…and into the “bin” I go…
I have a PhD in Political Science.
That’s what the diploma says.
Based on what I post to my friends on other social media accounts, they’d probably question the university that conferred that degree upon me.
(It was the University of Illinois at Chicago.)
As a political scientist, I look at trends.
I analyze results.
I’m not supposed to make predictions.
I am not a part of the pundit class.
That’s what I have to remember.
A political scientist.
Not a pundit.
I try not to get ahead of myself when analyzing the tea leaves of who is going to win the next election.
Because when I do, I’m usually wrong.
Mitt Romney in 2012? Yeah, I picked him.
Gary Johnson in 2016 getting 5% of the vote? Mmm-hmmm.
Texas going “blue” in 2020? You get the picture.
I’m not a part of the pundit class.
I have to remind myself of that.
Analyze.
Never predict.
In 1996, I was about to graduate from what was then known as Trenton State College. (It’s the College of New Jersey now.) At TSC, I worked for the college radio station, WTSR as a DJ and a sports broadcaster.
Sports broadcasting is not necessarily easy to do, but I worked with someone who had (and still does have) a gift for the job. My friend, Mark, might have been a year younger than me but he was decades ahead in terms of knowing how to convey athletic action to the public.
Have a question about sports? Mark was/is your “go to” for the answer.
It was great to work with him. I learned so much by working along his side. It didn’t hurt to have some really good teams to follow at TSC. When you have great talent on the field or on the court, it makes for a great broadcast.
Mark was play-by-play. I was the color analyst.
We worked football and basketball games together.
Mark taught me how to be an analyst.
How to survey what just happened.
How to give insight.
How not to predict.
There was one game, however, in 1996 that reminds me to this day of this advice.
A reminder to analyze.
A reminder to not predict.
The game? A Women’s Basketball contest between TSC and William Paterson College (now University)
The setting? William Paterson’s gym in Wayne, New Jersey.
The stakes? A berth in the Division III NCAA Tournament
My recollection? I do remember was TSC was up at halftime. They could do no wrong. The team was feeling good on the court. The team was crisp. Mark and I were feeling good too. The broadcast was great. A trip to the NCAA Tournament was likely. Then….
…one of us…ahem…said at halftime (off air)…
“We’re going to win this!”
Little did I know that we were headed into Chicago Daily Tribune territory with that “Dewey Defeats Truman” pronouncement of mine.
We all know the story of Thomas Dewey. After losing to FDR in 1944, Dewey, the Republican Governor from New York attempted to defeat Harry Truman for the Presidency in 1948. The pollsters and pundits all predicted a big victory for Dewey. The votes that were coming in, however, weren’t matching the predictions. Early returns on that Election Night were showing a close race, but the publishers of the Chicago Daily Tribune stuck to their predictions of a Dewey victory and ran the headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman”.
The rest was history.
Truman won.
So what became of my prediction at halftime?
I’m not going to get into the details of what happened next, so I’ll cut right to it.
William Paterson won, 63-61.
There would be no bid for TSC in the NCAA Tournament that year.
Twenty-five years later, that game still sticks in my head.
It’s funny how this single event from 1996 is what I draw back on when I attempt to make predictions in our country’s never-ending election cycle.
I was a basketball analyst.
Not a prognosticator.
I am a political scientist.
Not a pundit.
I’m still learning.
A postscript…
The Trenton State College Women’s Basketball Team won the ECAC Tournament in the following weeks after the loss to William Paterson. You can find the 1995-1996 team’s stats here.
My friend, Mark, can be followed here and here.
As for Dewey, he served out his term as Governor and never ran for President again.
…and back into the “bin” it goes.
Photo: Dewey-Warren Postcard, “The Way Ahead” (1948). From the author’s collection in “The Schreck Bin”