Members of the Bearcat Hooligans and the BU Zoo can finally bring home the perfect literary companion.
Tim Schum’s ‘From Colonials to Bearcats,’ a 343-page hardcover book chronicling the first 60 years of Binghamton University athletics, gives exposure to the teams that played at BU when sports weren’t a priority but the story lines were as strong as they are today.
And no one knows those teams better than the 69-year-old Schum, a 43-year employee of BU athletics who coached the men’s soccer team from 1963-1992.
A former editor of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Soccer Journal and the author of three books, Schum also had editorial experience when BU director of athletics Joel Thirer approached him about the book in 2000. Schum had recently informed Thirer he was nearing retirement.
‘I suggested to him that, using his perspective, why doesn’t he take the last couple years working here ‘ and he could work on a history of the athletic program,’ Thirer said. ‘Tim was here for 40 of the 60 years.’
The book required a lot more than experience alone, however. He read old copies of the Press & Sun-Bulletin, Pipe Dream (and its predecessor, The Colonial News) and combed through archives at the Glenn G. Bartle Library. He interviewed over 100 people, including former athletes, as well as Steve McIntire, author of the 1975 book, ‘Harpur College in the Bartle Era.’ He found old photos and records with the help of Dave O’Brian and John Hartrick, two of Binghamton’s sports information directors.
‘This was a brand-new project,’ Schum said. ‘Anything else I had done before, there wasn’t a lot of interviewing, there wasn’t a lot of original research.’
Schum retired in 2002 as an associate director of athletics, the position he took over after he left the men’s soccer team and continued to research. It became logical to extend the book’s coverage through 2006.
With his legwork finished by 2004, the most difficult part of the process began ‘ editing.
‘We ended up with like 400,000 words, and that would have translated to a book 600 or 700 pages long, so at that point we hired an editor [Dave Henderson of the Press & Sun-Bulletin],’ Schum said. ‘It took him two edits to bring it down to a storyline and capture the major events.’
Some athletes and achievements had to be left out due to size, and if Schum has any disappointment in the final product, that’s where it lays. To compensate, he included over 40 pages of school records.
‘I tried to get as many names of our alumni in the book and a lot of that is through the record section,’ Schum said.
The book is divided into three main sections: Laying the Foundation, covering 1946-59; Building Binghamton Athletics, covering 1960-99; and Bearcat Athletics in the 21st Century, covering 2000-06, which contains pieces on many current BU athletes. There are photos from each era.
‘It doesn’t tell all the stories, that’s not possible,’ Thirer said. ‘It would have been a 1,000 page book, and even then it could not have told all the stories. But I think it’s a marvelous piece. It’s a beautiful book.’
Five hundred copies of ‘From Colonials to Bearcats’ were printed, approximately one third of which have been sold according to Senior Director of Athletics Jason Siegel. The book is available for $49.95 from the BU bookstore and the Bearcats Web site, bubearcats.com.