Backstory: For Caltech basketball, winning is a theory of relativity
The team hasn't won a league game since 1985, but this school is more about rocket science than rebounds.
By Daniel B. Wood | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the March 7, 2007 edition
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PASADENA, CALIF. - These two teams are hungry. Neither will leave the building quietly. That's because this one is for who goes home with none of the marbles. Translation: Inside a gymnasium at the California Institute of Technology, the visiting Whittier College (Poets) and Caltech (Beavers) are battling it out for last place in men's basketball in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC). That's a conference you've never heard of, with eight schools you rarely hear of, in the smallest-school division you may want to hear of – NCAA Division III.
The Beavers are looking for their first league win since 1985 – a year when Ronald Reagan was president, Pete Rose was still playing baseball, and Dick Clark was hosting the New Year's countdown. Wait, he still is. The Poets have the SCIAC's second-worst record. No one here even knows what "three-peat" means. The Beavers are hoping the Poets have an off night. The Poets know that if the Beavers have an "on" night, it will be a first.
A brown-fleece Beaver mascot shimmies along the sideline where seven grad students flex their bare chests to spell out "Caltech" in body paint. Spread over seven rows of bleachers is a meager crowd of 200 – large by Caltech standards.
It is soon apparent why no one in them is named Brent Musberger or Curt Gowdy. At midcourt, Caltech guard Paxon Frady intercepts an errant Whittier pass. He bounces it crisply to teammate Michael Underhill who is streaking down the far sideline. The crowd leaps to its feet.
With precision, Underhill passes to Haussler, Haussler to Dellatorre, Dellatorre back to Frady all alone under the basket.
Air ball.
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