The Sporting Blue Athletics Blog

As our league season begins, I'm reminded of a great book, The Last Amateurs.  The book, by John Feinstein, takes readers through a season of Patriot League basketball. The Patriot League  comprises seven highly respected academic institutions. Academics clearly come first at these seven schools and STUDENT athletes play basketball for the love of the game as opposed to playing the game in an effort to make it to the NBA.

I find this to be quite analogous to the BCL West.  Our Urban basketball players have to be incredible time managers as they attempt to navigate a full basketball season along with the rigors of the Urban curriculum. After nearly six weeks of nonleague games vs opponents ranging from other Nor-Cal D5 schools to large D1 public schools, our league games are now a chance to battle our peers.

The Last Amateurs depicts each league game as a battle and that is no different than the BCL West. Many of the young men and women on basketball rosters in the BCL know each other from elementary and middle school, and as we all know, you never like to lose to a friend! This makes for some great games and much drama.

I'd ask all of Urban basketball players to keep in mind that while we strive to win, we always honor the game and play with class, in our wins and our losses. In addition, remember we are representatives of The Urban School of San Francisco. 

Here's to a great season. Let's just keep in mind we are battling our peers and we should respect them and upon the final whistle, shake their collective hands and thank them for the opportunity to battle on the court.

Go Blues!

Greg Angilly
The Urban School of San Francisco
Director of Athletics