Sometimes, dreams really do come true.
In June, three Spiders celebrated major professional sports championships. Two — Jermaine Bucknor, ’06, and Tony Dobbins, ’04, both coaches with the Boston Celtics — lifted the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. A third — Mark Zarthar, ’09, chief strategy officer with the Florida Panthers — kissed the Stanley Cup.
“For a basketball coach or player like myself, this is the pinnacle,” Bucknor said. “This is what you dream of as a kid.”
For both Bucknor and Zarthar, the experience of going through a championship series was intense and all-consuming. Neither slept well the night before the decisive game, though there was little room for nerves, distractions, or thinking beyond the game immediately ahead. “Everything leading up to that [championship] moment, you’re just so focused on, ‘What do we have to do to win a championship?’” Bucknor said. The final victory for both Spiders brought an avalanche of emotions ranging from joy to relief to validation. Both teams won their championships at home.
“For a basketball coach or player like myself, this is the pinnacle. This is what you dream of as a kid.”
Bucknor said the energy was “electric” during Game 5’s final moments in Boston Garden. “You could feel people ready to erupt,” he said. Up in the Panthers’ executive booth, Zarthar had “a moment of jubilation, everyone hugging and people crying” at the final buzzer.
Amid the chaos of the postgame celebration, personal moments stood out. Zarthar cherished embracing his pregnant wife on the ice, a “special moment for us as we start a new family.” For Bucknor, it was a poignant exchange with Dobbins. Bucknor first met Dobbins at age 16 when Dobbins was his student host during a recruiting visit to Richmond. They’ve stayed close ever since. On the night of the NBA championship, the two longtime friends caught each other’s glance just as the trophy was about to be presented.
“I look over at him, and he looks at me. We just kind of laughed,” Bucknor said.
He traces some of the success he’s found on his professional path back to Richmond, recalling lessons he learned as a Spider.
“I played for three different coaches [John Beilein, Jerry Wainwright, and Chris Mooney] while I was at Richmond,” Bucknor said. “I always told myself as a player, whether I agreed or disagreed with what a coach might have taught or his strategy, there was always something positive that I could take from all of my coaches.”
Zarthar still has a group chat with his fraternity brothers. They communicate near daily about what’s going in their lives, everything from nonsense to, well, a Stanley Cup run.
“I had so many tremendous relationships with people who taught me so much, people that I’m still very close with to this day,” he said. “Those relationships and learning about different people from all different walks of life has absolutely helped my professional career and helped me mature into the person I am today.”
A LIFE-CHANGING MOMENT
A championship bestows well-earned professional pride that only a select few in professional sports experience in their careers. Bucknor’s role with the Celtics as player enhancement coach meant that he worked day in and day out with players behind the scenes, helping them develop the finest physical and mental advantages that separate players at this level.
“I see every day how hard they work, the efforts that they put in on a daily basis,” he said. “They care about each other so much. I was proud of them and really happy to see them lift the trophy, embrace it, and share those moments together. It was a lot of fun.”
For Zarthar, the championship represented the birth of an opportunity to set a new strategic vision in motion. His role with the organization includes brand strategy, business strategy and analytics, ticket operations, and public relations. “My greatest responsibility is maximizing the growth and satisfaction of our fan base,” he said. “What was going through my mind [as I watched the team lift the Stanley Cup] was how great this was going to be for our organization and for our fans and for the entire South Florida community.”
The following days brought more celebration with parades through Boston and Fort Lauderdale. Zarthar described “standing on stage in front of 400,000 people lining the beaches in the pouring rain, seeing our fans stick through the celebration” during the Panthers’ post-parade rally — a vivid image of triumph not just for a team, but for an entire community.
However, the forward-looking world of professional sports moves quickly, even in the midst of celebration. For Bucknor, this meant a new opportunity as he followed Celtics assistant coach Charles Lee to a new position with the Charlotte Hornets. For Dobbins, it meant jumping right into preparations to defend the Celtics’ title next season. The NBA draft started just five days after the championship parade. In Zarthar’s case, it meant the beginning of settling into a new brand identity as the current holders of the Stanley Cup.
Even weeks after the win, these Spiders found it hard to fully comprehend what they’ve achieved. “I don’t even think I’ve fully accepted it or found a way to fully appreciate what we were able to accomplish as a group,” Bucknor admits. Zarthar echoed this sentiment, saying, “It’s finally been time for us to kind of let everything sink in.”
Photos: Top, Courtesy of the Florida Panthers; second photo, courtesy of Jermaine Bucknor, '06; third photo, Copyright 2024 NBAE (Photo by Joe Murphy/NBAE via Getty Images)