Confessions of A Football Fan: March Madness Rules

Wait, I read spencer’s post, but is that song really for real?!?

Awesome post. Thanks. For me, the outlaw space was taken by the gray undershirted Georgetown Hoyas circa 1984. I hated them but I watched every Hoya game that was televised hoping they’d lose. The great thing about hoops as you mentioned, is sometimes they did.

You old farts

Thanks for the terrific post. It belongs with your classics. I’m sure you have other things going on in your life. However, I hope writing witty/true shit like this somewhere is among them. Among several laugh out loud lines, baseball as “Jane Austen in cleats” is a personal favorite.

I own Volume 1 of ESPN’s 30 for 30 and it’s becoming ridiculous how many different teams are fighting for the dubious honor of bringing ghetto culture to the American mainstream. Ice Cube’s masturbatory “Straight outta LA” is a prominent example.

Grant Hill bitchslaps Jalen Rose for his silly and grandiose claims in the film here:
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/grant-hills-response-to-jalen-rose/

As a history grad and someone who has actually read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” I find using the term Uncle Tom as an insult particularly stupid. Same kind of people who laud Malcolm X over MLK.

Yes! I don’t give basketball the same overall importance as football due to my raising and Texas culture. But I absolutely love the game of basketball. And the NCAA tournament is the best showcase of the game. I like the UIL State Basketball and NBA playoffs but the NCAA tournament overshadows them for the reasons you spell out. Just an amazing event.

And your comment about Justin Beiber vs. the White Stripes/Black Keys is right on!

Is it wrong that I rubbed one out to that Tootie video?

Twice.

It only took you two rubs?

Say what you will about the Fab Five, but they were the nail in the coffin on the days of nut-hugger shorts in basketball. That’s got to be worth something.

And without Malcolm X, there is no MLK. Malcolm pushed “the Overton window” so far to the left that it made MLK’s demands seem a lot more reasonable to Middle America.

Historical re-write, tjarks. There is no way to quantify such an impact by Malcolm X, if it did even occur in a meaningful way. That’s just the hopeful rhetoric of a Malcolm X fan.

Just outstanding. Don’t sweat those jealous cunts over on Shaggy.

Tremendous post. One of your absolute best, and that’s saying something.

I love the early part of the tourney but it can’t be denied that the final four often ends up being a snore fest in blowout city. The good championship games are also few and far between. I will always swear by the NHL playoffs as the supreme post-season in American sports.

Awesome post. Absolutely nailed it.

Damn phone. I can’t even spell my name correctly.

I think so many are missing the point and message of the Fab 5 documentary and concentrating on the hype they remember. That’s not the message.

The first weekend?..Yes.

After that, less so.

I would not have said this several years ago but if Texas was playing for the national championship in basketball and football on the same day I would be at the bb game. ( I feel like I just came out of the closet.)

g’69-
 
No shame in that.
 
I’ve only seen Texas fans riot once in any sport and it was in 1990 after the amazing Xavier game to go to the Elite 8 when we came back to win from a 16 point margin second half margin.
 
Students spontaneously sprinted onto the Drag and started turning over cars.

Agreed that the Tournament is one of the few, perhaps only event to live up to the hype – and at the risk of thread-hijacking…

Is there a better argument for a NCAA football playoff? College basketball is something that I don’t give a rat’s ass about for 11 months out of the year, but during March I’m checking scores online, picking lunch and dinner spots based on the number of available TV’s, arguing with my co-workers over yesterday’s games, and on and on.

Okay, I’ll let it go.

This is my favorite 4 days of the year. During all of March I wish I was unemployed, that way I could start the month by heading to spring training in Florida, then watch championship week in it’s entirety, followed by the best 4 days of the year, without pesky concerns like family, employment etc.

I don’t get to go on the “fishing” weekend, but my wife is taking our 7 week old daughter to the inlaw’s/friends and a buddy is coming down to gorge on basketball for 96 straight hours, so I have a break from the family for my favorite event- the wife is a good woman for making this happen for me- I hope it’s an annual tradition until my daughter is old enough to watch this stuff with me.

Working till 12 and then off for the day- happy bracket day everyone.

Also, it leads to a few annual phone calls with old friends and roommates that I’ve otherwise lost track of throughout the regular year. Great time of year, and the best (not fairest, but most entertaining) postseason known to man.

Yellow Dog nailed it. March Madness is the best argument for a college football playoff.

This is one of the few situations in which Scip’s wife and mistress really do need to talk.

A. First class work. Among your finest.

B. Although I no longer follow the season anymore, the tournament pulls people together in weird and awesome ways: I was assisting my leg. director in negotiating a bill with the other side of the aisle in 1998 and we took a break after someone came in and mentioned Ole Miss was in a ton of trouble late against Valpo. There were about 15 of us in the front office, R’s and D’s, from several offices, including some constituents waiting for a meeting when Bryce Drew hit that shot.

Total pandemonium.

Everyone started jumping around and people began spilling out of their offices into the hallway of the Dirksen office building.

Still one of my favorite memories of any sporting event to this day, and I only watched the last 3-4 minutes of the game.

Too bad Bryce Drew’s brother is such a prick.

Great post, Scip. As a married man with kids, I found this particularly good:

Football is my first love, but March Madness is my mistress.

I had kids with football and it’s cheaper to keep her. I prefer football for its easy familiarity and the deep affection I have for it. Football was the sport I could play, basketball is the sport I wish I could have played. No right-thinking sports fan can deny March Madness’ silky temptations.

The NCAA tourney, especially the early rounds, is the only time I watch basketball in any form. It’s the lure of the Cinderella that draws me. Unfortunately, the clock usually strikes midnight in the round of 32, and I’m not a pumpkin fetishist. So that’s where my interest generally tapers off.

“This is my favorite 4 days of the year. During all of March I wish I was unemployed”

Circa 2000 I was laid off in late February. I purposefully remained unemployed until late March.

I agree that if the choice is watching a game between 2 colleges I care nothing about, March Madness soundly trounces the bowls for all the reasons listed above. But at the end of the day, I was raised in Texas and therefore just care more about my team doing well in football than any other sport. I think Scip’s wife/mistress analogy hits it pretty well.

In 2003 I was watching the Syracuse final four game with my wife. We had been married less than a year, but since we had started dating she had experienced multiple losses to OU, plus the Colorado Big XII championship meltdown, and as a result had seen the absolute worst side of me after Texas losses. So she was quite stunned when I clamly turned off the TV, and said “Oh well, there’s always next year, let’s take the dogs for a walk.”

Regarding the rioting on the drag after the Xavier game- I remember that, but I think we were all just shocked we had done something good in basketball. It was the newness of the whole thing that got us excited. To borrow Scip’s analogy again, the mistress was not even as pretty as the spouse, but she was new and unknown and would let us go top shelf, something wifey just would not give up. Of course we were excited.

I’d tell you how much I enjoyed this, but 24 people already beat me to it.

Re: the Fab Five…this reaction has been nothing short of phenomenal. Considering Grant Hill an Uncle Tom would have been dumb then and it’s really dumb now, but it’s also pretty easy to see why someone who grew up the way Rose did would have that perspective. I’m not saying we should just overlook it, but the constant dwelling on that small point has been pretty unfortunate, even if it was predictable.

As for the Fab Five themselves, this constant bickering over who really had the cultural impact is insane. If they did a documentary on the late 80s Illinois teams, very few people would watch, even though they may have had the shorts first. HBO did a documentary on UNLV and it’s hardly been discussed. I’m a diehard basketball fan that loved watching those teams and I’ve yet to see it. I will, but it wasn’t must-see. The FF doc was, and apparently was for many, as it did a 2.1 rating on ESPN…the highest of any doc it’s ever aired. And it was far from the best. But I felt like the whole point of it was to recant and remember the vast cultural impact and division they represented on and off the court… isn’t that being proven right now in the post doc discussion?

For me, I was a freshman in college in 92. The impact on us was immense. The idea that 5 guys, one of which was a senior at LBJ when I was a senior at Westlake, was going so deep into the tournament was jaw dropping. I guess I missed the larger cultural context at the time.

Football is my first love, but March Madness is my mistress.

The thing about misresses is that one minute:
Marilyn Monroe

The next minute:

Alex Forrest — rabbit stew anyone?

I love this time of year and I cherish the memories I have of being around teams in the Tournament. Little things like the hotel you stay in being determined by your seeding — the lower the seed the further away from the arena.

The :45 minute “practice” at the arena, where they mean 45 minutes. The time is put on the clock – a buzzer goes off at the end of 45 minutes and all action must stop NOW. Usually the team will put on a show of silly stuff (the smallest guy is almost always goaded into try to dunk), as the players play to the crowd.

Then you go to another location for the real work to be done to get ready.

Playing in the first of four games on site is really cool — if you win. You just hang around to watch basketball.It is the sights and sounds of the day that stay with you for years.

Very well done

Well played, sir.

“Thankfully, football and I have a developed "an understanding" and our marriage sensibilities are Parisian.”

Vegasian, imo. You and KB have fun now, y’hear.

“I’ve only seen Texas fans riot once in any sport and it was in 1990 after the amazing Xavier game to go to the Elite 8 when we came back to win from a 16 point margin second half margin.”

Ugh, you made me remember the three pointer at the buzzer to tie in the Elite 8 game (Mays?) that was dead on straight, but caught the front of the rim (against Arkansas?). I think that was the correct year.

Beautiful stuff. Definitely one of your top 3 of all time Scipio. Agree with you completely on where March Madness belongs in terms of excitement. A little concerned about adding additional “play-in” games. 64 works… leave it the hell alone.

“I’ve only seen Texas fans riot once in any sport and it was in 1990 after the amazing Xavier game to go to the Elite 8 when we came back to win from a 16 point margin second half margin.

Students spontaneously sprinted onto the Drag and started turning over cars."

I was at that game and still feel guilty about taunting an older couple from Xavier sitting behind me. Of course the next round I had to endure fat ass Oliver Miller perched on top of the backboard giving us the Horns down.

In 1988 I was in NYC and watched every game of the Big East tournament at MSG. Not the most exciting Spring Break…. but hoops nirvana. 1993 was in Vegas for the Final Four. Energy was like a heavyweight fight.

Hearing Cosell do the play-by-play for Battle of the Network Stars is like having Sidney Poitier read one of ipowers posts.

hiphop -
 
I have your Jayhawks winning it all. I will hold you accountable.
 
I actually love Jalen Rose now and thought he did a good job of explaining that this was his perspective at the time and it was motivated by envy. Jimmy King – in fairly recent interviews – has offered that this is still his belief.
 
*
 
Thanks to all of you for the nice feedback. It makes writing fun.

“Jimmy King – in fairly recent interviews – has offered that this is still his belief.”

And that is completely absurd. King is from Plano – he wouldn’t know the projects if they bit him in the rear end. I laughed when I heard him talk about that.

Nice piece, Scipio, even if it took three months to write.

IMO, Vasherized ridiculing the handicapped is worse than Jalen Rose calling Grant Hill and Uncle Tom.

Holy shit, Mike Donovan could’ve just outrun Diana anytime he wanted.

Incidentally, Heather Locklear should’ve been a shoo-in for a reptilian role on that show.