Con-Way

TigerBlog spent some time yesterday going through the career of former men's basketball player Justin Conway. 

Interestingly, he briefly forgot Conway's first name. Maybe that's because his Princeton head coach, Joe Scott, only ever called him by his last name. In fact, Scott even once suggested that when the starting lineups were introduced, he should be called just Conway. 

"First name 'Con;' last name 'Way,'" Scott joked.

There have been a lot of great Princeton men's basketball players through the years. There haven't been too many whose story is similar to that of Justin Conway. Or, you know, Con-Way.

Justin Conway graduated in 2007. He was an All-Ivy League selection his junior year. He is one of three Princeton men's basketball players to win the Paul Friedman Award twice. That award is given to the player who does his very best every day in every way. He also won the team's Bob Rock Award. That is give to that member of the Princeton University men's basketball team whose energy, effort and enthusiasm made an invaluable contribution to the season.

Energy, effort and enthusiasm. There haven't been too many players who have brought more of those to Jadwin Gym than Conway.

What makes these honors even more remarkable is that he didn't play a second of varsity basketball until the middle of his junior year. Not one second.

TB got to thinking back about Conway's career when he saw the story on goprincetontigers.com about Conway as part of the "Tiger Heroes" series. Conway is currently a sports medicine doctor in Beacon, N.Y., about 70 miles north of Manhattan. 

At 6-4, he might be on the tall side for a physician. He is not on the tall side for a men's basketball center.

Ah, but that's what Conway was at Princeton. Despite giving up size and weight every game he played, Conway was a highly productive center for those Princeton teams. His size and the effort he gave every second he was out there made him a Jadwin favorite. 

Conway was a junior varsity player at first. He made his first varsity appearance a little past the midway point of his junior year, when he played (and started) for the first time in a game on Jan. 29, 2006, at Davidson.

To that point, he'd never gotten on the court in a varsity game. He'd then start that game and the final 12 of the year, averaging 8.8 points and 4.3 rebounds while playing nearly 35 minutes per night. He was voted honorable mention All-Ivy League by the leagues' coaches.

Princeton was 3-11 on the year before Conway was inserted in the starting lineup. The Tigers then went 9-4 with him as its center, losing that game to Davidson and then going 9-3 in 12 Ivy games after that. 

The season started with Conway uncertain if he'd ever get to play with the varsity. It ended when he scored 21 points and had six assists while going all 45 minutes in a 60-59 overtime win over Penn, who had already clinched the Ivy League championship before that game at Jadwin. Conway also added the game-winning basket with 2.5 seconds to play. 

"I never would have thought I'd ever be in that situation when the season started," Conway said after the game.

He would go on to start 22 more games his senior year while playing in 25. He averaged 5.9 points and 3.9 rebounds while playing 29.2 minutes per game. TB reached out to David Rosenfeld, who was the Princeton men's basketball contact in the Office of Athletic Communications then, about Conway, and he said simply: "He never stopped trying."

That is so true. 

That same energy has led him to medical school and now to a career as a doctor. He shifted from sports medicine to working in a hospital and fighting head on against the COVID pandemic when it was at its highest point. You can read the whole story HERE.

TB loved this quote: 

Whether you're the leading scorer or a walk-on whose primary role is as a practice player, everyone plays a critical part in making the team successful. The same holds true in medicine - no matter your role, if all members of a patient's community of care are valued and empowered to deliver the highest level of care, that leads to the best outcomes for our patients and our communities.

That's him in a nutshell. A total team player, whatever his role. 

He's a Jadwin legend. It's awesome to see that he's doing such great things these days.