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At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

Breaking Down The Bracket: A Sports Bloggers Rite Of Passage

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While most everyone else, including your boss and mother in law, is bickering over their brackets and comparing cinderellas, I decided to take a slightly different approach to March Madness. Rather than focus on any specific 7/10 matchup or share with you my gloriously irrelevant Final Four prediction, (Go Jackrabbits!!!!), I figured that what was most needed at this time was a closer examination of the second/third round host cities. Here are superlatives for each of the 8 locations, including Greensboro.

Best Scrabble Score: Albuquerque – It may not be “sesquioxidizing” but with 31 points the largest city in New Mexico is clearly the highest scoring scrabble word on the board. And there isn’t even a close second. Go ahead, do the math. Nashville (15) and Greensboro (12) don’t stand a chance. Maybe if a second/third round game were being played in Jacksonville (28) would you then have an argument. But in board game reality, none of this even matters because as anyone who plays scrabble knows you can’t play a word that starts with a capital letter which is always a bummer for me whenever I try to sneak “Xanadu” by my opponents.

Best Explorer as a Namesake: Columbus – The capital of Ohio wins by default and really only because there are no tournament games played in either Hudson, NY or Ponce de Leon, FL. One of my absolute favorite books to teach in my World History class is “1491” by Charles Mann which gives an in depth look at what American civilizations were like before European contact. Contrary to many of our textbooks, indigenous peoples were able to cultivate and sustain incredibly complex and technologically advanced societies. Of course, if like me you grew up watching Disney movies then the notion of the Native Americans as neither “noble savages” or “incurably vicious barbarians” comes as somewhat of a shock. Now that I have kids of my own I suppose this is what they call a teachable moment.

Best Beer for Under $2: Nashville – It’s impossible to not at least respect a place where a 16oz can of PBR costs you right around $1.50, including tax. The Music City has a pulse and vibe unlike any other city in the country. (Granted I have yet to visit New Orleans, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Austin, or Seattle.) The only downside, the water mocassins. My grandmother was born and raised in Nashville and she use to tell us how when the Cumberland River would rise and flood the surrounding plains that it would leave behind dangerous cottonmouth water moccasins in people’s gazebos and living rooms. These stories always use to give me the willies and made me appreciate my idyllic upbringing in New England where the only menacing wildlife that I encountered was my neighbors rabid golden retriever named Molly.

Best City Where I Would Have Liked To Live If It Were 2008 Before Every Hipster Dufus From Williamsburg Brooklyn Hadn’t Already Moved There: Portland – I caught a few promos for the MLS opener Monday night between the Portland Timbers and the Philadelphia Union and walked away totally freaked out by the passion exhibited by soccer fans in the pacific northwest. For instance, were you aware that the Timbers unofficial mascot is some brawny guy named Timber Joey who after every Portland win fires up a large chainsaw and cuts a section off the “victory log”? Timber Joey and victory log: two things that I never thought I would mention in the same sentence.

Best City Where I Would Have Liked To Live If It Were 2009 Before Every Hipster Dufus From Williamsburg Brooklyn Hadn’t Already Moved There: Pittsburgh – I’ve expressed my preoccupation with the Steel City before, but it bears repeating, this town has everything young professionals are looking for including affordable housing. Andrew Carnegie would be so proud.

Best Billionaire: Omaha – Speaking of the Gospel of Wealth, Omaha remains the home of the oracle himself Warren Buffett, who for some odd reason I always get confused with Rupert Murdoch even though one believes that the richest 1% should pay more in taxes while the other owns News Corp, a company known for it’s conservative politics and illegal phone hacking. Perhaps it’s the glasses. Or the vaults full of money.

Best City To Mispronounce: Louisville – Or is it “Loo-ee-vil”? Let me just say that the outsiders way is much, much easier. My dad and I are constantly at odds over how to pronounce his hometown of Baltimore, MD. He prefers “Bawl-mer” while I favor the more prevalent, albeit incorrect, “Ball-ta-more”. The fact that we are even still having this argument just proves the theory that my dad has yet to fully recover after Barry Levinson failed to cast him as one of the leads in Diner. It’s funny, dad has always considered himself to be a lot like Boogie where I have always seen him as a taller version of Eddie.

Best City In North Carolina That Is Also A Site For a 2012 NCAA Tournament Game: Greensboro – Part of me wanted to give this category to Louisville too but that wasn’t going to work seeing as how Kentucky and North Carolina are two different states, even though both can boast a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. And why is it that Greensboro always seems to be a host city? Probably has something to do with its close proximity to the Research Triangle and the rich basketball tradition along Tobacco Road. If that’s the case, why no love for Manchester, NH?

view from Dayton Arena courtesy of @gregwrubell

How To Turn Your Place Of Employment Into An Actual Real Life March Madness Bracket

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What if life were like March Madness where the hierarchy of every business/place of employment were determined by a bracket? As a high school history teacher I am absolutely fascinated by this concept. Who hasn’t spent endless hours during their lunch break comparing their value to that of Jim over in accounting? What if during contract negotiations your boss were to rank all of the top employees in the company from 1 to 64 and go through the bracket, matchup by matchup, region by region, until a winner, or most valuable employee, was determined? Isn’t this a meritocracy at its best?

I also think it would be interesting to assess what your own personal seeding would be heading into the tournament. For instance, I’m one of 60 or so teachers at my school and that number isn’t even counting administrators, support staff, coaches, etc. Would I even make the top 64? If I don’t, should I be worried about my long term job security?

If I were to make the field it would probably be as an automatic bid from the Southern Conference. I would most likely enter as a #13 seed and take on a high powered at large bid out of the development office. Think Davidson vs Wisconsin. Once the brackets are announced I all of a sudden become a very trendy upset pick, probably because most teachers don’t really understand how the development team got to be a #4 seed in the first place. Then you have guys like Doug Gottlieb and Digger Phelps picking me to make it all the way to the regionals in Phoenix where I would end up taking on a #1 seed like Kansas. Here is were my Cinderella story through March comes to an end as the Dean of Faculty beats me into submission before we even reach the half.

But, as a history teacher, I can feel good about making it to the Sweet 16 especially when very few colleagues predicted me to make it that far. Hopefully my performance in the office value bracket would allow me to keep my job for at least another year until we are ready to start the madness all over again.

view from Madison Square Garden courtesy of @chrisfreezy17

Hoop Dreams: More Relevant Today Than Ever Before

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2012 marks the 18th Anniversary of Hoop Dreams, a landmark sports documentary about two young Chicago basketball players, Arthur Agee and William Gates, with high aspirations and hopes for the future. At least that’s what it says on the iTunes plot description. What the movie is really about is two families struggling to overcome all the obstacles and stereotypes that continue to beset African Americans. The film has been airing on one of the ESPN’s recently and it is recommended viewing for anyone looking to revisit many of the complex socioeconomic issues that continue to effect our inner cities. Here are just a few points to consider when watching Hoop Dreams today.

Chicago has been in the spotlight recently due to an unseemly amount of violence throughout certain parts of the city, especially the Western portion of the proper around Marshall High where, coincidentally, Arthur Agee went to school. Agee went to Marshall after not being able to foot the bill at St. Joseph’s. But in reality, if Agee were able to play up to head coach Gene Pingatore’s expectations he probably never would have had to leave the program.

Pingatore, or “PING” as his license plate reads, is a very complex figure. On the one hand, he has had an incredibly successful coaching career, helping place several of his most prized pupils, like Isaiah Thomas and more recently Evan Turner, in some of the most prestigious universities and basketball programs in the country. But at what cost? For every William Gates who shows promise early and is rewarded with Coach Ping’s eternal loyalty there is an Arthur Agee who couldn’t live up to expectations on the freshman team and would be unsympathetically weened off the teat before having an opportunity to complete his education at St. Joe’s.

And speaking of Isaiah Thomas, Hoop Dreams was filmed right around the same time that the Detroit Pistons star point guard, and future office creepster, was left of the 1992 Olympic basketball roster.  As the story goes, it was Michael Jordan, amongst others, who wanted Zeke left off the Dream Team because nobody wanted to play with him.  MJ always seems to be the center of unsubstantiated rumors. Was he kicked out of the NBA for a season because he gambled on basketball? And is he selling his $29 million Highland Park estate because he needs to the money to meet payroll for the Charlotte Bobcats?

But back to Hoop Dreams, one has to wonder whether or not William Gates would have had a better basketball career if he hurt his knee in 2012 instead of 1990. Those scenes from the film where he is having his knee scoped are pretty gruesome. Schools like Indiana, Kansas, and NC State would have probably kept knocking on his door if he still had both menisci.

When he was at the top of his game, it was pretty cool to see Gates compete in the ABCD summer camp alongside future member of Michigan’s Fab Five Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, and Jalen Rose. And how perfect was Dick Vitale when speaking to the prospects? He hasn’t changed one bit. Same enthusiasm. Same hairline. Same tight fitting coaching shorts. Dicky V was talking to the campers about the pitfalls of being a big time college athlete.

Hoop Dreams sheds some much needed light on the cut throat process that is the college recruitment process where young student/athletes are played against the odds. Marquette coach Kevin O’Neill, yeah that Kevin O’Neill, sits down in William’s living room and explains to the high school senior that the Golden Eagles have 2 spots for 7 recruits.  O’Neill probably sat down with each of those 7 families and dropped them all the same line about how if they say they want to go to Marquette then he will stop recruiting other players. This sort of parlor trick no doubt employed by the majority of DI coaches puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the player to make a quick decision lest he be passed over for a more spontaneous recruit.

A few final points/observations. First, it would have been really fascinating to witness a one-on-one game between Agee and Gates during their respective primes. Agee probably had the higher ceiling because he was an incredibly gifted athlete who could get to the basket and create his own shot. But Gates had the polish/mid range game that would allow him to blend in easily with a more established program and coach.

Secondly, it’s pretty amazing when you realize that Williams Gates Jr. is one of the stars of the current St. Joe’s team. Judging from the youtube clips, it looks like Jr’s game is much more reminiscent of Agee than his father. Not surprising considering that Arthur Agee and William Gates will be inextricably linked for all eternity because of Hoop Dreams.

view from Champaign courtesy of @clayharbs82

 

 

Someone Draw Dick Vitale A Map To Murray Kentucky

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I once worked at a summer camp in upstate New York with a guy named Boog who graduated from Murray State. He was a massive individual, the sort of fellow whose landscape altering appearance was matched only by his deep baritone Appalachian drawl. Boog was working to become a certified NCAA basketball official, an endeavor which I found to be somewhat farcical considering his overbearing physical stature. (I always thought basketball refs should be built more like Dick Bavetta and less like Proposition Joe.) When Boog wasn’t talking about how to properly differentiate between a legal and illegal screen, you could usually find him sitting comfortably by the campfire extolling all the virtues of his alma mater. Before roasting marshmallows in the Adirondacks, I knew Murray State only as the upstart #15 seed that pushed perennial powers like Duke and Carolina to the brink of defeat in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Thanks to Boog I learned a great deal about the university and how the school provided for an entire community in western Kentucky.

Last night the 2011-2012 Murray State Racers lost their first basketball game of the season, falling to Tennessee State 72-68. The #9 team in the nation now faces a much more difficult task in their campaign to lure Dicky V to campus for their Bracketbuster game against St. Mary’s on February 18th.

I wonder if Boog will be officiating.

view from CFSB Center courtesy of @ericcrawford

SOPA Makes Things Dark Including Sports Blogs

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If you don’t yet totally understand why today websites like Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, etc, have gone dark, join the club. If you’d like to develop of firmer understanding of the proposed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation read this. My senses are that any bill which potentially limits an individual or websites ability to use or link to content must go through some serious revisions before becoming law.

If the Justice Dept is really given greater juridiction online, websites will be forced to allocate a much more significant portion of their resources to ensuring that they are not linking to foreign websites whose primary purpose is to sell stolen or counterfeit goods. (Have at it MPAA!!!) Now, at this point, all this means very little to us here at viewmyseats. Apparently you need to have more than 10 uniques a day for the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover to give two shits.

Speaking of giving a shit, I for one loved how much Denard Robinson and other Meechigan people cared about last night’s Wolverines victory over instate rival, and little brother, Michigan State. If you’ve ever played or coach against a 1-3-1 zone you understand that it requires some serious game planning, offensive precision, and adjustment. In other words, ask Shooter.