Having spent all but ten months of my life as a resident of the greater Boston area, there are many sporting moments I have witnessed that are firmly etched in my mind.

I will remember Larry Bird stealing the ball against the Detroit Pistons and I will remember the ball going through Bill Buckner's legs in the sixth game of the 1986 World Series.

The sports memory that will stick in my mind most, however, is not a Boston sports memory but a Belmont sports memory. I will always remember Asa Palmer's dunk against archrival Lexington during my junior year in high school.

During the summer before my eighth grade year, rumors swirled around Belmont that a 6'5" youngster named Asa Palmer was coming. The rumor mill said that Asa had a lineage any basketball coach would salivate over--a brother who was a freshman at Duke and a brother who was a 7'1" center for the Utah Jazz.

The rumor mill turned out to be right. Asa was six-five and did have one brother at Duke and one in the NBA. He was a pretty good basketball player, a little uncoordinated nonetheless, but clearly he had potential.

The Chenery Middle School basketball team did pretty well that year. As the official scoreboard operator and manager, I charted the team's eight wins and two losses. What I remember most about that season is the pact the team made on the bus on a snowy day, coming back from somewhere like Stoneham, probably after a win. We made a pact that someday, somewhere, somehow that our team would win a basketball state championship. We all knew it was possible, but I can remember at the time thinking that none of us would have blinked twice if it did not become a reality.

Except that the we-will-be-champions attitude became the mantra of my high school class. When we were freshmen, Asa played light minutes as the sixth man on the team, while Mark Mulvey and a forward named Kevin LaPierre were on the varsity roster but saw mostly jay-vee action. Three more of my classmates were full-time members of the jay-vee squad. I was the freshman squad's scorekeeper.

Belmont basketball wasn't great that year. The most memorable game was probably when David Cerasuolo, a senior, sank two free throws for a 55-54 win against Winchester with time expired. Some team that began with an S--Swamscott?--knocked us out of the state tournament in the first round.

Optimism abounded before our sophomore year. The previous team had graduated eight players, including all five starters, and the grades ahead were thin on talent. Everyone knew that our grade was going to have to step up and lead the way. Seven of my classmates and only two seniors made the varsity squad that year.

The season started off well, but we were a young team, not used to the vagaries of a 20 game Middlesex League season, and we faded quickly. There were many exciting moments, but none that were particularly memorable. We nearly knocked off one of our long-time antagonists--Nick Papas' Melrose Red Raiders--on their home court, but a junior guard by the name of Andy Lennon conspired against us. Lexington, a team that was quickly becoming our most hated rival, and its fantastic sophomore guard Rashad Wilson handed us our heads on two separate occasions.

We made the tournament, qualifying in the eighteenth game of the season, but we didn't get very far. We were matched--overmatched--against an impressive Salem team that featured All-American Eric Brunson. Brunson, Temple-bound, poured in 37 points that night.

Asa, Mark and Kevin were all starting and were all evolving into excellent players. Asa was getting more aggressive on the boards and honing his post moves, while Mark was the runner-up for the Middlesex League MVP. The future looked very bright indeed.

Junior year represented a break-through. Although we ended the season with a very respectable 19-4 record, we weren't just winning, we were dominating. We destroyed lesser teams like Reading and Stoneham when they came to Wenner Field House. We routinely beat teams by more than 15 points on the road.

I think there were two games in particular that really laid the foundation for our senior season. On December 23, 1991, we lost a close game against Melrose on our home floor at Wenner. I remember the date for the simple reason that it was the last time that we lost at home during my high school career. The feeling I had while sitting at the concession stand after the game wallowing in hot dogs and Coke is still vivid.

The second important game was the home game against Lexington. Rashad Wilson had turned into a Division I college prospect and the Boston Globe had ranked the Minutemen near the top of its preseason poll. They were the consensus pick for the Middlesex League title, while we were regarded as too young to do anything.