Forty years ago, Steve Hisey – then a student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga – stood beneath a lamp post on a snowy street in Springfield, Mass., determined to remain there until he’d, um, borrowed a peach basket that was attached to that streetlight.
“I wasn’t leaving until I got that peach basket,” he said as he recalled that 1977 March weekend in New England. “I also threw snowballs at a marquee sign until I knocked off the letter ‘U’ to go with the ‘T’ and the ‘C’ I’d gotten. Several people got a ‘T’ and a ‘C,’ but I’m the only one who got all three letters.”
And where is that peach basket and those letters today?
“They’re all in my house,” Hisey said last Friday. “And the basket is signed by the players, the coaches and the cheerleaders.”
They all have their stories and their memories of UTC’s 1977 NCAA Division II national champion men’s basketball team. Sweet memories. Timeless memories.