One Shining Moment

The madness begins rather tamely - Sunday night, 6:30 p.m.  A half-hour television program, without dazzling dunks or buzzer-beater bombs.   That's all to come.  No game even appears on the TV screen.  Instead, brackets pop up, containing the names of 64 college basketball teams.  And in those nail-biting moments of revelation, dreams
become real and disappointment becomes realer.  Because there are only 64 invitations to this Dance.

"The Big Dance."  March Madness.  The NCAA men's basketball tournament. Many (including myself) would argue that this is the most exciting sporting event we have in the United States today.   But I'm not going to list a series of reasons why.  I simply want to take you through the journey - my own personal journey, shared at some level by millions of others. The appearance of those brackets on screen is a huge moment.  Of course, many of the teams already know they have clinched a berth, either through winning their own conference or simply being a national powerhouse who had at the very least a decent season.  For these teams, the announcement simply tells them who they are playing and where they are going.  Everyone else sits on pins and needles, wondering if they are going at all.   Most of them will go somewhere, since 32 teams left out of the NCAA tournament are subsequently invited to the NIT (often referred to as the "Not Important Tournament").  But in reality, no one really wants to end up there. I often feel bad when the camera shifts to a losing team's bench in the closing seconds of their elimination from the tournament.  Tears often flow - jocks have feelings too.   But I never feel as sorry for them as I do for the teams who never see their name pop up on that screen, at 6:30 Sunday night.  There is high drama, four days before the first game even begins.  A commercial ends, and the host reappears to announce the final group of teams
headed to the tournament.  Young men are gathered together with their teammates in locker rooms or restaurants, huddled around a television, fingers crossed, perhaps even offering silent prayers.  These boys are accustomed to winning or losing on a basketball court, with a ball in their hands.  But then they see their dreams die, on a TV screen, before they even reached the starting line. I feel for those teams.   Because this is one event where the prize is just being a participant.    32 teams will go home losers in the first two days of the tournament, and while many of them will feel momentary disappointment, their memories in the end will be fond ones.  Teams from smaller, weaker conferences play their entire season just to earn a berth in this tournament.  Winning a game would simply be icing on the cake. These small schools that many people have never heard of always have a lot of support too.  This tournament is all about the underdog.  But you have to find out about them first.  That's what the three days in between the Sunday announcement and the first set of games are for.  Millions of people fill out their own bracket predictions in the hopes of winning some money in an office pool, or even simply for pride.  But you have to pick some upsets in order to win - and believe me, there are always upsets.  I always try to read up on the teams I've never heard of.  But the statistics only tell you so much.  To pick a dark horse, go with your gut.   You can't predict miracles. Harold "The Show" Arcenaux pours in 36 points to lead Weber St. over legendary North Carolina last year.  Bryce Drew from tiny Valparaiso hits a desperation three-pointer at the buzzer to send home Mississippi the year before.  Miracles happen.  These  are the moments that people remember.  The question every year before the tournament begins is, who will be this year's Cinderella story?  This year, I was hoping it would be my team, the Quakers from the University of Pennsylvania.  One of my boyhood dreams was to play in the NCAA tournament myself.  As a JV player at Penn, I never quite made that jump to the varsity level - but I did get to suit up and play in a game this year, a game in which we clinched a share of the Ivy League crown.  As a proud member of the Penn basketball program, I wished for nothing more than to see our team shock the world with a win over Big Ten power Illinois.  On that Thursday afternoon, I donned my U.Penn sweatshirt and headed down to the local sports bar to catch the game on satellite.  There were clusters of fans gathered at different televisions, each cheering for their own team involved in their own game.  Most of them probably should have been at work, or perhaps they were just taking a very long lunch break.  It's an honorable excuse.   There's something very special about being a student or alumnus of a school, and rooting for them in an NCAA tournament game.

But my Quakers would not be the Cinderella story this year, as they fell to the Illini in a hard-fought battle.  Despite even this major disappointment, it is impossible for me not to enjoy this tournament.  The Big Dance lasts for three weeks, but in the first two days over half of the games are played.  Sixteen games per day, Thursday and Friday, hoops heaven.  Noon till past midnight.  I sit in front of my TV, and yell, and scream, and smile.   There's nothing like it.  The day in my life that I realized God truly did love me was when I came down with the chicken pox in 7th grade -and the two days of school I missed just happened to be the precious Thursday and Friday in March when the games begin.  Yeah, I had to take oatmeal baths -but I made my Mom wait till half-time.   Unfortunately, a communicable disease was the only excuse my mother ever accepted for being absent from school during the NCAA tournament. God knows I tried a new reason every single year, but failed.  So other solutions had to be conjured up.  In high school, a group of friends and I would gather together during free periods and lunch and sneak into the back of the library where an old 10 inch television happened to reside alongside primitive audio-visual equipment.  We'd sit on the edge of our seats, not because of the exciting games, but fearing the wrath of one Mr. Frank Coleman, the stern ancient librarian always lurking.  One day, as I leaned forward to hear the television commentary, I felt a hand clasp my right shoulder, and immediately saw my life pass before my very eyes.  Surely, we all expected detention till next year's tournament.  But after a lengthy staredown, Mr. Coleman cracked a smile, and told us to stay put as long as we kept the volume down.  We gladly complied - but our own hushed cheers and hand claps could not be contained.  I think he understood. This year's first round was thrilling as usual, full of close finishes and great matchups.  I was home for spring break, and my Mom knew better than to ask me to run errands, do chores, or even move out of my chair for those two days. I had tried to pick a few surprising upsets in my own bracket for the first round, but this year's first round was dominated by the favorites more so than in any other tournament in recent memory.

That trend would not continue.  The second round games Saturday and Sunday were positively wacky.  My bracket sheet, which looked so nicely unblemished after the first round, ended up in my trash can after a fit of disgust. I definitely wasn't going to win any money in my pool this year. But that's OK.  Now I could devote myself fully to rooting for the underdogs.  There were many of these to choose from. And some big underdogs actually made it all the way to the Final Four.  #8 seeds rarely advance that far, but two of them did this year - Wisconsin and North Carolina.  As always, there have been some great stories.   In a year in which Duke was #1 in the country entering the tournament, and some questioned whether arch rival North Carolina even deserved a bid, UNC showed
everyone that they belonged by advancing farther than even Duke did -no one, NO ONE, would have predicted that.  Except maybe for a few guys in light blue from Chapel Hill.   Wisconsin snuck up on everyone with its slow-paced, physical attack.  Michigan St. is the one favorite which actually did meet its expectations and advanced to the Final Four.  And Florida moved on with its pressing, run & gun style and its young hotshot coach (Billy Donovan) who played in the 1987 Final Four for Providence. Great stories all. 

The two #8 seeds fell at last in the national semifinals, leaving Michigan St. and Florida to battle it out on that glorious Monday night when the national title is decided.  Legends are made on that Monday night.   Images from this game will be etched on fans' memories everywhere.  And no one watching this past Monday night will forget Mateen Cleaves, Michigan St.'s superstar point guard and emotional leader, limping back onto the court after a severe ankle sprain and carrying his team to a national championship through his own spirit and determination.   Yet another legend is made. There were tons of upsets this year, but one of the favorites ended up on top.  This time.  But Cinderella never dies.  She'll return with her precious glass slipper again next year. When the national champion is finally crowned, and the triumphant young men cut down those nets, it always suddenly hits me that this was the last college basketball game for months.  63 games, and they've all been played.

I can't help but feel sad.  Another season, and another incredible three week tournament are history.  The next day, we all start looking forward to October 15th, when the balls will be rolled out again for the first day of practice.  But on Monday night, I sit back, and end my NCAA tournament the traditional way.  Every year, CBS concludes its NCAA coverage with a video collage of the memorable tournament images and highlights.   The same song always provides the background, called "One Shining Moment."  And it brings a few tears to my eyes, each and every year.  It did again Monday night. Another shining moment.  I can't wait till next year.

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