They drove the car right out into the middle of the floor.

Bright red.

A 1986 Honda CRX, the prize for the lucky winner of a local radio station's sweepstakes.

At each of the previous three home games, Big Red faithful had slipped their entries in the ballot box and now, as the car sat there in the middle of Ithaca's Barton Hall and the sponsors stood in a semicircle behind the master of ceremonies, the 5000-strong throng in the stands went crazy.

Five thousand people at an Ivy League basketball game.

I don't know whether or not I would have passed up the Honda if I had won--yeah, I put my name in the box like everyone else--but my conscience breathed a sigh of relief when the slick PR man crooned, "Peter Grossman, of Ithaca. New York, come on down!"

It had all started when I got to Barton and found out Harvard was about to play a basketball game in a ROTC center.

Nothing personal against the armed services, but something seemed a bit off to me.

A bit...frightening.

Then they walked onto the court.

The four cracks in full uniform.

"Please stand as we raise the flag," the public address system announced, as the ROTC color guard stood erect in front of the press table.

Raise the flag?

I thought of games at Briggs, with the good ole Harvard band straggling in minutes before tipoff to crank out the Star Spangled Banner--sometimes.

But now the 80-piece Cornell band--complete with six, count them, six tubas--was pelting out its precision rendition of our nation's anthem.

The crowd responded readily, the way crowds do when they've been taught that blind enthusiasm is necessary.

They reacted the same way when the cheerleading corps pranced out at halftime.

Rah.

Relevant choice of music, I thought, as the cheerleaders gyrated to the strains of "Conga" by Miami Sound Machine.

Music by a machine?

Emotion by rote.

Not that I was completely stranded in a bed of fascism, but I've never been one for large doses of militaristic enthusiasm.

Even the guy in the bear outfit, walking around the court perimeter trailed by all the little kids in the "Bear Cub Club" reminded me of nothing so much as the Pied Piper.

Watch out, kids.

And while the pageant went on, so did the basketball game.

Basketball game?

Well, something like that, although Cornell was systematically slaughtering Harvard by the largest margin in 200 years, or something.

And midway through the second half, Crimson Coach Pete Roby dipped into his bench and inserted Carmen Scarpa, the 5-ft., 6-in. senior guard who had made the team as a junior.

Who had never scored a point in collegiate ball.

"New York," shouted Scarpa from midcourt, telling the rest of the squad which play was running.

"New Yahk," cried the Barton bullies, gleefully mimicking the Andover, Mass. native's accent.

I could see it clearly now.

As the Cornell boosters mercilessly taunted Scarpa, the game was quickly evolving into an epic battle.

The forces of good from the Birthplace of American Liberty versus the forces of evil from New Yahk.

Freedom vs. coercion.

Then, late in the game, Scarpa stole the ball and broke downcourt ahead of two pursuers.

The drive to the basket, the pause...and the drop pass to teammate Todd Litfin.

What generosity and class, I thought.

"Step on him," chortled the crowd.

So the massacre continued. Seven straight Cornell points, swish, swish, swish, click, click, click.

Ten seconds left.

Scarpa with the ball, 10 feet out on the left, sets, shoots.

Good.

Very good.

Even better, in fact, than a brand new Honda CRX.