Macon, Georgia—”Barry Goheen was a superhero, and like all superheroes, he owns a special power,” writes famed ESPN sportswriter Buster Olney in his foreword. “He had a gift for making shots in the waning seconds of basketball games, particularly from long distances. In four seasons at Vanderbilt, he compiled a list of big moments that seems impossible, even in retrospect. The clock would tick down, and he would transform…a bucket against Tennessee, a last-minute shot against Florida, vs. Penn. He hit a game-winning shot from near half court to beat a ranked Louisville team. Time and time and time again. With the benefit of experience, and seeing how even the best players struggle under pressure, I’ve come to believe that Barry excelled in those spots because he emotionally walled himself from all of the outside stimuli—the shouts of 15,000 standing fans, the TV announcers barking analysis and critique at floor level, the pep band—and just focused on the task at hand. For him, it became just as simple as playing the same game he had as a kid, making the same plays, over and over. The context became irrelevant, somehow.”
The late 1980s were a boom time for college basketball, and the Vanderbilt Commodores were right in the middle of it. Led by Hall of Fame Coach C.M. Newton, All-America center Will Perdue, and a group of three-point shooters known as “The Bomb Squad,” the Commodores made their mark in the Southeastern Conference and challenged for the conference title in 1988 and 1989. Along the way, they played—and, often, beat—many of the game’s national powers, including Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisville, Duke, Notre Dame, Indiana, Michigan, and Kansas.
Here is the inside story of those Commodore teams as told by Barry Goheen, the Vanderbilt guard and “Bomb Squad” member who became nationally known for his numerous clutch shots and “buzzer beaters” that lifted the ‘Dores to victory. Goheen and his Commodore teammates encountered many of the greatest players and coaches of the era—Bob Knight, Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Danny Manning, Chris Jackson, Digger Phelps, Denny Crum, Steve Alford, Rex Chapman, Glen Rice, and many more. They captured thrilling wins, endured painful losses, and achieved several firsts for the Vanderbilt basketball program.
This is a story centered in Nashville, Tennessee, particularly Vanderbilt’s venerable Memorial Gym, with stops in Hawaii and Taipei; Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina; Bloomington and South Bend, Indiana; and Lincoln, Nebraska.
“The three-point shot had been introduced into college basketball in the fall of 1986 and many college coaches derided the shot as a gimmick and refused to use it,” says Goheen. “Coach Newton, one of the most respected figures in college basketball, had enthusiastically embraced the three-point shot, while other teams were still figuring out how, or even whether to deploy this new offensive weapon—we led the SEC in three-point attempts, makes (exactly 200), and percentage (43%).”
Barry Goheen is a “Double ‘Dore,” having graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1989 and the Vanderbilt School of Law in 1994. Goheen practices law in Atlanta, Georgia, and serves as chairman of the Atlanta Tip-Off Club.
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Advance Praise
“Barry Goheen may have been a tremendous basketball player at Vanderbilt, but he is an even better storyteller. His eye for detail and his unfailing memory make this far more than the standard memoir of an ex-jock. It is a deftly captured, warmly told account of the golden years of Commodore hoops.” —Robert Weintraub, New York Times bestselling author of No Better Friend, The Victory Season, and The House That Ruth Built
“The first time I ever attended a Vanderbilt basketball game, Barry Goheen sank a game-winning three-point shot from half court to beat Louisville. From that moment on, I’ve been hooked on Commodore basketball. In Buzzer Beaters and Memorial Magic, Barry shares the inside stories behind the many special moments during his remarkable college basketball career. It’s a compelling story any basketball fan will enjoy, and any Vanderbilt fan will find irresistible.” —Andrew Maraniss, author of Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South
“I love reading about basketball history. And you do, too! Barry Goheen’s first-person account of what happened in and around his late 80s Vandy teams is awesome, chock-full of ‘I didn’t know that!’ moments. A must-read for any lover of college basketball!” —Bob Rathbun, 11-time Emmy Award winning voice of the Atlanta Hawks and college basketball