Word: fordham
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Penders, who played AA ball in the Cleveland Indians organization after he was graduated from Connecticut College, came to Fordham this year after a four-year stint in the Ivy ranks with Columbia. Penders brought the reputation of a miracle worker to Morningside Heights, and he lived up to his billing, turning around a basketball program that had thoroughly petered out after the days of Jim McMillian and Heyward Dotson. His teams improved in a geometric progression, going from 4-22 in 1974-75, to 8-17, to 16-10. Last year Columbia finished...
...rich lode of talent he had tapped in his second year--all returning. Yet Penders decided to abandon this Xanadu on Broadway for the basketball wasteland of the nearby Bronx. He took the visionary gamble, betting he would be able to recreate the Shangri-La splendor that was Fordham basketball back in the days when Digger Phelps held sway...
Penders believes Columbia would never make the commitment to a first-rate program that Fordham has offered him. "Columbia has great expectations and little to justify them," he said before last night's game. "They expect to be in the top three in the Ivy League every year, and are unwilling to put money into it. I felt if we wanted to keep up with Princeton and Penn we needed more commitment in the budget and other improvements...
...when Fordham offered him the head coaching position, Penders crossed the pearly gates of the 82-acre Rose Hill campus without a backward glance. Most coaches might have felt some trepidation taking the post: Harvard coach Frank McLaughlin, who played for Fordham, coached with Phelps, and was popular with the alumni, considered the prospects at Fordham so bleak that he refused to even apply...
Penders, needless to say, came into a less than idyllic situation. However, he says, "coaches have to look for long-term things." At Fordham, Penders has a $17,000 recruiting budget, two full-time assistants, a full-time secretary, a part-time secretary and a graduate assistant. More important, Fordham provides 15 full basketball scholarships...