3月17日阅读

After decades, Marsh is saying goodbye, and Mason is saying thanks(not excerpt)

Jay Marsh doesn’t want anyone to make a big deal out of Saturday afternoon at EagleBank(一所银行) Arena(场所). He wants to show up — as he has done on game days at George Mason for 45 years — and make sure the players, coaches and officials have everything they need to play a basketball game.

But Saturday is a big deal at George Mason. As Marsh points out, it will be senior day when the Patriots(爱国者) play La Salle in the finale(终曲，终章) of this bizarre(古怪的，怪诞的) regular season.

“That’s where the focus should be,” he said this week, sitting in the empty Patriots Club inside the arena he has been responsible for since it opened in 1985. “It’s their day. Not mine.”

The people who have worked alongside Marsh for decades would disagree. Saturday will be Marsh’s last game as senior associate athletic director for facilities(设施，才能) and events.

“That’s just a title [former athletic director] Tom O’Connor gave me,” Marsh said laughing. “It didn’t change what I do.”

Marsh, 77, has done everything at George Mason, dating from his enrollment(登记注册，报名) as a student in 1970 after he had served in the Army and had been a route salesman(线路推销员) in downtown Washington for RC Cola

“The job went away when my route got burned down in the riots in ’68,” he said. “That’s when Carolyn and I started talking about me going back to school.”

Carolyn Harris and Jay Marsh met at a country dance in Virginia while he was finishing his Army stint(工作期限). They were married in September 1967. She has worked at George Mason longer than he has, starting in December 1975 as a sports information assistant, and has been the executive assistant to all eight George Mason basketball coaches since, from John Linn to Dave Paulsen. Jay played two seasons for Linn and, after graduating, became a volunteer assistant and then a full-time assistant before going to work in the business office.

The Marshes made a joint decision(联合的决定/重要的决定) that this academic year would be their last. On June 30, they will spend their last day on campus as employees — ending a combined 90 years working at the school.

“He was the assistant AD in charge of everything,” Tennessee Coach Rick Barnes said. Barnes worked at George Mason for six years, five as an assistant to Joe Harrington, the last as the head coach.