proud to be home, they made us feel completely welcomed even though we were 3,500 miles away from home.   

Behind every great man is a great mom.  For Dallis Joyner, that mom is Mary Swift.  I just love Mary and Dallis’s sister Shareen.   Mary has been so supportive and so kind.  She makes some of the best peanut butter cookies you have ever tasted.  Mary has battled breast cancer for the last two years and has done so with amazing grace and courage.  She has an unbreakable faith and a remarkable spirit.  Two years ago, I spoke with Mary the evening before she went into surgery to remove a lump.  Her focus was completely on Dallis.  She was concerned that he would be worried, his grades would drop, and he wouldn’t play well.   I reassured her he would be fine and she reassured me that she would be too.  Mary is a so selfless and an inspiration to all of us.

We should change the name of “senior day” to “family day.” The legacy that these seniors will leave at Stony Brook is remarkable.  The fingerprints that their families will leave on our program will be just as impressive.  Bryan, Al, Danny and Dallis – we will miss you.  Kevin, Donna, Homer, Bernadette, Mike, Janice and Mary – thank you for lending us your sons, and we will miss you too.

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