[ MARCH 16, 1983 _ Stand up and be proud Do by Martin ; Hemerik The Totem Conference bask- -etball finals took place at Mal- -aspina College in Nanaimo ‘this past weekend. V.C.C. took the gold, Malaspina the silver, and Capilano the bron- ze and Douglas finished four- . Suffice to say Douglas didn’t play to their full potential and dropped both games. But the season is over so I won’t both- er with the post mortem. _ Thanks to the O.P. I got to go | to Nanaimo and bunk with the team. For many of them it was their last game with Douglas as they are now moving on to ‘bigger, yet I find it hard to say better, things. _ For all the other games this season I’ve talked about ‘‘the ,’ for this last article let talk now about some of the dividuals. photo by Martin Hemerik Steve Mitten is one of the nucleuses on the team. He plays a good game of basket- ball, ‘ind the team to dunk a basket in a regular season game. Todd Yano is the team cap- tain and he suits the position well. Possessed with outstand- ing athletic ability which can only be matched by his sports- manship and personality the choice of him as a captain was indeed a wise one. Mark White is in many re- spects cast in the same mould as Todd. Mike Kostic, for’ some strange reason reminds me of an articulate revolution- ist. — Francis is, = he’s the coolest guy on the team, nothing ruffle thers. Brian Englund struck me as being the guy who gives a quiet 100 percent game in game out. Mats Wong is an \ was the only guy on. es his fea-~ excellent ball player who also team. They played as a unit on enjoys life very much. No mat- the court and off. I’m sure that ter how mtch everybody is they're all going to miss walk- laughing you can always spot ing arm in arm and singing Mats’ laugh. _ _ =Beatle songs at 2:00 a.m. in Jon Deanna is an all star. In downtown Nanaimo, playing spite of a badly twisted ankle’ numbers, Steve Vanos’ rapier he came out on Saturday like wit, Mats Wong's itching against Capilano, whom he powder, Jon Deanna’s baby played for last season,and powder, the hijacked car, run- scored well over twenty ning lines and basketballs that points. His ability to'play bas- mysteriously lose air when Jon ketball is matched only by his Deanna touches them. ability to play Ms.Pac Man. This season marked the first Peter Julian and Cory Gal- loway probably best exemplify the team. While perhaps not being the greatest basketball players in the league, in all the times I saw them play never once did they give less than 120 percent. They hustled, played aggressive and you could never ask more from them. This leaves us with last but certainly not least Steve Vanos. Steve is without a doubt one of a kind. Every team has at least one Steve Vanos on it. He lives for humor and will probably die for it. The team meshed like a well oiled machine, with a couple of broken cogs along the way under Ken Klassen and Kurt Lundberg two fine individuals and coaches who will sorely be missed next season. Teamship and cameraderie oS were never displayed so well nas as with the Douglas College photo by Martin Hemerik ee ee ‘ photo by Martin Hemerik” uglas time that Douglas has ever made the playoffs. In fact this season is the first time Doug- las hasn’t been the Totem Conference door mat which all the other teams used to wipe their feet on. Sincere congratulations go out to the Douglas College Men’s Basketball team. They exhibited nothing but effort, sportsmanship,’ poise and es- pecially class. They will in- deed be a tough act to follow.