Lehman champs maintain their camaraderie

It was the semi-finals of CUNYAC Tournament in the 1974-1975 season, and the hoop’s diameter felt like a swimming pool for Lehman’s Stan Brown. Lehman, which had won a City University of New York Athletic Conference championship the year before, was dominating Queens on its way to another finals appearance. 

Brown dropped 45 points as Lehman would not only beat Queens, but also the City College of New York to win back-to-back CUNYAC championships. After the win over CCNY, Brown was awarded the most prestigious award an individual athlete could receive: most valuable player. 

His response?

“I don’t want it,” Brown recently said of his reaction 40 years ago. “I don’t want it. Don’t give it to me. I don’t deserve it… Give it to somebody else… Give it to the team.”

That was the Lehman Lancers for you.

Forty years later, that camaraderie and selflessness lives on. The 1973-1974 and 1974-1975 championship teams were honored last month at Lehman College for their historic run. The team, with just one player who had played organized high school basketball, gelled under a coach who was also a psychotherapist at a predominantly commuter school to produce greatness.

Peter Gartlan was a 6-foot-6-inch, 190-pound, quiet kid who had the body of a basketball player, but not the experience. During his freshmen year, his friends on the team convinced him to join. 

After working hard his first two years, he became a contributor his junior year. 

Lehman would make it to the finals, where it would take on Medgar Evers. It was late in the game and Evers had just overcome a 14-point lead, prompting a Lehman huddle at the foul line.

Gartlan, one of the quietest kids on the team, took over.

“We’re not losing this [expletive] game,” he screamed.

“I said, ‘Pete, hello. Good to see you. Thanks for coming…’” Nick McNickle, a senior and MVP on the 1973-1974 team, recalled. “When he said that, I never forget that.”

“That shocked the heck out of us,” Brown, a sophomore on the 1974-1975 team, said.