America East Tournament in Microcosm — Moment 4, 3/3/12: An impossible void to fill
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
Photo Courtesy of Adam Manison
(West Hartford, CT) — As he walked towards the locker room, the final horn of his career having already turned to echoes in an empty arena, New Hampshire senior Alvin Abreu took one last look at his surroundings, and pulled his jersey over his head and off for the final time.
There was no standing ovation in his final moments on the court, no curtain call after he peeled off his number 25 – removing the embroidered “New Hampshire” from his chest – for the final time.
Often, there is no justice in the forgotten corners of Division I basketball.
If anyone ever deserved to set foot on the games biggest stage and experience one moment under the bright lights of the NCAA tournament, it was Abreu. If deserving had anything to do with it, Abreu’s career would have culminated under the blinding spotlight of the NCAA tournament.
Instead, only empty chair backs, dirty orange light, and a sparse crowd of opposing fans who never knew – or cared to know – his story, were the sole witnesses to the end of his career.
As Clint Eastwood’s Will Munny said to Gene Hackman’s Little Bill Daggett in Unforgiven, “‘Deserve’s’ got nothin’ to do with it.”
In the America East, where the entire careers – and an incredible amount of humanity – are played out in the obscurity of empty arenas, it never does. (more…)
