Clutch Moments @ MIT
The December 15, 1968 edition of the Boston Globe featured this sports story: “No Coach, Balky Bus, But MIT Five Prevails.” Sportswriter Joe Concannon told the story of MIT basketball’s winter adventure to Hartford, Connecticut, to play Trinity College on their home court. Head coach out with the flu, assistant coach takes over, bus breaks down en route, bus makes it to Hartford in the rain but gets stuck, players push to no avail, then walk a mile to the gym. Quite a pregame warm-up!
Our team, the Engineers, were behind 13 points at halftime, 22 with 15 minutes left. Using our full-court press, we caught up. The score was tied at 90. Trinity had the ball out under their own basket. I cut in front of a player and stole the inbounds pass. He hacked me on the wrist. Free throws at the other end. I stepped up to the foul line and started my pre-shot ritual. The crowd yelled to distract me.
Concannon writes, “The lead is cut. MIT ties it. With five seconds to go, a tiny sophomore throws in two free throws and MIT wins…The final two points, that gave M.I.T. a 92–90 victory, were tossed in by sophomore Minot Cleveland who stands 5 ft. 6 in., but wound up 6 ft. 5 in. Saturday.” (For the record, I stood a towering 5 feet, 7 inches.) How great to be in the Boston Globe!
This clutch moment on the court meant so much to me. My Indiana high school team was very good. I was not in the starting five. Three teammates earned basketball scholarships to major universities now considered Division 1. One went to LSU and played with “Pistol Pete” Maravich. No wonder I spent time “riding the pines” on the bench. Playing at MIT was not the Big Ten, but it was quality small-college basketball. We played Harvard, Tufts, Northeastern, and other New England schools. It was a huge leap from the bench in high school to the starting five of a small college team. Learning I could deliver in the clutch boosted the confidence I’d lost riding the pines. It carried over to the classroom, where I was struggling.
During my first two years at MIT, I gradually shed the clean-cut looks of my high school yearbook. I let my black hair grow into long ringlets, sporting a Medusa head of curls. During the first game of a Christmas tournament at Ft. Eustis Army Base in Virginia, fans called out “Long-hair!" and “Hippie!” I played hard and well. After our final game, a black GI came up to me and said, "l never knew no yippie could shoot a basketball like that!" It was the nicest thing anyone said to me in 1970—maybe ever.
1970 was a volatile time in America. President Nixon and Henry Kissinger had expanded the Vietnam conflict by extending their heavy bombing campaign into Cambodia. National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State. Local police killed two at Jackson State. Student strikes erupted across the country.
I straddled two worlds. I belonged to a "jock" fraternity, studied like crazy, played small college sports—the college life that might have been predicted. The other was going against the grain, making tough choices with significant consequences. I believed the Vietnam War was wrong and joined with many others to stop it. Meetings, demonstrations, two arrests for civil disobedience. These two worlds collided and meshed in February 1970, my junior year. I joined a student occupation of the president's office at MIT. (Your Honor, I didn’t know about the battering ram.) After two days, I slipped out to play a Friday night home basketball game. Just couldn't miss a game!
Friend and fellow hoopster Bruce Wheeler sent me the February 10, 1970 edition of The Tech, MIT’s student newspaper, and noted I was in stories on both the front and back pages. The front page lead story, “28 in Takeover to Face Court Tomorrow AM,” contained this sentence, “MIT had sought complaints against 31 people originally, but Judge Magnuson would not issue a complaint against Minot Cleveland ’71 because of what he considered insufficient grounds.” The headline at the top of the back page was “Cagers Edge CG 59-57.” Just under the headline was a photo of me going up for a layup. In our win over the Coast Guard, I was high scorer with 22 points. Bruce said, “I’ll let you decide where you think you scored the most points.” Two worlds indeed! I began to feel I could survive in both, maybe even thrive. Athletics and activism were connecting within me.
Clutch moments on the court helped in clutch moments off the court, not just in the classroom but in work against the war. Being in great basketball shape decreased stress, helped maintain my equilibrium, and increased physical courage. The latter was quite helpful at protests. The Cambridge and Boston police could get a bit feisty with demonstrators. Clutch moments on the court helped with making tough decisions and their consequences.
MIT was halfway through the 1970 spring baseball season. A major demonstration in Boston was slated for the next Saturday. But so was a doubleheader. Midweek I told my baseball coach I was considering going to the demonstration instead of playing. Fran O’Brien was a great coach and a great man. He said, “Minot, I understand your concern and it is your choice. But I can’t have my starting shortstop miss a doubleheader unless it’s a true emergency. If you don’t play Saturday, you'll be off the team.”
I marched against the war on Saturday, turned in my uniform on Monday. It was this decision that marked the true beginning of my years of public health advocacy as a physician.
