Many people equate life and its unfairness to their favorite sport.
If your favorite sport is basketball, life is a lot like basketball.
That’s something men’s backcourt newcomer Sean Bennett hasn’t quite accepted.
Bennett, a general business freshman, started his career like many collegiate basketball players in America: scraping his knees on concrete driveways and executing showtime dunks on plastic Little Tikes goals.
“We’d always play two-on-two and pick pro players that we’d be,” Bennett, who hit two-of-three shots behind the arch in his Loyola debut against University of New Orleans on Halloween night, said.
But the guard, who’s going to inherit coach Michael Giorlando’s backcourt once psychology junior and high-octane scorer Luke Zumo graduates, didn’t grow up fantasizing about playing for a pro ball club.
“When I was really young, I liked North Carolina,” he said.
But then, biting his lip after a shoot-around last Saturday and shaking his head as if what he was about to say was nonsensical, Bennett added, “Then Duke got better so I really wanted to play for them. They were so good, and the atmosphere really reminded me of my high school (St. Paul in Mandeville) – the gym not so big, but always being packed and having a great atmosphere.”
Though the path he took led him to the fifth floor of the Rec Plex rather than either Tobacco Road colossus, he progressed up the basketball ranks and amassed both praise and championship hardware.
His connections to Loyola’s basketball program – he starred for former Wolfpack basketballer Mike Toups (A ’96) at the Mandeville powerhouse – landed him here, much to coach Giorlando’s excitement.
“We (got) a young man who has been taught the fundamentals of the game and has experienced a lot of success throughout his career,” Giorlando said about one of his top recruits this year.
“We won the national championship for Biddy when I was 10,” Bennett said, “but probably my favorite memory was in my senior year.”
Bennett engineered an upset win against Central Baton Rouge on Central’s home floor in the state tournament.
But, as is often the case, Bennett’s sweetest memory is linked ever so closely to his darkest basketball moment aside from the “three hours of sleep” he manages while doubling as a full-time student: St. Paul’s subsequent elimination and the end of his prep career in the next round.
“I felt we were the best,” he sighs in frustration, again shaking his head. “The team that won that year, we beat them easily. Absolutely stomped them.”
That team he referred to: the Patriots of John Ehret High School, whose post-Katrina state title won them an ESPY award and bagged them lee-way from which to sell their story to Hollywood.
That’s where the metaphor about life being like basketball for someone like Bennett, who’s shaped his existence around it, comes up begging.
Life may be unfair, but not winning championships when you feel like you’re the best team is fair.
“Whoever plays better on that particular night wins, no matter before or after. I guess you better come ready to play hard on nights like those,” Bennett said.
And that’s fair?
“Yeah.”
Ramon Vargas can be reached at [email protected].
