Never has so much happened so quickly to Fresh Meadows resident Tim Dougherty. On February 24, the senior captain led his SUNY Maritime basketball team into the Skyline Conference Playoffs to cap a season of overtime wins and one-point losses. The week of February 16, the Privateer emerged successfully from a grueling series of Coast Guard tests. And on January 27, the younger brother of Dan Dougherty scored his 1000th point on the college hardwood.
“I never had that stress in my life,” Dougherty said. “I guess because school, everything, led up to that point, there was some pressure.”
The points mark came first, and it was so special partly because Dougherty is only the eighth player in school history to reach it. Seventh was brother Dan, who joined a collection of extended relatives in the audience when Dougherty was honored by head coach Jody King in a pre-game ceremony on February 5. They watched Dougherty score 29 points en route to an 80-78 victory over SUNY Purchase.
On the night that Dougherty reached 1000, the senior forward scored only nine points. But all of them were needed, especially the last two: They came with 4:24 remaining, and they narrowed Maritime’s losing margin to two. The Privateers had trailed by as many as 12 on January 27, but after Giovanni Hurley put in a layup with 12 seconds left, they were finally able to put a 65-64 victory into the books.
Dougherty cherishes the memory of that game, played in Newburgh, NY, against Mount Saint Mary.
“It was a must-win game, and it was fun, because the crowd was packed with a bunch of young college kids yelling and screaming and taunting us,” he says. “It was back and forth, a close game. We were losing, we came back, and it was a good atmosphere. … It came right down to the wire.”
Maritime’s season has been the best of Dougherty’s tenure: As of February 23, the Privateers are 14-11, third place in their conference and primed for a long playoff run. But it has also been the most turbulent. On December 13, against Yeshiva, the Privateers lost 74-71 in overtime. On January 19, against Purchase, they won 81-76 in overtime. On February 10, against St. Joseph’s (Brooklyn), they lost 77-76 in regulation.
Still, juxtapose these scores with the 126-124, five-overtime win Maritime achieved over Massachusetts College in 2006, tying the Division III record for extra periods in a game. Dougherty scored 58 points that night.
As good as Dougherty has been at Maritime – he averaged 14.3 points per game last season – he can consider himself fairly lucky to be a starter on its basketball team. He spent an undistinguished first three years on the bench at St. Francis Prep, and a meeting with head coach Tim Leary before Dougherty’s senior season did not bode well for his chances of starting.
“He brought me into his office,” Dougherty recalls, “and he goes, ‘Tim, honestly, you’ve been with us three years, and I don’t know how much playing time you’re going to get this year. I don’t know if you want to go through with this. If it’s worth your time –I’m just being honest with you. If you want to go find a job or something, I’ll understand.’ I looked at him, I shook his hand, and I just kept working.”
Whether Leary’s words were intended as a pump-up speech or not, they did the trick. Dougherty practiced hard. He did well in his team’s first scrimmage. He did well as his team’s sixth man in the first few games of the season. Finally, he was into the starting lineup, and a future home in the Division III record books was plausible.
“I always say that inspiration comes from listening, motivation comes from within,” Dougherty says. “Other people can inspire you, but you’ve got to want it from within.”
Part of his early motivation, no doubt, came from competition with brother Dan.
“I have a role model in him, someone to follow,” Dougherty says. “Ever since we were little, he’d always joke with me and get up on me. He’d make me get better. I remember playing baseball, he’d give me tips here and there; basketball, he’d beat up on me playing one-on-one. He made me stronger. [After I reached 1000] he said congratulations, and he said that if I can beat his total, go for it.”
Dan Dougherty was also a big part of his brother’s decision to go to Maritime, a college of cadets with a distinct engineering and naval bent. Tim Dougherty’s travels have since ranged from Estonia to Mallorca to Liverpool, and now, having woken up at 4:30 in the morning to travel downstate and take a weeklong series of Coast Guard exams, he will be licensed as a United States Coast Guard Third Assistant Engineer.
Passing the tests “was a big relief,” Dougherty said. “I didn’t tell anyone [I was taking them], I didn’t even tell my mom or dad, because I didn’t want that pressure.”
Dougherty can rest somewhat easier now, but the playoffs still loom. The U.S. Coast Guard can train you for a lot of life experiences, but a five-overtime college basketball game is something entirely different.
