By Tom Danehy Team Banquets, God Love 'Em. AS THE WORLD of sport evolves towards something ever more ugly and distasteful, there are some rituals and values which are being maintained, things which allow those of us who have devoted much of our lives to sport to remain true to the ideal. There are still people out there who teach and practice fair play, sportsmanship, and competition. There are those who root for teams out of sheer love of sport, and those who play just for fun. Plus, they still have team banquets. For those of you who've never attended a team banquet, shame on you. You've led a pretty sheltered life to have avoided team banquets altogether. They aren't just for high school and college athletes. Heck, nowadays, when little Justin and Emily play soccer at age 4, even they end the season with a party. I've attended dozens of team banquets. (Don't say it! We've already discussed my girth and width at length.) They've changed over the years, but the spirit's still the same. It gives coaches, players, parents, and fans a chance to get together, relive the season just past, give speeches about the true meaning of sport, and eat until they explode. Back when I was in school, we used to have team banquets at restaurants. They'd shove us in a side room, overcharge us for the use of a microphone, and then further gouge our wafer-thin wallets for cuts of meat the Donner Party would have turned down. I could just imagine the restaurant guy saying to his cook, "You remember that side of beef that fell off the truck last summer and got left out for two days? Well, thaw it out and scrape off the flies; we got us a basketball banquet coming." Upton Sinclair could've won another Pulitzer Prize covering our dinners. We used to have guest speakers, mostly because my high school used to win championships all the time (in everything except spelling and stuff like that). The legendary John Wooden, who was in the middle of his incredible run of 10 NCAA championships in 13 years, used to speak at our basketball banquets. As my kids have played sports over the years, I've noticed season-ending celebrations fall into three major types. There's the Peter Piper Pizza party, generally the favorite of youth soccer, Little League baseball and YMCA basketball teams. This consists of families gathering at a pizza place. Then, the parents sit around at incredibly uncomfortable picnic tables and make small talk while the kids go through tokens at a rate of about $5 every minute. You eat some pizza, drink some soda, watch the kids get a plastic trophy and then clap while the coach gets a plaque purchased by the team mother. This basically is what's holding the fabric of American society together these days. The second type of celebration is the house/swimming party. This is a favorite of softball teams. The girls get together, laugh, tell stories and swim for a few minutes. Then they order some pizza, drink some sodas, get a plastic trophy and clap while the coach gets a plaque purchased by the team mother. The other night, I went to one of the third type of celebrations--the school banquet. While some rich white schools might still hold their banquets at restaurants, the rest of us do it in the school cafeteria, pot-luck style. At a pot-luck affair, people bring a main dish, a dessert and, if they're either meticulously healthy or just showing off, a salad. You can tell a lot about other people's domestic situations by what they bring to these things. Families fortunate enough in this day and age to have someone at home generally bring home-cooked dishes. Since I write, and therefore don't really work for a living, I made a big pan of lasagna and some homemade brownies. (Then I sweated it out waiting to see if all my grub was taken and consumed. And most importantly, not regurgitated.) Most people are too busy for that, so there's usually a lot of grocery-store cakes and fast-food fried chicken (which is better than grocery-store chicken and fast-food cakes). Everybody sat around and ate, then listened as the coaches gave out letters and certificates. Darlene's coach called her up and made a reference to her initials, D.D. The coach asked the crowd, "Do you know what that means?" Drawing on experience, my first thought was "Dirty Diapers." But the coach said, "Defense and Diving (on the floor for loose balls)," which Darlene was known for. After the coaches spoke, some of the Varsity players got up to exchange gifts. A junior with the all-time great name of Tiki Ellis got up to present departing senior Ofelia Parada with some gifts, including a poster entitled "The ABCs of Success." Tiki read the sentence which began with "A," then paused. At that instant, every person in the building formed the same thought. It was like those people in Independence Day who saw the fireball cascading down the street toward them. "Oh my God! She's going to read every one of the letters!!" And so she did. And then we all gave thanks that there are only 26 letters in the alphabet. But it was a good banquet, honoring the seniors who were moving on and laying the groundwork for more successful seasons to come for those who were returning. I still think we should have joined hands and sung "Cumbaya" at the end, but otherwise it was cool.

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