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Steve Sefner, local author and former Kent State sports announcer, appeared at the Kent State Bookstore on Oct. 1 to promote his 2022 book recounting the tale of the 2001-2002 Kent State men’s basketball season.

That season was Kent State’s first and only appearance in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, marking the greatest single-season record in Mid-American Conference history. 

Twenty years later, Sefner, the play-by-play announcer for Kent State basketball that year, wrote “The Golden Dream” to commemorate what is considered one of the in NCAA history. 

“They talk about family and closeness of college basketball teams – it was this team, that particular year, that was very, very close,” Sefner said. “It was almost like a family, me included, just being the announcer, as part of that close-knit group.”

The book honors the season through the eyes of Sefner, who closely witnessed the evolution of the team that housed future Los Angeles Chargers tight-end Antonio Gates. But even with a star like Gates or leading scorer Trevor Huffman, the season had a very rough start. 

“At first there was a lot of resistance between the players, and for whatever reason they just weren’t jelling,” Sefner said. “We lost two very important games we were supposed to win, and it just continued like a snowball effect. We lost again.”

Despite the losing start, the team did not lose many games after that. The Golden Flashes finished 12th nationally overall with a record of 30-6, the greatest number of wins in a Kent State basketball season to this day.

“The Golden Dream,” Sefner’s first book, was released in January. It aims to celebrate the accomplishment of that team and also feature the season through the eyes of some of the players, including Gates. Sefner, who was also the football announcer and director of Kent State marketing in athletics for 10 years, has been featured at the Kent State Bookstore before.

To learn more about “The Golden Dream,” please visit .

For more information on the 2001-2002 Kent State basketball season, please visit /magazine/news/cinderella-season.