But he's off to a start similar to Secretariat's in 1973. Like Secretariat, he had to come from behind to win the Kentucky Derby — and he won by two lengths.
Forty years ago today, most Americans probably had not heard much about Secretariat.
The name was familiar to those who followed horse racing, and a record crowd was on hand, many strictly to watch him run in the first jewel of the Triple Crown, but the average American who tuned in to watch the Kentucky Derby that Saturday afternoon in 1973 probably did not know who Secretariat was.
In fact, if casual horse racing fans had heard anything about Secretariat in the weeks prior to the Kentucky Derby, it wasn't good. In the Wood Memorial, his final Kentucky Derby prep race, Secretariat finished third behind his stablemate, Angle Light, and his top foe in the Triple Crown races, Sham.
It was discovered that Secretariat was suffering from an abscess in his mouth.
Secretariat recovered from the abscess by post time at Churchill Downs; nevertheless, many observers were influenced by the results of the Wood Memorial, leaving no clear consensus by the time the race began. Secretariat and his stablemate went off as 3–2 favorites. Sham was just behind at 5–2.
In his trademark fashion, Secretariat meandered out of the gate and ran at the back of the pack for awhile before making his move and giving the racing fans at Churchill Downs a dramatic finish in which he overtook Sham to win by two lengths.
I've known a few horse people in my day, and some would tell you that a horse knows a lot more than people give him credit for. Others would tell you that horses may have a certain level of intelligence, but they can't understand a language or speak one (sorry, Mister Ed), and they can't process/analyze information.
I don't know if either is true, but I do know Secretariat was different. Secretariat almost seemed to be lounging in the back, as if lolling in a hammock, conserving his energy until just the right moment — when he would burst from behind in the blink of an eye.
Secretariat seemed to shift into an entirely different gear, one unknown to mere horses. They called it hyperspace in "Star Wars," I think. But Secretariat came along several years before the first "Star Wars" movie. The concept of hyperspace was largely unknown.
Except, perhaps, to Secretariat.
Then again, maybe he was just making it look good.
I don't really have what folks have taken to calling a "bucket list."
Maybe I've always had a more realistic set of expectations than most people. I don't know. But it seems to me that most of the things I hoped to do when I was younger I have done.
I always liked writing and wanted to make a living doing it. So I majored in journalism, worked as a general assignment reporter, worked as a copy editor and have taught writing to university and community college students. I'm still doing the latter — as an adjunct.
I loved Theodore H. White's books on the making of the president, and I wanted to cover politics. I had no sooner finished work on my bachelor's degree than I found myself covering a gubernatorial runoff that featured a future president (Bill Clinton).
I grew up reading the Arkansas Gazette, and I dreamed that I would one day work for the Gazette. And I did, for more than 4½ years.
I grew up with a passion for team sports, especially football. I worked in the Gazette's sports department — editing stories written by journalists I had been reading for years.
If, as the old rhyme says, I should die before I wake ... I think I can honestly say that I achieved most of the goals I set for myself.
Except for one. I have never been to a Kentucky Derby. And that is something I would like to do once in my life.
(I just want to clarify one thing before I go on. When I speak of goals, of course, I'm overlooking the goals everyone has — i.e., acquiring wealth and/or power — and almost no one achieves.)
When I lived in Arkansas, I used to go to the horse track in Hot Springs on my days off in the spring. It was a grand form of entertainment. I planned on spending a certain amount of money and never expected to win my fortune. Mostly, I enjoyed watching the horses run — and watching the people who came to watch the horses run.
People watching seems to be at its peak at Churchill Downs. It always is — and I'm sure it will be when the horses run for the roses there later today.
I don't really have a dog in this hunt — except to say that I hope whichever horse wins goes on to win the Preakness and the Belmont, too. Horse racing hasn't had a Triple Crown winner in 35 years.
And, with the economy the way it is, I figure there's more than a nugget or two of truth in Mike Downey's column for CNN.com that looked back on Secretariat's Triple Crown 40 years ago this year.
"Desperately seeking Secretariat," writes Downey. "We could use a new you. A superhorse to make our hearts pound the way your hooves did. A four–legged stud to give us a break from cheating golfers, dog–torturing football quarterbacks and doped–up bike racers and baseball sluggers."
America could use a shot in the arm. That certainly was something that Secretariat provided 40 years ago.
But times weren't as bad in 1973 as they are in 2013. The burden of expectations is likely to be much heavier on the winner of today's Run for the Roses than it was for Secretariat — who, nevertheless, carried the weight of a 25–year Triple Crown drought on his back and still capped his Triple Crown run with an astonishing 30–length victory in the Belmont.
Secretariat, though, was a truly once–in–a–lifetime horse. None of his descendants has come close to duplicating his achievement.
But that is the magic of the first Saturday in May, isn't it? The possibility that the winner of the Kentucky Derby will go on to win the Preakness and the Belmont as well.
When I was growing up, three names dominated the PGA Tour — Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. They weren't the only golfers who won tournaments in the 1960s and 1970s, just the most frequent and prominent winners.
On this day 50 years ago, Player and Palmer had both won the Masters at least once. Palmer had won it three times, the most recent being the year before. Nicklaus, by far the youngest of the three, had not yet won it.
But he was about to.
Nicklaus became a professional golfer in late 1961, and he won his first major tournament (the U.S. Open) the next year. That was a pretty dramatic victory. Nicklaus prevailed over Palmer by three strokes in a playoff. At 22, he was the youngest U.S. Open winner since Bobby Jones nearly 40 years earlier; no one who is any younger has won the Open since.
On this day in 1963, Nicklaus became the youngest golfer to win the Masters. Tiger Woods became the youngest winner in 1997 when, at the age of 21, he won by 12 strokes.
In the buildup to this year's Masters, which begins on Thursday, there has been considerable speculation concerning whether Woods will win his first Masters since 2005.
But even if he does, it will be Woods' fifth triumph at the Augusta Golf Club; he will still trail Nicklaus, who has won a green jacket a record six times, by one title.
Tiger's first Masters title was a dramatic one because, initially, it looked as if he wouldn't make the cut, but he roared back to finish the four–day tourney at 18 under par, beating runnerup Tom Kite by 12 strokes.
Nicklaus did not enjoy such a comfortable margin in 1963. He held on for a one–stroke victory over Tony Lema, who trailed by three strokes entering the final day and nearly forced Nicklaus into a playoff. A double bogey in the opening round proved to be his undoing.
The 1963 Masters was a defining moment, writes John Berry in the Lake County Record–Bee of Lakeport, Calif.
Battling "brisk and windy" conditions, Berry writes, Nicklaus "showed that he had what it takes to win under the toughest of conditions on golf's biggest stage."
The Golden Bear won the Masters five more times, the most recent being in 1986.
Tomorrow, the Michigan Wolverines will make their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament's Final Four in 20 years.
They had a chance to return to the Final Four the following year, but they lost to my alma mater, the University of Arkansas. They haven't been back since.
A lot of attention has been paid this week to Wichita State, which is back in the Final Four for the first time in nearly half a century. Having the spotlight shine on someone else might be something of a relief for Michigan, given what happened the last time the Wolverines played in the Final Four.
On this night two decades ago, Michigan faced North Carolina in the championship game in New Orleans. It was a close game, competitive, definitely entertaining for the fans, but it is almost certainly remembered for a single moment in the final seconds.
Michigan's Chris Webber had the ball and tried to call a timeout. Unfortunately for him, Michigan was out of timeouts. That meant a technical foul was assessed against Michigan. Game over.
Until that point, Webber had been having a pretty decent game. He led all Michigan players in scoring with 23 points, and he was second only to North Carolina's Donald Williams (by two points) among all players.
And, in the end, he was named to the All–Tournament Team along with Williams and two other North Carolina players.
But then it was learned that he had received under–the–table payments from a booster, and Michigan had to vacate its entire 1992–93 season.
And the Wolverines haven't been seen in the Final Four since that night — well, until now.
It was the last gasp of Michigan's Fab Five, the nickname given to the 1991 recruiting class that took the program to consecutive national championship games in 1992 and 1993.
The memory that lingers from the '92 tournament has nothing to do with Michigan. That tournament is remembered for the epic East Regional final between Duke and Kentucky, won in overtime by Duke. Duke went on to beat Michigan in the championship game.
The '93 tournament is remembered mostly for Webber's faux pas. The two are so closely linked that my guess is Webber's mistake will be mentioned in the first paragraph of his obituary.
I've seen a few really noteworthy upsets in championship settings in my life.
Most of the time they seem to come in baseball — the Amazin' New York Mets of 1969 and the Kirk Gibson—led Los Angeles Dodgers of 1988 come to mind — and, occasionally, they come in football — when the Miami Hurricanes knocked off top–ranked Nebraska in the 1984 Orange Bowl, for example, or when Joe Namath took the New York Jets to a triumph in the third Super Bowl.
Sometime the outcome hinges on an obvious mistake. Perhaps it is a bad call, like the one that turned things around for the Kansas City Royals against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1985. Other times, it may be a poor strategic decision by a coach or a player.
But of all the team sport championships in my memory that were not decided by a blown call or a blatantly poor decision by a coach or a player, there was one really epic upset, the NCAA Tournament finale between the University of Houston and North Carolina State played 30 years ago tonight.
Houston's Cougars were widely regarded as just too good to lose. The roster had Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, the best and probably best–known members of "Texas' Tallest Fraternity" — Phi Slama Jama — but they had plenty of talented support from guys like Benny Anders, Larry Micheaux and Michael Young.
Phi Slama Jama specialized in dunking the ball. The players were big and physical, and they played in the last years when neither the shot clock nor the three–point shot existed in college basketball. If the game's pace had been faster or if making a long shot had been rewarded with an additional point, Phi Slama Jama might not have been as successful as it was.
But in its time, Houston went to back–to–back NCAA finals and lost both. In their second appearance, the Cougars went up against a pretty strong Georgetown team led by Patrick Ewing. My memory is that Houston's loss in that game really didn't surprise me. The Hoyas and the Cougars were considered to be evenly matched.
But the same could not be said of Houston's foe 30 years ago tonight, the North Carolina State Wolfpack. N.C. State barely managed to get in to the NCAA Tournament that year; the Wolfpack were seeded sixth in the West but won three cliffhangers en route to the Final Four.
Cliffhangers weren't anything new for the Wolfpack. They had to endure seven of them in their last nine games just to qualify for the NCAA Tournament. In so doing, they had earned the nickname "Cardiac Pack."
Top–ranked Houston, by comparison, had cruised through the tournament. In their national semifinal with #2 Louisville 48 hours earlier, the Cougars won by 13 points.
It was probably the greatest Cinderella story in my lifetime — so far, anyway.
N.C. State was a huge underdog that night. I remember that, at the time, I was working for a small–town newspaper in central Arkansas, and I was covering a county government meeting that night. I covered these meetings on a regular basis, and I knew that, even though they tended to draw very small crowds, the officials tended to get into long–winded arguments about damn near everything.
In my experience, if one of those meetings was over in less than two hours, it was a miracle.
I was disheartened by this knowledge because I really wanted to see the game, and I was convinced that I would miss most, if not all, of it.
But fate seemed to be on my side. The meeting ended early. I asked a few of the officials some questions, and I left, certain that I could be home before tipoff.
As I walked out, a county police officer who always attended the meetings called out to me. We chatted for a few minutes, then I excused myself, explaining that I wanted to see the game.
"Who do you think will win?" he asked me as I started walking down the hall.
"Houston," I said, without hesitation. I simply couldn't imagine North Carolina State winning the game.
But I was wrong.
N.C. State led by eight points at halftime, then squandered the lead in the second half but rallied by exploiting Houston's Achilles' heel — free–throw shooting.
The Wolfpack frustrated the Cougars, fouling them every time they had their hands on the ball. Olajuwon fared pretty well, hitting six of seven attempts, but, as a team, Houston barely managed to sink half its free throws.
Phi Slama Jama's reputation was built on power ball. As Drexler said, he liked to dunk — as did the rest of the Cougars. Free throws weren't something on which they spent a lot of time.
Still, it took a slam dunk by Lorenzo Charles just before the buzzer to lift the Wolfpack to that improbable triumph.
"Romo may not exactly belong in the same neighborhood as Tom Brady," writes Mac Engel in the Fort Worth Star–Telegram, "but now he can afford at least a plot around the corner."
In fact, as Jarrett Bell of USA Today observed, the nearly 33–year–old signal caller has won only one playoff game in his career. It also happens to be the Cowboys' only playoff victory in the last 15 years.
(The Cowboys haven't been to a Super Bowl in nearly 20 years.)
Furthermore, it is safe to say that some folks are questioning Cowboys owner Jerry Jones' sanity.
I'm one of 'em. Have been for awhile.
It's a big club.
There were those who felt that way back when Jones bought the team and unceremoniously fired iconic coach Tom Landry. Still more came on board when Jones and Landry's successor, Jimmy Johnson, parted ways after Johnson won back–to–back Super Bowls.
Perhaps they were the visionaries.
I'll grant you, I had my doubts about Jones early on when he talked about being involved in everything at Valley Ranch ("socks 'n' jocks"). That was a little too hands–on for me — but, boy, did it tell us a few things about Jones' mindset.
At first, I was willing to overlook it as the understandable exuberance of a middle–aged man indulging in a boyhood fantasy — running a pro football team.
But I figured — perhaps naively — that he would leave all that behind after winning a couple of Super Bowls — and would leave the football team to the coach and his staff.
He hasn't.
Jones may fancy himself a shrewd judge of football players, but, in my book, he doesn't have much of a record — especially when it comes to picking quarterbacks. His tenure has been like watching a toddler grabbing for everything that shines brightly and catches his eye.
But, as Shakespeare wrote, "All that glitters is not gold."
The three Super Bowls the Cowboys won in the 1990s were won by a quarterback to whom the Cowboys were already committed before Jones acquired the team (Troy Aikman).
A glance at the names that have filled the QB slot since Aikman retired reveals a lineup of wannabes and has–beens. Mostly flash, little substance.
That is such a shame because the Dallas franchise was once synonymous with quarterback excellence.
It isn't that I think that Romo is a bad quarterback. He isn't. But he is inconsistent.
And that makes him mediocre.
I don't blame him for taking the contract. I doubt that anyone else would have offered him nearly as much. His window is rapidly closing.
But I do blame Jones for making the offer.
Someone else should be making the football decisions at Valley Ranch.
For nearly 40 years, ABC's Wide World of Sports was a fixture on Saturday afternoons.
Its mission was really twofold. Ostensibly, I believe it began its existence as a catch–all for offbeat sports that were rarely, if ever, shown on the Big Three networks, but it also showed popular sports, primarily individual competitions, like boxing or figure skating or gymnastics.
As such, it filled a niche in those days before cable.
Everyone knew the intro in which the narrator spoke of "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."
As a boy, I often watched Wide World of Sports. The sports it showed really were off the wall most of the time, but, once in awhile, there was some good mainstream sports event on the program.
Such was the case 40 years ago today.
I don't remember much about that day except that my parents went somewhere that afternoon — they probably went to Little Rock to see a movie and have dinner — and a young couple had been hired to look after my brother and me.
As a college professor, my father often recruited his students to look after us when he took my mother out. My memory was that one, if not both, of the young people who came over that day had been in at least one of his classes.
Anyway, as I recall, the four of us started playing a board game of some kind after my parents left. Then, an hour or so later, the young man suggested that we watch Wide World of Sports. Muhammad Ali, who was only two years removed from his first fight with Joe Frazier, was to fight Ken Norton that afternoon.
That was fine with me.
I don't recall if I had ever seen Ali fight live before, but I had seen him on TV. Interviews. Fight highlights. That sort of thing. I liked him. He always seemed to be symbolic of the era in which he competed.
On this occasion, I got to see him fight — impressively, too, even though he didn't win.
It was a competitive fight, one that Ali lost in a split decision. It went the scheduled 12 rounds, and, after the fight had been awarded to Norton, it was revealed that Ali's jaw had been broken at some point. Norton has always contended that it happened near the end of the fight, probably in the 11th round. Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer, insisted it was earlier.
Ali and Norton fought two more times. Ali won both — even though some observers will tell you they thought Norton actually won their last fight in 1976 — when Ali was heavyweight champion for the second time. If Norton had won on that day, he would have been heavyweight champ.
As it was, Norton did join that elite club of men who have been heavyweight champion. The title was awarded to him retroactively a couple of years later — after Ali had lost his title to Leon Spinks in early 1978. The crown did not remain on his head for long. In his first title defense, Norton was defeated in a very tight decision against Larry Holmes.
On this day 40 years ago, Norton was only the second professional fighter to defeat Ali (Joe Frazier was the other).
Ironically, I suppose, I was thinking earlier this week about Michigan's last trip to the Elite Eight. Michigan faced my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, in one of the regional finals in 1994. The Razorbacks won the game and went on to face first Arizona and then Duke en route to the national championship.
The Wolverines haven't been this close to the Final Four since.
Had he known about that, I suspect it would have appealed to Steve. He was a diehard Razorback fan, and the victory over the Wolverines on March 25, 1994, surely ranks as one of the great moments in Arkansas basketball history.
That game was played during the "Fab Five" era. Until now, that was the most recent highlight for Michigan basketball, and it is a virtual certainty that none of the players on Michigan's current roster was old enough to remember it.
Tomorrow, the Wolverines will have an opportunity to go farther than any Michigan team has in 20 years. In 1993, Michigan went all the way to the national championship game but lost to North Carolina when Chris Webber tried to call a timeout in the final seconds. Unfortunately, the Wolverines no longer had one, which resulted in a technical being assessed against Webber.
Ultimately, the Wolverines lost the game — and then had to vacate their entire season when it was revealed that Webber had received payments from a booster.
No doubt the Wolverines would rather re–live the 1989 NCAA Tournament, when assistant Steve Fisher took over as head coach when Bill Frieder was fired after announcing just prior to the tournament that he had agreed to coach Arizona State the following season.
In spite of the instability, the Wolverines went on to win it all in a thrilling overtime triumph over Seton Hall.
That game was played in Seattle. This year's Final Four will be played across the continent — in Atlanta.
Nevertheless, will history repeat itself?
And, if so, how? By winning it all, a la 1989? Or blowing the opportunity, as was the case in 1993?
Or will the Wolverines come up short in the regional final, as they did 19 years ago?
All or part of the answer should be revealed tomorrow.
I hear the word dynasty tossed around rather casually these days.
It seems to be applied to any team that might win a second straight championship in any sport. But two in a row simply doesn't mean that much to folks of my generation. That isn't what we think of when we think of the word dynasty.
When I was growing up, everyone knew the real definition of the word. It was visible whenever the UCLA basketball team took the court — especially in the early '70s.
In fact, in the early 1970s, the UCLA basketball team put together what is likely to be the longest Division I winning streak ever — 88 wins in a row from 1971 to 1974.
Forty years ago tonight, the Bruins were in pursuit of their second straight perfect season. Not just a national title. It had become routine for UCLA to win national titles. The Bruins weren't always undefeated, but they usually won the national championship.
Maybe that was what it took to light a fire under basketball players from whom championships were expected. A perfect record was on the line this time.
On this night in St. Louis in 1973, they were looking for their seventh consecutive national title. Think about that for a minute. Can you imagine any college program in any sport maintaining that kind of dominance for seven consecutive years?
It's really more remarkable than that. In 12 seasons — from 1963–1964 to 1974–1975 — coach John Wooden led UCLA to 10 national titles.
Now, I don't want to say anything that detracts in any way from what Wooden achieved.
It was an amazing performance to watch. Walton was unstoppable, and so was UCLA. It was the era of the Bruins' dominance — long before Duke became a fixture in the Final Four. It was inconceivable in those days that UCLA would not win the national title.
And, in 1973, it was inconceivable that UCLA would lose — ever.
Of course, the Bruins did lose eventually — nothing lasts forever — but not on this night in 1973.
UCLA has enjoyed a few other championship seasons since the one 40 years ago, but it seems safe to say that this night in 1973 was the program's peak — not unlike when Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers dismantled John Elway and the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV.
I've been reading an interesting — and troubling — article by Tommy Craggs at Deadspin.com.
It's about Len Bias, a truly gifted basketball player who was picked second overall in the 1986 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics.
If the name doesn't sound familiar to readers who have not reached their 30th birthday, there is a good reason for that. Bias never played in the NBA. He died of a cocaine overdose two days after being drafted.
He'd been celebrating his good fortune, as just about any athlete in almost any collegiate sport would. When one is a top pick in the professional draft, it is generally taken for granted that he has it made.
It doesn't always work out that way. There have been many examples of top draft picks who — for whatever reason — simply couldn't make the transition from college to pro.
Bias might not have panned out. But I had several friends at the time who were diehard basketball fans, and they all believed he would be a huge star in the NBA. I have never really been an NBA fan, but, at that time, I was more of a college basketball fan than I am now. I had seen Bias play on TV, and I, too, believed he would be a big success at the professional level.
Bias was a contemporary of Michael Jordan — a couple of years younger, I guess, and probably not quite as good, but that wasn't really clear in 1986. Jordan hadn't yet established himself as perhaps the greatest NBA player ever, and he was never the most valuable player in the Atlantic Coast Conference's postseason tournament.
Bias was the MVP of the 1984 ACC Tournament, leading Maryland to a 12–point victory over Duke in the tournament final and a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Both men were ACC Player of the Year — Bias twice and Jordan once.
In 1986, I think it is safe to say that Bias' credentials were more solid than Jordan's. Before he died, he probably was more highly regarded than Jordan, who had been playing in the NBA for a couple of years but had not won his first NBA title.
One can only imagine what the NBA would have been like in the late '80s and early '90s if Bias had not died. At the time of the '86 draft, Boston's undisputed star was Larry Bird, who was named MVP of the NBA finals less than two weeks earlier. But he was about to enter the downside of his career, and he retired half a dozen years later.
At that time, Bias would have been in his prime, ready to take the leadership mantel from Bird. He might even have taken it a year or two earlier, allowing Bird to ease into retirement.
Perhaps he would have led the Celtics to even greater heights. Perhaps the Jordan–led Chicago Bulls would have had a rivalry with Bias and the Celtics that would have exceeded the intensity of the rivalry between the Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers in the '80s.
Perhaps he would have had the can't–miss Hall of Fame career everyone said he would have.
If so, people would remember him for that — and not for the way he died.
But, apparently, that is what many people do remember about Len Bias.
Rather than honor the memory of Bias and his many achievements — and encourage young people to hone their skills and follow their own dreams — Maryland will do as so many have done before — focus on a fatal flaw.
I know that Bias showed extremely poor judgment the night he died. But he was 22 years old. When I was 22, I didn't always show good judgment, either. And I frequently paid a price for my mistakes. But I never paid with my life.
Maybe it was a matter of luck that I outlived those reckless years and he did not. Maybe it always is a matter of luck. The luck of the draw.
That's an ironic thought. On the night that Boston drafted Bias, most people probably would have said that he was the one who had lived a charmed life. I certainly would have said that his life was charmed compared to mine.
And yet I have lived nearly 27 years longer than he did.
Maybe I was lucky that my mistakes weren't final. Maybe Bias was unlucky that one of his mistakes was.
But the fact that he forfeited his life does not mean he should forfeit his legacy.
A "tomato can" is a fighter who is believed to be past his prime and an "easy" or "guaranteed" win for an up-and-coming fighter who wants to pad his record.
Sometimes, though, the "tomato can" doesn't cooperate. For example, in 1990, undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson lost the title to a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas.
Another heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, almost lost his title to lightly regarded Chuck Wepner in 1975. Wepner nearly went the distance against Ali and inspired the original "Rocky" movie.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
