Sophomore Year
Spring 1965

With Bicker out of the way attention was focused on the basketball team. Bill Bradley was of course the star, but playing supporting roles on the starting team were three sophs: Gary Walters, Ed Hummer and Robby Brown. The trio repeatedly came through when the chips were down to pull out the victory. When the team moved into tournament play the class had representatives there to cheer them on. Larry Ely and Phil Reitz even punted their mid-terms and hitchhiked out to Oregon, where the Tigers took on Michigan and Wichita.

Sophomores were also contributing to the success and failure of other varsity teams. Gordie Gladman centered for the hockey team, and Charlie McMillan and Charlie Fleischmann also saw action. In squash Nick Kourides played number six on the squad. Joe Padula fenced for the Tigers, while Greg McBride, Bryant Crouse and Dave Harrison all wrestled.

By the time spring rolled around, sophomores had nothing to do but choose a department and then sit back and relax. Skateboarding rapidly became everyone’s most popular pastime, and people soon learned how to skate on one foot, how to skate backwards and even how to skate standing on their hands. Another popular pastime, which most of the skateboarders participated in, was the “Sunday Bag and Pass” party. A product of the fourth-entry Joline mind, the parties attempted to satisfy the ideal of a never-ending celebration, and Bag-and-Passers could always be identified hanging from the highest windows of Joline and Blair wearing purple T’s and plastic helmets. Indeed, it was a delightful carefree time for all, even for Jay West and John Bitner, who were arrested for roller-skating after dark on Nassau Street.

Exams came and went and with a surprisingly small amount of studying, too. Then it was over again. On the surface we might have appeared more immature now than we had a year before, what with our casual attitude towards studying and love for partying. In fact, we were simply getting most of the uncontrolled exuberance out of our system, for when we returned a summer later we began to take our places as leaders in the community.

© 1997 by The Class of 1967, Princeton University. Reprinted from the 1967 Nassau Herald.