I was sorry to hear about the death of Steve Wright. I was the manager of the basketball team back then and Steve treated me as if I was one of his teammates. He was a class act, very friendly and always made sure I felt I was part of the team.

I remember being on the bench for that 42 point game he had against Connecticut. I think Coach Pitino had high expectations of upsetting Connecticut and we lost a close game. Coach Pitino expected a lot out of his top players, Wally West and Steve. After the game, Coach ripped into his players one by one. He finally got to Steve and just ripped into him for being lazy and not doing anything in the game. As an example, Coach yelled out, ‘How many points did Wright have tonight, 10, 12?’ The answer game back, ‘Coach, he had 42.’ Coach Pitino said, That can’t be right!’, looked at the stats, and then said, ‘Well, you still played lousy defense!’ We all chuckled to ourselves because we knew that Steve was the reason we were in that game in the first place.

Steve was a hard-worker on and off the court. I am sorry I lost touch with him over the years. He will be missed.

Joe Steindl [email protected] 215-491-2787 COM ’81