It was May 1977 when Cornell lacrosse reached legendary status.

The Big Red ran the table en route to back-to-back national championships, truly coming into their own in May with wins against Princeton (15-7) and Brown (17-4) ahead of a dominant run in the NCAA Tournament — beating UMass (17-13) and Navy (22-6) before doubling up Johns Hopkins, 16-8 in the championship game.

While Richie Moran's squad was heating up in early May, so was the Grateful Dead.

The Dead performed a magical run of shows — New Haven on May 5; Boston, May 7; Ithaca, May 8; Buffalo, May 9 — that stand up 40 years later as pinnacle moments in the band’s storied live history. While a “best ever” debate could go a number of directions, the May ’77 shows are usually in the conversation.

The May 8 concert at Cornell’s Barton Hall is the most renowned in the Dead’s catalogue, a standout show for its performance that was only emboldened by its pristine “Betty Board” recording of which seemingly everyone who knew about the Grateful Dead had a tape. The mythology surrounding the show was matched by a fantastic performance, especially a blistering second set.

“The Dead has always been very much into the synergy from the crowd. The energy of the crowd. It works both ways. There’s times when the band was good but the crowd was flat. There were times when the crowd was excited but the band wasn’t quite what they could’ve been. But then there were magical nights where all the energy was positive and it really just took off. That night was one of those,” said Keith Reitenbach, a member of that ’77 Big Red team.

“Lacrosse is like that too. All the teams that are playing in May have great players. The difference as to who’s standing on Memorial Day often comes down to not which team has the best players, but which team is able to put it together. The whole being more than the sum of the parts. As a lacrosse coach, I always told my team that’s the great thing about lacrosse. Because it’s such a great team game, it’s possible for the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts. That was true of our team, and that was true of the Grateful Dead on those magical nights.”

That weekend, Reitenbach beat Princeton on Saturday and saw the Dead show Sunday. Three weeks later, he was hoisting a national championship trophy.

That May Dead run — including the legendary Cornell show — is getting a much-anticipated official release from the band. Ithaca has embraced the monumental moment, with the Cornell Chimes commemorating the event via a special selection of Dead music and much more.

Reitenbach shared some memories of that now-legendary performance and that magical May at Cornell. He said about five or six Cornell lacrosse players were there that night, spread out among various groups in the crowd.

“I think every lacrosse team has a certain percentage of Deadheads, some maybe more outspoken or more willing to own up to it than others,” Reitenbach said.

It wasn’t a tough ticket to get at the time, but he waited in the rain for hours outside Barton Hall to get a prime spot in the general admission crowd. For Reitenbach, it was only his second Dead show after discovering “American Beauty” his freshman year of college. His first was the fall of '76 at Syracuse’s War Memorial Arena. “I ran off a fallball practice field into a car to drive to Syracuse,” he said.

Now, Reitenbach says he “stopped counting at 50” Dead shows.

He was right in front of the stage for the first set, and he recalls that the air was blazing hot inside Barton Hall. The staff stopped tearing tickets as the rush of Deadheads came so quickly, so folks would go outside with handfuls of tickets to let others in.

“I believe there were a couple thousand people in Barton Hall that night who hadn’t paid to get in,” he said.

The second set is the stuff of legends. Take your pick of the “Scarlet Begonias” into “Fire on the Mountain” segue, or an epic “St. Stephen,” or a fantastic “Morning Dew” as the highlight of the night.

Reitenbach, there with his fraternity brothers, moved to the bleachers ahead of the second set.

“The second set where they did ‘Scarlet’ into ‘Fire’ then the extended ‘St. Stephen.’ Even if you weren’t a fan of the Dead. If you were a music fan, you were aware that something special was going on at that moment,” he said.

Dave Bray was listening outside. He was studying in the library much of the night. “I didn't have a ticket for the Dead, but I did walk by Barton later and hung out side for a few songs. I wasn't able to sneak in but enjoyed the vibes outside with a few other Deadheads,” he said via email.

“The band was hot. The crowd was feeding off the energy of the band. The band was feeding off the crowd. It was pretty exceptional. You knew it wasn’t just another concert,” Reitenbach said.

They got out after the set came down and — in true Ithaca fashion — it was snowing. That made him think of May a year earlier, when Washington & Lee came up to North in May. They were in shorts in warmups, not realizing what it can be like that time of year in Ithaca. It started snowing, and the Generals were held scoreless in the NCAA Tournament’s only shutout.

That Cornell team came into ’77 with a chip on its shoulder. After graduating Mike French and others, they were No. 3 in the preseason poll. "We didn't get the respect of No. 1," Reitenbach said. It took a couple of close games, notably a close win over Johns Hopkins in mid-April, before the team was clicking on all cylinders. Like the Dead, the team was a diverse group of personalities and skillsets, but they complemented each other perfectly.

“We had a good mix. Blue-collar Upstate guys, private school kids with great stickwork, Long Islanders who were multi-sport athletes. Richie, as a coach, did a fantastic job handling these personalities,” said Bob Henrickson, who doesn't consider himself a Deadhead but went to the show.

The team had the great Eamon McEneaney; he made sure they didn’t lose any focus against Princeton the day before the show. What was special about that ’77 team? Says Reitenbach: “Well, in two words: Eamon McEneaney.”

Reitenbach is still involved as a coach and a ref, living in Baltimore County, Md. He said he listened to an old tape in recognition of the day. He looks back nearly 40 years later at the May 28, 1977 national championship game. Cornell, which struggled to beat Hopkins earlier in the season, took it to the Jays in the title game. Reitenbach had an inspired Tournament, nearly doubling his point total from the regular season during the May run.

“As a team, we were really hitting our stride that May. As a Deadhead, I’d like to think the magic of the show contributed in some way,” he said.

Photos from the concert are courtesy of Lawrence Reichman/Cornell University Library of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

Photo of students waiting for concert to start courtesy of Cornell University Library of Rare and Manuscript Collections.

Ticket stub image courtesy of Dean Heiser.

Cornell 1977 team photo courtesy of Cornell Athletics.