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Even when Eric Saucier '00 was in his basketball prime, playing in the Eastern Maine tournament for Presque Isle High School, he never dreamed he'd go to the Final Four. As a player. But that's exactly what Saucier did last spring, leading his team to the finals of the national championship by sinking two three-pointers and making a key steal in the last three minutes of the semi-final game. "I had the green light to shoot whenever I wanted to, from wherever I wanted to," Saucier said. Saucier had given up basketball after his final high school game. When he arrived at University College Cork, Ireland, for second semester last year, Saucier, a starting halfback on the Colby soccer team, decided to join the university basketball club as a way to meet more Irish students. Tryouts were in a middle school gym, a dimly lit hall with a dirty floor and ripped nets. But if the facility was lacking, the reception from his new teammates was not. "They were like, ŚWow, an American,'" Saucier recalled. No matter that he is only five-eleven and hadn't played in three years. Saucier was embraced—literally—by his teammates and given a key shooting guard role by his coach, who was German-born but felt a special affinity for Americans because he had lived in Canada. "We had this bond," Saucier said. Indeed, camaraderie was what the club was all about. "We'd have practice, then we'd go to a pub, just to celebrate the practice," Saucier said. "ŚGood practice, guys. Let's go have a pint.'" In late March, the team was culled from about 18 club players to a dozen who went to the tournament in Dublin. The entire season was three days long. The skill level was comparable to that of a team from a very small American college. "You're in the final four if you win three games," Saucier said. Cork beat the University of Limerick in the first round and topped the University of Ulster Jordanstown in the second. In the semi-final's Cork knocked off the University of Ulster Monmouth, in part because of Saucier's late-game heroics. With about 100 fans in attendance, Cork finally succumbed to Dublin College University-- partly because that team had two skilled American players from Detroit. Saucier scored 23 points. Any hard feelings? Not in Irish hoops, Saucier said. Opposing players socialized in pubs, got together for a dinner dance after the finals. "Everybody's hugging, arms around each other," Saucier recalled. "And singing. Singing is a big part of it." The basketball team returned to Cork by train. The trip was highlighted by girls singing Irish folk songs. The singing spread, not only through the car but up and down the train. It was athletics without hype, competition without the commercialism that is the trademark of American college sports at the national level. Not that Irish college sports all lack celebrity appeal. Saucier said the prestige sport is hurling, an Irish game that is similar to lacrosse but played with sticks with blades instead of nets. The UC Cork hurling team was sponsored by Guinness; basketball players wore the logo of a spring-water company. The Irish hoopsters may have gone to the finals, but the hurlers were the top jocks on campus. "They have their hurling jackets on and a couple of girls on each shoulder," Saucier said. This wasn't lost on Colby students in Cork, several of whom have brought sticks back to the States. They hope to start a hurling club on campus. It would be a club sport, of course. Reserve your Final Four tickets now.
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