By MONTE DUTTON

I see lots of celebrations.

The baseball ones, I think, are the best and most dangerous, albeit no precincts report these days at Furman.

Basketball players are prone to exult in somewhat smaller groups. A single pair of eyes cannot capture the scene fully. Football celebrations are fantastic, but weariness comes into play. With the exception of weary arms, baseball players have more energy left when the final out is called or the final run scored.

Denizens of the diamond tend to transform themselves into gleeful boulders that pile themselves up into Joshua Tree National Park.

Golf and tennis require a certain civility. Wrestlers ram themselves into one another out of force of habit. Soccer players scatter and go wild. Trackers and fielders get their plaudits mostly after their individuals, and they share with football the weary mystique.

Girls, as a general rule, exhibit more sportsmanship (with some exceptions) and are more organized in their celebrations. This is just my observation. I’ve not viewed or even sought the empirical data.

Then are there the crowds.

A crowded football stadium at a big game is one of long, sustained thunder. The direction of the roar is the only tipoff. In most places, it’s the big noise versus the little noise. If the roar subsides, the fight song plays.

A basketball game can be experienced with eyes closed, though I wouldn’t recommend it. Different plays have different sounds. The cheer for a slam is vastly different than the one for a pristine three. The turnover has a sound, as do the missed shot, the rebound, the turnover, the call, the angry coach and even the timeout.

Every cheer has its equal and opposite groan.

Baseball is entirely different scene when rivalry is involved. By its nature, the game is a pleasant way to spend a pleasant afternoon or evening.

I have seen the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees play each other and other teams in both cities, and the latter is nothing like the former.

Yankees fans parade into Fenway Park as if they own the place, which breeds instantaneous resentment. In the Bronx, the Yankees do own the place, it doesn’t really heat up until the game gets close, and God forbid if the Sox pull ahead.

My more common baseball experience – I went to every park anywhere near a NASCAR track – was to sit next to someone I had never met and would never meet again, and then proceed to become friends for nine innings.

Oh, yeah. NASCAR. Most of the time, I was comfortably separated from the masses, but occasionally, for fun or a column, I’d sit in the stands for a (then) Busch or truck race.

NASCAR fans yell at each other, still can’t be heard, and by the halfway point, they’re more hoarse than a football coach in August. They make a lot of hand gestures, occasionally even denoting a car number. Yellow-flag laps are also the times that people talk.

Also, as hard as this is to believe for anyone who has visited SEC football games, NASCAR fans dominate in yee-HAHs, yah-HOOS, and goodgoddamighties.

NASCAR fans are, however, knowledgeable. They either bring or rent at the track devices and soundproof headphones that enables them to listen to the radio transmissions from drivers to teams.

When I was a kid, all fans did was follow the leaders, look for wrecks and notice when a hundred people started pointing in the same direction.

I always thought that the worst possible time to have a hangover was when all those engines cranked up, but it was a long time before I drank and found out it was right.

The Vegas Showdown, in which Furman men’s basketball competes come November, has an interesting format.

On Tuesday, Nov. 26, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nev., the Paladins are to face Seattle University, followed by the Duke-Kansas game.

Then, on the following weekend, the Paladins take on the Jayhawks in Lawrence and the Redhawkins play the Blue Devils in Durham.

The Furman men’s basketball team will take part in the 2024 Vegas Showdown in Las Vegas, Nev., it was announced on Thursday by ESPN Events.

Seattle is the alma mater of basketball Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor, who led the then-Chieftains to the NCAA finals in 1958.

November’s meeting in Las Vegas is to be the first between Furman and Seattle. The Paladins then make a second trip to Phog Allen Fieldhouse to face Kansas. The only previous meeting versus the Jayhawks came on December 20, 1993, in Lawrence.

Furman’s athletes cumulatively earned a 3.38 grade-point average in the classroom during the spring, and 52 percent (167) made the Dean’s List. Fifty-three had perfect 4.0s.

Athletes at Furman have finished above 3.0 for 10 consecutive semesters.

Leading the way among Furman teams were women’s tennis and women’s track, which posted 3.84 and 3.73 spring term GPAs, respectively, followed by men’s tennis (3.69), men’s golf (3.64), and women’s soccer (3.63). Volleyball and women’s lacrosse both posted 3.56 team GPAs, followed by women’s golf (3.54) and softball (3.52). Men’s track (3.48), men’s soccer (3.43), women’s basketball (3.24), football (3.13), and men’s basketball (2.66) rounded out the report.
The Furman football team claimed the program’s 15^th Southern Conference Championship en roue to a quarterfinal appearance in the FCS playoffs during the fall while the men’s and women’s cross country teams swept the Southern Conference titles for the 11^th consecutive year.
The spring also saw six Paladin student-athletes qualify for the postseason in their respective sports.

Mac Scott and Trey Diehl saw their strong run at the United States Amateur Four-Ball Championship come to an end on Wednesday with a 4-and-3 semifinal round loss to Blades Brown, from Nashville, Tenn., and Jackson Harrington of Dickson, Tenn.

The match, played at the Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course in Flourtown, Pa., culminated an impressive run for Diehl, a rising senior from Orlando, Fla., and Scott, a Mountain Brook, Ala., product who graduated from Furman earlier this month.

The Paladin duo advanced into the semifinals with a 3-and-1 win over former Middle Tennessee State teammates Payne Denman and Brett Patterson in Tuesday afternoon’s match after scoring a 2-up victory in the Round of 16 over John Swain and Tug Maude.

Diehl and Scott fired a tournament record-tying 61 (-9) in stroke play in second-round action.

Anna Morgan is a Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGCA) All-America first teamer.

The Spartanburg native concluded the season ranked 17th nationally in the final Scoreboard by clippd rankings. A three-time Southern Conference Player of the Year and two-time SoCon Female Athlete of the Year selection, she recorded a 70.1 stroke average over 33 rounds, lowest school history. Her career stroke average of 72.2 also is the lowest in Furman history.  

Morgan’s honor is the 24th WGCA All-America citation awarded to members of the Furman women’s golf team since Greenville’s own Sherri Turner won the program’s first All-America award in 1979.

Twelve golfers made the first team.

On Friday night, senior Dylan Schubert of Loveland, Colo., won the men’s 5,000 meters, shattering the facility record with a time of 13:50.99 in NCAA Track and Field East Preliminaries in Lexington, Ky.

With the victory, he became the first regional winner in the history of the Furman men’s track and field program and advanced to the finals of the event, which will be held Friday, June 7, at 10:55 p.m. ET in Eugene, Oregon. 

Schubert won the 5,000 meters on Friday at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field

Midway through the race, he surged from 15th place into third before settling toward the middle of the pack.  A collision with two laps to go rattled much of the field, but Schubert was able to navigate through the chaos and emerge in fourth place. He passed two runners on the next to the last lap, then overcame Harvard’s Graham Blanks in the final 100 meters to take gold.

On Wednesday, senior Cameron Ponder, who made his third NCAA East Preliminary appearance, concluded his Furman career by recording a time of 3:55.63 in the 1,500, placing 48th.

Senior Megan Marvin of Chapel Hill, N.C., made her third preliminary appearance, including her second in the 1,500, where she posted a time of 4:24.15 to finish 35th.

The top 12 finishers in each event at the preliminary meet advance to the NCAA Championships, which will be held in Eugene, Oregon, June 5-8.

On Saturday, Bower finished 18th in the 5,000. She finished 10th in her heat with a time of 16:16.37.

Furman softball’s Sylvia Burroughs, Ashlee Lykins, Kiley Perry and Lauralee Scott were named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team.

Burroughs, a sophomore from Melbourne, Fla., has a 3.61 GPA in computer science.

Lykins, first team All-Southern Conference on the diamond is from Naples, Fla., and a 3.53 in health sciences.

A native of Naples, Fla., Lykins graduated with a 3.53 GPA while majoring in health sciences.

Perry, a sophomore from Alpharetta, Ga., has a 3.8 in health sciences.

Scott, from Greenwood, pitched the Paladins past Clemson, 4-3, in a memorable upset. He has a 3.83 in health sciences.

Price Partrick is Furman’s new director of football operations.

Partrick joins the Furman program following six years at East Tennessee State, where he served as quarterbacks coach and director of football operations for five seasons.  In 2022 he headed up the Buccaneers’ tight ends before returning to his on-field duties as quarterbacks coach in 2023, while also taking on the role of offensive coordinator.

During his tenure in Johnson City, ETSU captured Southern Conference championships in 2018 and ‘21, with the most recent title highlighting an 11-2 season that featured a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) Top 10 ranking and playoff quarterfinal round appearance.

A native of Chattanooga, Tenn., and product of Baylor High School, where he played football and golf, he began his collegiate career at The Citadel in 2010 before transferring to Chattanooga and eventually Tennessee Tech, where he sat out the 2012 season following shoulder surgery. He returned to the field in 2013 but saw action in only three games before sustaining a career ending injury.

Partrick received his bachelor’s degree in fitness and wellness from Tennessee Tech in 2014.

Gail Wallach is the new lacrosse coach and fourth in program history.
Wallach becomes the fourth head coach in program history and comes to Greenville after spending the past two seasons as head coach at Anderson University.
Wallach guided the Trojans to a 24-11 record in her two seasons.

Wallach was hired at Anderson after starting the University of Alabama Huntsville program from scratch and leading the Chargers for six seasons.

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