Front & Center Court

In a heartbeat, it was over. Geoff Owens had just completed an impressive freshman year with the Penn men's basketball team. He set a Penn rookie record with 40 blocks, and his 2.36 rejections per game was good enough for second in the Ivy League. His sophomore year could have been even better. Many expected him to challenge Hassan Duncombe's single-season Penn record of 51 blocks. Then it ended. His 1997-'98 season was over before it began. During a routine preseason practice, Owens fainted. The incident came as a surprise to Owens and to everyone who knew him. He never had any serious health problems, and no one knew what caused his passing out. "It was so strange because it was something I never had a problem with," Owens said. "I figured I just hadn't eaten enough that day or didn't have enough water." Doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, however, thought it was something more than just an empty stomach. "They went and did a whole test and couldn't really find anything," Owens said. "So they started doing even more basic tests, and they found a possibility that something wasn't perfect." The doctors believed Owens' condition was hypertension-related and that he should not play during the 1997-'98 season. Although he felt as healthy as he ever had, Owens was nervous. He thought about other basketball players with heart conditions -- such as the late Boston Celtic Reggie Lewis -- and wondered what would happen if he continued to play. "When I first heard about it, I was worried. I didn't even want to exert myself walking home. I thought, 'What would happen if I walked too hard up these stairs?'" Owens said. Owens realized that he would not be the one taking the opening tip-off for the Quakers that season. But that did not mean he would not be part of the team. "When he was told that he would not be able to play this season, we walked over to the practice -- it was Coach [Fran] Dunphy, Geoff, his father and me," Owens' mother, Judy Blank, said. "Coach Dunphy called the whole team together to tell them what was going on. "The coaches did everything they could all during the season, and the players were just excellent for Geoff as far as their support." While the players supported Geoff in his recovery, he supported them as they played through the schedule without his 6'11" presence in the paint. Owens continued to attend practices and sat on the bench during every game. Sitting on the bench without his Red and Blue uniform, however, Owens looked more like an assistant coach than the man people expected to lead the Ancient Eight in blocks. While his absence on the court forced players like Jed Ryan and Paul Romanczuk to take on different roles, his presence was not absent from the Quakers' locker room, bench or practices. "We never thought he was away from us emotionally. He was always right there by our side," Dunphy said. "He did a good job of allowing us feel that way." While Owens was supportive of the Quakers, Dunphy also stood by Owens' side during his redshirt season. After the initial diagnosis at HUP, Owens received opinions from doctors in New Jersey and Boston, and his coach was with him the entire time. "Coach Dunphy was terrific throughout the whole process," Patrick Owens, Geoff's father, said. "A lot of people don't know that he accompanied us to the doctors most of the time. One thing that Geoff wants to do is win for the coach, because the coach was really there for him." Emotionally, Owens experienced everything his teammates did, but he also had his own strenuous workouts to match the practices Dunphy ran for the other Quakers. After sitting out the first two months of the season, Owens began to participate in exercises at a doctor's office in January -- exercises that included working out on treadmills, exercise bikes and rowing machines. "They really worked me hard. All those different exercises worked me just as hard as if I had been out on the court," Owens said. After a few months of working out with a doctor, Owens stepped back onto the Palestra court last March. He ran through his first workout with sensors attached to his chest that kept track of his condition on a tylemetry transmitter monitoring system. Soon after this initial outing, which was attended by doctors from Underwood Hospital in New Jersey, Owens was back to normal. It was once again okay for Owens to run the floor like he had during his freshman campaign. He was back to being the kid from Bishop Eustace High School that Dunphy recruited to fill the void left by Tim Krug. Owens entered Penn in 1996 as one-third of a highly-touted triumvirate of a recruiting class -- a class that also included Michael Jordan and Matt Langel. Langel and Jordan are now the starting Quakers backcourt and two of Owens' roommates. The three members of Dunphy's class of 2000 had the opportunity to spend more time together this summer -- time spent honing their skills against professional players who once played in Philadelphia. Owens was not on the floor to help stop Steve Goodrich when Princeton invaded the Palestra in March, but he was there to post up Jason Lawson and Marc Jackson in the summer. These informal workouts -- along with play in the Sonny Hill League and a summer trip to Italy -- has Owens ready to resume play as the big man the Quakers missed last year. "What has helped me out is that I've been playing with the team for so long -- it's been since March that I've been doing the same routine as everyone else," Owens said. "[Playing in my first game this year] is not going to be a big first for me. But I'll be a little nervous, because I haven't played in a real game for a while." He may have taken a year off from his hoops career last season, but that career will get back on course this week when Kansas comes to town. When Owens was a senior in high school, his team from Bishop Eustace lost to national powerhouse St. Anthony's in the New Jersey state final game. This year, he once again has a chance to lead a team that could finish in the top spot in its league. While much of his time has been spent on the court these past few months, Owens has also spent time hanging out with his teammates and his girlfriend, Penn women's basketball forward Diana Caramanico. But his focus has remained on getting back to the court. One of Owens' favorite things to do this fall was to watch another Penn team in action. Quakers wide receiver Brandon Carson is another of his roommates, and Owens has attended several games to watch the Penn football team compete for an Ivy title. While Al Bagnoli's team may be nearing the end of its path to the Ivy championship, the quest for Fran Dunphy's team is about to begin. And Geoff Owens' presence in the middle gives these title hopes more of a chance to be fulfilled. While no one knows exactly why Owens went down last season or even if he ever had a problem, Owens is completely cleared to play again. "The mom in me is a little nervous, but I know it is going to be exciting, because Geoff is going to be excited," Blank said.

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