Go Hogs!
It’s here, it’s March madness. I love basketball, I always have. I never lived in a place where I could have a basketball goal in the driveway so I had the basketball goal on a telephone pole in the middle of a field. I was told that dribbling on dirt would improve my game, it didn’t.
I stopped watching professional basketball a few years back for various reasons so I get my yearly basketball high from enthusiastic college kids competing for a trophy and a chance to be seen by their friends and family on national TV.
I was never good enough to play organized basketball for very long and I blame Michael Jordan for that. You see, MJ and I are about the same age so I never got to hear the motivational story about him being cut from the team in 11th grade. I was trying to make my own team at the same time! So, I got cut too and it is all because I didn’t have any cool stories of overcoming setbacks and adversity and going on to develop a shoe and to be featured in cool commercials. Just to be clear, my being cut from the team had nothing to do with my lack of skills, it was all due to lack of motivational material.
I know it sounds silly but I marvel at the ability to throw a perfectly round ball in a small circle from various distances. It’s like a carnival game where you actually get to win a prize. To me, it is an incredible skill that’s made to look so easy by the athletes we see compete in this very public tournament.
What makes march Madness and all the tournaments around the country is the resilience and competitiveness of kids that are mostly still teens. Yes, it is just a game but to me, it’s more about the stage that it is played on.
There will be no real money for these kids to be made in basketball, most of them will not make it the NBA. For most of the kids that play, this tournament is the last time they get to play the game they love, the game they have played since they were a kid, a game that their parents made sacrifices in their work and personal life’s in order for them to play the sport they love.
Call me a softy but I love watching the emotions spill out on the court after the game for both winners and losers. There is something about seeing a kid come to grips with success and failure in such a public way is exhilarating and heart wrenching for those of us that like to watch.
I have been blessed in the fact that my failures in life have been relatively private and for what it’s worth, so have been my successes. I get choked up for these athletes when they give the game everything they have, yet come up short and on the flip side, I get super excited when they give the game everything they have and come up victorious, especially when it is my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks.
My Razorbacks will compete tonight against the Duke Blue Devils, coached by a living legend, Mike Kryzyzewski. Coach K has coached the same team for 42 and has won 7 national championships and about a bazillion conference championships during his time. I really like Coach K and root for him and his teams on most nights, but not tonight.
Tonight, if the Hogs happen to lose to the Devils, I will flail about, throwing things at the TV, cursing the refs and their countless bad calls, missed calls and paid for calls. I may even refer to them as the “three blind mice”. I will scream that the Duke players are getting favorable treatment because this is coach K’s last year. I will question the shot clock operator for not giving us as much time as them. I will yell at the opposing cheerleaders for being too loud when we need total focus and concentration. I will even question the food vendors for somehow being in on the fix. It will be a total conspiracy if we lose.
Now, should my hogs send Coach K off to retirement tonight, I will talk about what a great game that was, and how despite Duke being a great team, we were simply better. I will talk about how the game could have perhaps been one of the best officiated games in history and contemplate sending the “eagle eyed” refs a heartfelt Christmas card this year. I will refer to the sportsmanship our guys showed during the course of the game and of course I will congratulate Coach K on a remarkable career in not only teaching the game of basketball to young kids but also heavily assisting them on their journey to becoming young men.
I love being magnanimous after a victory, but even if my hogs win, I am relieved that there will be no TV cameras in my living room tonight that would illustrate how poorly I handle success and failure. Thank goodness I was a lousy basketball player.