Hog Heaven

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Today is a special day in the history of my alma mater.

Today is the 20th anniversary of Arkansas' victory over Duke in the national championship game.

Two days earlier, the Razorbacks had beaten Arizona in the national semifinals. As I wrote the other day, I was on a trip to Denver with some journalism students, and I missed that game — but I had set my video recorder to tape it, and I did watch it after I got home on Sunday, April 3.

Twenty years ago tonight, I was in my apartment in Norman, Okla., watching the title game. I'd been waiting all my life for the Razorbacks to win a national championship. I always hoped it would be in football, but I wasn't going to quibble on this day.

Most of my friends were living in Arkansas, and, to this day, I can still only imagine how excited they must have been — more excited, probably, than they were when Gov. Bill Clinton was elected president less than two years before.

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In hindsight, I suppose it is easy to conclude that Corliss Williamson's presence on the team ensured its success, but I don't really think that is true. My friends who lived in Arkansas at the time — and got to see more Arkansas games than I did — might disagree with me, but I felt that it truly was a team effort.

Corliss was a special talent, of course. He was the Most Outstanding Player in the 1994 tournament — and might have been named the MOP again in 1995 if the Razorbacks had beaten UCLA in the national championship game that year.

But even in a sport like basketball. in which a team can put only five players on the court at a time, one person does not, cannot carry the whole load. Corliss had a great game 20 years ago tonight. He led all scorers with 23 points, but Corey Beck and Scotty Thurman contributed 15 points apiece.

That matched Antonio Lang's team–leading point production for Duke, which did a better job of spreading things around, I suppose. All five of Duke's starters were in double figures.

Williamson probably enjoyed more professional success than any of his collegiate teammates. After all, he did win an NBA title with the Detroit Pistons. But on this night in 1994, the Razorbacks prevailed not because of the depth of their bench but because of the depth of their hunger.

The Razorbacks of 1993–94 were the fruit of Richardson's system, the one he began installing in the lean years of the mid–1980s, when the team struggled on the court and Richardson's attention was divided between his job and his terminally ill daughter. The centerpiece was Williamson — he was clearly the go–to guy, hitting more than 62% of his shots from the field — but everyone played a role.

They called it "Forty Minutes of Hell." It was what happened when a team was relentless, always pressing, always probing for some weakness to exploit. And when it came to big shots, it seemed nearly everyone, not just Williamson, could be the hero.

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Like Thurman, for example.

The Razorbacks led Duke by a single point at halftime, then fell behind quickly in the second half and had to claw their way back.

In the final minute, with the game on the line, Thurman fired the shot that, while it may not have been heard around the world, certainly was heard from one side of Arkansas to the other.

And Arkansas won, 76–72.

I recorded a brand–new greeting for my answering machine that night. I had a recording of the Arkansas fight song, and I played it in the background while I recorded some routine message. If someone wanted to leave a message for me, it was necessary to listen to the Arkansas fight song all the way through.

I remember that, as the announcers counted down the final seconds of the game, one observed that "Arkansas is in hog heaven."

That seemed a little trite, a little obvious to me at the time, but now I realize that it was appropriate.

It was like when I was in college, and the football Razorbacks hosted the top–ranked Texas Longhorns one October Saturday afternoon. No one gave the Hogs a chance, but they whipped the Longhorns that afternoon, and "hog heaven" described the euphoric atmosphere in Fayetteville that night.

Texas was always the greatest rival on Arkansas' schedule, and knocking the Longhorns from the #1 perch was like a dream come true for Razorback fans.

Few experiences in my life have matched the way I felt that day — or how I felt 20 years ago tonight when Arkansas won the national championship in basketball.

In Arkansas, they'll be re–living the experience tonight via Twitter. Fans can experience it virtually as it happened — albeit, essentially, by text.

But a digital re–creation can't possibly match the real thing.

Arkansas' Ascent to the Mountaintop

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Twenty years ago today, I was teaching journalism at the University of Oklahoma, and I was in Denver with a group of about 10 students for a Saturday journalism conference.

We had driven all night Thursday night to get from Norman to Denver in time for the students to do some skiing Friday afternoon (I just wanted to collapse in my hotel room).

Saturday was filled with workshops, which concluded around 4 or 5 p.m. We checked out of the hotel that morning and put all our bags in the van that had been provided by OU — and everyone knew we were planning to leave the minute the conference wrapped up.

I knew the Razorbacks — the basketball team from my alma mater — would be playing Arizona in the first game of the Final Four that day, and I knew I would miss it. I hoped the Hogs would win so I could watch them play for the national title two nights later — from the comfort of my living room.

As it turned out, I did get to watch them play for and win the national title, but I didn't get to see them play Arizona. Well, not live. I set my VCR to record the game, and, thankfully, there were no power interruptions while we were gone. I was able to watch the recording of the game after we got home on Sunday afternoon.

But I watched highlights from my motel room when we stopped for the night somewhere in western Kansas that Saturday night. The room had cable service that included CNN Headline News — and I remember staying up much later than I should have to watch the highlights from Arkansas' triumph over and over.

(ESPN existed in those days, but I don't think SportsCenter had evolved. Anyway, I don't remember considering it an option at the time.

(By the way, we lost an hour that night. It was the weekend that Daylight Saving Time began.)

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But I discovered — after I got home and watched the tape of the game — there was one thing I didn't see on the highlights.

There was a popular beer commercial in those days that showed a guy departing an airplane and essentially hijacking a driver who was there for someone else — all so he could drink beer in the back of a limo. His catchphrase was "Yes, I am" when he was asked if he was really the guy who was supposed to be picked up.

Anyway, in the 30 minutes between the Arkansas–Arizona game and the Duke–Florida game, a spoof of that commercial was shown.

The parody began without warning; it was so well done it took me a few seconds to realize it wasn't a genuine commercial.

It probably isn't as funny today as it was when it ran 20 years ago. You kind of had to be there, you know? And remember, I was still giddy about my alma mater advancing to the national championship game. I was in quite a receptive mood, if you know what I mean.

Even so, I still think it was clever.

Duke beat Florida while we were on the road. I wasn't able to pick up the game on the radio, but half of the students were girls and they weren't interested in the outcome, anyway. I found out about that game when I saw those highlights in my hotel room.

So the championship match was set — Arkansas against Duke.

At the time, the Blue Devils probably were regarded as college basketball's elite program. If the Hogs could beat Duke for the national title, that could only add to the national respect they would earn.

Twice before in my life, I had seen Arkansas advance to the Final Four. They lost both times. But 20 years ago tonight, the Razorbacks and their fans had been to college basketball's mountaintop, and they had seen the Promised Land.

They would claim it for their own in two days.

The First Chapter in the Bird-Magic Rivalry

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I find it ironic that the college basketball national championship game in 1979 is still, 35 years later, the highest–rated college basketball game ever televised.

Because I didn't see it. I've never seen it — only highlights.

In those days, I was working at a self–serve gas station, and I had to work that night. I remember listening to the game on the radio at the station, but I didn't see any of it. I could only imagine what was happening in the host town, Salt Lake City, based on what I heard.

It was between Michigan State and Indiana State, the first matchup of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in what became a classic NBA rivalry. As USA Today observed five years ago, it was the start of something special.

But that is the sort of observation that can be made in hindsight. Those are easy.

For example, it is easy now to say that Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana were destined to be four–time Super Bowl champs, but I remember when they both broke into the NFL. All eyes were on others, but, in the course of their careers, Bradshaw and Montana turned struggling franchises into winners.

The same is true of Magic and Bird. At the end of the '80s, it was possible to look back at their epic postseason confrontations and realize that their rivalry had been the kind of thing you rarely find in team sports — a rivalry between two individuals. There were other players who played, of course, but Magic and Bird got the attention.

I guess every NBA team has been a rival of the Celtics since the days of Bill Russell, and every NBA team has been a rival of the Lakers for nearly as long, going back to the days of Wilt Chamberlain. Likewise, fans have to choose sides when the two teams meet, and most of them are likely cheering for a team they never support during the regular season.

I'm not an NBA fan — in fact, I'm really not much of a basketball fan — so I was spared having to make that choice and could simply enjoy watching them play.

You know, it is kind of amusing when I think back on that first encounter between Magic and Bird 35 years ago.

I don't recall the hype that preceded the game. I'm sure it was marketed as some kind of duel between future NBA legends, the kind of hype that accompanies many collegiate confrontations.

That kind of buildup doesn't always prove to be true. At the time, of course, it probably doesn't matter, and few probably remember it years later. Potential doesn't always coincide with reality.

But, in this case, it did.

The End of UCLA's National Title Streak

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It's hard to explain how much things have changed in college sports since this day 40 years ago.

When this day dawned in 1974, the UCLA Bruins had won seven consecutive national basketball titles. They had won 38 straight NCAA Tournament games under coach John Wooden since their last national tournament loss, to Arizona State in the spring of 1963, and they had won national championships every year but one — they didn't qualify for the 1966 tournament.

The Bruins were about to play North Carolina State in the 1974 Final Four. If they won, they were likely to be favored to win their eighth straight national championship against the winner of the Kansas–Marquette game. There was no reason to think they wouldn't.

The Bruins owned the NCAA Tournament in those days. When they were in the field — which, admittedly, was smaller in those days, but it excluded teams that were borderline so the talent wasn't spread as thin. Every game was challenging — you could pencil them in for the Final Four every year. Heck, you could go ahead and pencil them in for the national championship game. They had only missed one in 10 years, and they won all the rest.

The only mystery was which teams would join UCLA in the Final Four city — which, in 1974, was Greensboro, N.C., about 70 miles from the North Carolina State campus.

I don't recall anyone from UCLA expressing concern at the time about the game being so near N.C. State's campus. Between 1971 and 1974, UCLA won 88 consecutive games, many of which were road games. You just don't win that many straight games by worrying about playing on someone else's turf.

The Bruins didn't just beat teams. They overwhelmed them. In the late '60s, they were led by 7–foot–2 Lew Alcindor (later known as Kareem Abdul–Jabbar), then, in the early '70s, by 6–foot–11 Bill Walton, who had perhaps the most amazing national championship game performance ever against Memphis State in 1973.

As great as his performance was (21 of 22 from the field), Walton, playing in his final NCAA Tournament, was about to participate in what Mike Douchant of The Sports Xchange, in 2002, rated the 13th–greatest NCAA Tournament game ever played.

On the surface, it was about as close as a game can be. The score was tied, 35–35, at halftime, then it was tied again, 65–65, at the end of regulation. But, in fact, N.C. State scored in spurts. The Wolfpack had to battle back from an 11–point deficit in the first half and a seven–point deficit in the second half. It wasn't a tight game all the way through.

And, remember, this was more than a decade before college basketball started using a shot clock or added a three–point shot.

Walton wasn't as dominating as he had been against Memphis State, but he was still effective, hitting 13 of 21 from the field and hitting all three of his free throw attempts.

The eventual Most Outstanding Player (MOP) of the tournament, N.C. State's David Thompson, was nearly as effective. He hit 12 of 25 field goal attempts and made four of six free throws.

Their duel 40 years ago today really was the stuff that legends are made of. N.C. State won by three in double overtime. In hindsight, N.C. State's 76–64 triumph over Marquette in the championship game two days later was rather anticlimactic.

Before the Wolfpack claimed the national title against Marquette, UCLA got back on the winning track with a 78–61 victory over Kansas in the third–place game.

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Wooden and the Bruins came back the following year to claim the national title one more time.

But an era, as Sports Illustrated proclaimed, was over. In the 39 years since Wooden's last national championship, the Bruins have won only one national title. In fact, what once was a routine trip to the national championship game has only happened three times for the Bruins since Wooden retired.

Perhaps that explains how much times have changed.

But who knows what will happen in the future — perhaps the near future? The 2013–14 Bruins won their NCAA Tournament opener in San Diego Friday night. They will face Stephen F. Austin in today's second–round game.

They might win their second national crown since the Wooden era ended. But two national titles in 39 years is a far cry from seven titles in seven years.

Marching to a Title

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"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Lao–tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 B.C.-531 B.C.)

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This year is the 20th anniversary of an important event in the history of the University of Arkansas' athletic program.

(I grew up in Arkansas — and I got my undergraduate degree at the U of A — so this is of interest to me. You'll just have to live with it.)

It was on this day that the Arkansas basketball team embarked on its first national title run through the NCAA Tournament.

I was living in central Oklahoma at the time, and, as luck would have it, the Razorbacks were seeded first in the Midwest Regional. The #1 seed in that regional was slated to play the #16 seed (North Carolina A&T) in Oklahoma City, roughly a 30–minute drive from where I lived.

I thought about making the drive to OKC to watch the game in person, but no tickets were available. Oklahoma State's basketball team was playing New Mexico State, and Tulsa was playing UCLA; fans and students of OSU and Tulsa had snapped up all the tickets they could as soon as they could. Local media had been warning fans for days that tickets would only be available through scalpers.

So I stayed home and watched Arkansas' tournament–opening victory over North Carolina A&T on TV.

Frankly, it was a little disappointing. I had been following the Razorbacks from afar all season, and I had been anticipating a #1 seed. It never occurred to me that they wouldn't be a top seed — although I did have my doubts when they didn't make it to the championship game of the SEC Tournament.

Having anticipated a high seed, it's probably obvious that I expected great things from that team — and the Hogs did live up to my expectations.

But their tournament draw was disappointing. I wanted to see them play — and beat — a series of the legendary college basketball programs en route to a national championship. North Carolina A&T hardly qualified, and I must admit I felt rather foolish staying up late on a Friday night to watch the game — which the Razorbacks won easily.

As things turned out, the second–round opponent on Sunday was Georgetown, not a legend on the order of a UCLA or a Kentucky or an Indiana but a latter–day legend nonetheless.

Arkansas went on to play Michigan in the regional final a week later, then faced Arizona and Duke on a Final Four weekend that I never could have imagined. The opposition did kind of live up to my fantasy, I suppose.

Arkansas' march to the national title began 20 years ago today. I wish the Razorbacks were playing for another shot at the national championship this year. For awhile this season, I thought they would be.

They didn't make the cut, though.

However, they are facing Indiana State in the NIT tonight, and that has the potential to be a pretty good consolation prize. Indiana State won their last encounter in the 1979 Elite Eight, 35 years ago yesterday. Arkansas fans have been waiting for a rematch.

That's a long time to wait for redemption. Too bad Bird and Moncrief can't play in it. Bird always said that Moncrief's defensive performance was the best anyone ever played against him.

Shocking Phi Slama Jama

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"Sure, 15–footers are fine, but I like to dunk."

Clyde Drexler

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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.

And sometimes the upset occurs in an individual sport, not a team one — like when Mike Tyson lost his heavyweight title to Buster Douglas.

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.

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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.

Charles died nearly two years ago when the bus he was driving crashed.

Real Clear Sports recently named Charles as the top player who found fame in the NCAA Tournament.

The Wolfpack didn't find fame in the 1983 championship game. N.C. State had won a national crown before.

But the title they won 30 years ago tonight was their most memorable.

Hail to the Victors

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It was with mixed emotions last night that I watched Michigan defeat Kansas to earn a trip to the South Regional final against Florida, winner over bracket–buster Florida Gulf Coast, on Sunday.

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.

But I started thinking about that Arkansas–Michigan game this week because its 19th anniversary was Monday — and it happened that an old friend of mine in Arkansas, Steve, died of cancer that morning.

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.

The Age of the Bruins

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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.

But the truth is that Bill Walton was the real story of the Bruins' victory over Memphis State 40 years ago tonight. He scored 44 points, making 21 of 22 field goal attempts.

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.

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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.

There really were no more worlds to conquer.

Neither team will be commemorating the 40th anniversary of that game with a return trip to the championship. Both were invited to the tournament, but neither survived opening weekend. UCLA was humbled by Minnesota on Friday night, and Memphis (the State part was dropped many years ago) was eliminated by Michigan State on Saturday.

But even if one (or both) could have played in this year's final, it's hard to see how what happened on this night in 1973 could possibly be topped.

As Good As It Gets

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Ask any college basketball fan to list the greatest games of all time, and there are certain games that any such list is bound to include:

• The 1966 NCAA Tournament title game, in which all–black Texas Western upset favored powerhouse Kentucky.


• The 1979 title game, in which Larry Bird of Indiana State and Magic Johnson of Michigan State gave NBA fans a preview of coming attractions.


• The 1983 title game, in which Jim Valvano's North Carolina State team upset the heavily favored Houston Cougars of Phi Slamma Jamma fame.


• The 1985 title game, in which lightly regarded Villanova shocked Georgetown.

Clearly, many of the memorable games have been the ones in which championships were on the line, although there have been some truly great games played when a title was not at stake ...

... Such as the night in January 1968 when second–ranked Houston defeated top–ranked and defending national champion UCLA in the first college game ever televised nationally in prime time. Prior to that game, UCLA had won 47 consecutive games.

It was called the Game of the Century, and it is widely remembered as the precursor to the March Madness that millions celebrate every year.

And every college basketball fan will tell you that he has certain memories that are special to him — but not necessarily to others.

One of my most cherished memories from my college days was the afternoon when my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, turned back defending champion Louisville with a half–court buzzer shot.

There were so many incredible finishes on that day, wrote Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated recently, that March 14, 1981, was the day that transformed the NCAA Tournament to March Madness.

Or, at least, it was the day when that transformation began.

That may be so.

But, if there was a game that really cemented the tournament's popular image of March Madness, I think it had to be the East Regional final that was played between Duke and Kentucky on this day 20 years ago.

Kentucky, of course, is one of college basketball's elite programs, along with UCLA, North Carolina, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan State, Louisville ...

... and Duke, which may or may not have qualified as an elite program in 1992. Mike Krzyzewski had led the Blue Devils to the national title the year before, but that was Duke's first.

Duke was, however, making its fifth straight appearance in the Elite Eight when it faced Kentucky 20 years ago today so Coach K clearly had established a pattern of success — but he had not yet won the four national titles that currently have him tied with the legendary Adolph Rupp for second place in that category.

Coach K won't get to add to that tally this year, but on this day 20 years ago, he was about to return to the Final Four for the fifth straight year.

Both Duke and Kentucky cruised to their rendezvous in Philadelphia. Only once — in Kentucky's second–round clash with Iowa State — was victory achieved by fewer than 10 points.

In other words, nothing that had happened in the earlier rounds could have prepared the partisans from either side for what they were about to witness.

Duke and Kentucky had to play an overtime period to decide their duel — and, even then, it came down to a last–second shot by Christian Laettner.

There were five lead changes in the final 30 seconds. The teams combined to make nearly two–thirds of their shots in the second half and the overtime period. And Laettner's shot still makes every important college basketball highlight reel, just as Kirk Gibson's World Series homer and Dwight Clark's end zone catch always make the highlight reels in their sports.

Duke went on to successfully defend its national title against Michigan after a nail–biter of a semifinal against Indiana.

Kentucky would scale the championship heights again, but, as Alex Wolff writes in Sports Illustrated, the wound is still raw.

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"Even today, 20 years after what's widely considered the greatest college game ever played, Kentucky loyalists regard the Blue Devils' 104–103 overtime victory ... as having touched off a collective psychotic break."

Alex Wolff

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I almost missed it.

It was a Saturday. The game, as I recall, was scheduled to begin in mid–afternoon, and it so happened that a family friend was getting married that day, too.

The wedding was to take place here in Dallas. I lived in Denton, which is roughly 40 miles north of here. Through the ceremony and the reception, I kept an eye on the clock — and I finally managed to leave just before tipoff.

I listened to the first half on the radio and was home in time to see most of the second half.

Most, if not all, of the Kentucky fans who watched probably wish they hadn't seen it. But, if you are a fan of a team, you are going to feel compelled to watch its games, especially the ones in the postseason.

Fans of most teams know there is always the possibility that the game they watch will end in defeat, but fans of certain teams have been conditioned by past success to expect to win, even if the oddsmakers disagree.

For such fans, any defeat — but especially one like the one that was handed to Kentucky 20 years ago today — is awfully difficult to choke down.

And, in spite of subsequent successes, Wildcat fans still struggle with it, wincing at the bitter aftertaste.

Wolff observes that the author of a new book about the game has been told by Kentucky fans that they won't buy the book because Laettner's image is on the cover.

And even the passage of two decades has not been enough time to permit them to see that picture on their coffee tables without remembering in vivid detail the pain his fallaway jumper brought them.

The Dunk Heard 'Round the World

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Ever since I heard the news of Lorenzo Charles' death in a one–vehicle accident Monday in North Carolina, I have been thinking of the spring night in 1983 when his upstart North Carolina State Wolfpack upset the heavily favored Houston Cougars in the national championship.

I remember the night vividly. I was working as a reporter for a newspaper in central Arkansas — my first job out of college.

One of my standing assignments was to cover city and county government meetings (I wasn't alone in that; it was a small newspaper staff so everyone — even those whose job titles might make you think they were above such routine duties, like managing editor — had to cover some city and county government meetings) ...

... and such a meeting was being held that night.

But the meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:30, as I remember, and the game wasn't supposed to begin until two hours later.

I had been following the NCAA Tournament closely that year, as I tended to do at that time in my life, and I was interested in seeing the championship game — even though I was sure I knew how it would turn out.

When the meeting wrapped up earlier than I expected, I was elated. It meant I could go home and see most, if not all, of the game.

As I was walking down the hallway of the building in the direction of the exit, I recall a brief conversation I had with a city police officer who was on hand (why he was there, I do not know, unless he was assigned to provide routine security that night).

I told him I was on my way home to watch the game. He wanted to know which team I thought would win.

"Houston," I told him. "No way N.C. State can win."

But I was wrong.

Oh, Houston did race to the lead, but the Cougars squandered it with terrible free throw shooting in the second half. The game was still anyone's to win as the final seconds ticked off.

That was when one of the most iconic moments in modern sports history occurred.

With the score tied at 52–52, one of Charles' teammates fired a shot from 30 feet (it would have been a three–point shot under modern rules, but the three–pointer was still a few years away).

The shot appeared to be coming up just short of its mark when, seemingly from nowhere, Charles came into view, grabbed the ball in the air and dunked it for the winning points.

It was one of those moments when the entire world seemed to stop for maybe a split second — and tried to absorb what had just happened. I have only experienced a couple of these moments in my life, and they are never merely upsets or the unexpected.

They are unthinkable.

It was a time when 12 teams were seeded in each region (the 12th seeds had to win the equivalents of play–in games), and N.C. State had been seeded eighth in its region. That season, the Wolfpack (who lost 10 games in all) had earned the nickname of the "Cardiac Pack" for winning seven nail–biters in their last nine games just to get into the tournament.

Houston, meanwhile, was ranked #1 in the nation, was making its second consecutive Final Four appearance and had the look of a dynasty.

The 1982–83 Cougars went undefeated in the Southwest Conference, losing only three games all season — and, in fact, they returned to the national championship game the following year (but lost to Georgetown).

Six members of the team eventually were drafted into the NBA.

A stunned N.C. State coach Jim Valvano dashed madly around the court, looking for someone to hug, some way to express his delight at winning the upset of a lifetime.

It was for such a moment that the song "The Impossible Dream" was written.

Some of N.C. State's players might have ended up in the NBA, anyway, even if the Wolfpack had not won that game. But the fact is that three players were drafted into the NBA later that year, including the fellow whose lob Charles plucked out of the air and dunked for the winning points — and it is possible that some or all might not have been chosen had it not been for their victory over Houston.

Later, Charles and another teammate were drafted into the NBA as well, bringing to 11 the number of future NBA draftees who were on the court that night.

Charles' NBA career was brief, however, and the Brooklyn native had short stints with some European teams, but his basketball career had been over for more than 20 years. He was operating a bus for the rental company for which he apparently worked when it crashed in Raleigh, N.C.

Sadly, it seems, great things did not happen for Charles after that evening of almost unimaginable glory.

But if you have ever watched an NCAA Tournament game, you are almost sure to have seen in the archival footage Charles' sublime, almost tentative, dunk that clinched a championship ...

... and seized a slice of immortality.

The Day Len Bias Died

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Twenty–five years ago, I was working on the sports desk of the Arkansas Gazette.

It was a morning paper so the folks who worked on the copy desks worked nights. Everyone worked weekends, but one's nights off generally were determined by seniority. As one of the most junior staff members (at that time), my days off were Mondays and Tuesdays — not exactly prime time.

That's important to note, though, because it was on Tuesday, June 17, 1986, that the annual NBA draft was held. My memory is that it was held in conjunction with the NBA Finals that year, but I could be wrong about that.

I do know that it was televised, and I remember watching it briefly with some friends — long enough, anyway, to see that Maryland's Len Bias had been selected by the Boston Celtics.

Larry Bird brought championship basketball back to Boston, but he was about to turn 30, and he had struggled with back issues. The comments I remember hearing and the articles I remember reading in mid–June 1986 suggested that Bias was going to be groomed to step in and take over the role of star player when Bird retired.

He couldn't miss, the experts said. With Len Bias, the Celtic dynasty would be in good hands.

The day after Bias was drafted, I returned to work to pull my graveyard shift on Wednesday night. I had to be back earlier the following day — I worked the sports wire on Thursdays in those days, which meant it was my job to constantly scan the wire for sports news.

I always enjoyed working the wire. When I arrived in the office to work it (a shift that typically began about two hours earlier than my usual shifts — and ended two hours earlier as well), I did a preliminary scan of the wire's contents so I could tell the editor who was in charge that evening what we could expect.

Then I would pick wire stories on sports events from all over the world and ship them over to the editor, who would decide where to put each article, assign a headline size to each and turn the stories over to the folks who were handling the copy editing that evening.

It was a procedure that had taken shape over a long period of time. The Gazette was the oldest continuously published newspaper west of the Mississippi. The system that was in place when I came on board was the product of years of evolution.

Usually, working the wire came down to the accounts of games in whichever sport happened to be in season, but there were times when unexpected stories demanded our attention. If a story was big enough, I might combine the best elements from all the wire services the Gazette received — and the Gazette subscribed to about half a dozen news services.

Nothing noteworthy happened that Wednesday night, but when I got up the next morning and switched on my TV, there was a sports story that I knew immediately would dominate my activities that night — and for many days to come.

Sometime during the night (as the wire editor that day, I learned a few hours later that it had actually been sometime around daybreak), Len Bias, the NBA's #2 draft pick less than two days earlier, had died of a cocaine overdose.

He was only 22 years old.

I can't tell you the tsunami–like ripple effect this had — not only in sports and on college campuses but throughout American society as well.

When Bias was taken in the draft by the Celtics, he was widely expected to be at least one of the greatest players ever to play the game — if not the greatest. He would rewrite the record books, some people said.

And he might have. We will never know.

It does seem likely that, if he hadn't died, Bias' career would be over by this point. We would know if he set all those records that he was expected to set and if he won all those titles he was expected to win.

We didn't know much on this day 25 years ago, but we did know that Len Bias would never accomplish all those things.

Sports fans grieved as much for the potential that would never be realized as they did for the life that was cut tragically short. The circumstances were different but the sensation was much the same a few years later when Hank Gathers collapsed and died during a Loyola Marymount game in 1990.

Len Bias was like a shooting star in June 1986. He burst onto the scene and left almost as quickly as he had come, leaving the aging Celtics in a funk they wouldn't shake off for many years.

His legacy lives on, though, says Jeff Barker in the Baltimore Sun, and his life story continues to influence the sport in ways that no one could have anticipated in 1986.

His death continues to influence people beyond the universe of basketball, writes David Steele in The Sporting News.

"His almost unfathomable death lingers as a cocaine deterrent," observes Barker. "He also maintains the power to rivet players and fans despite being from a wholly different basketball generation."

That's great, but even Barker gives in to the eternal, unanswerable question: What would Bias have accomplished?

Barker closed his piece with speculation from one of Bias' teammates — that, had Len Bias lived, people would be mentioning his name today in the same breath with his greatest contemporaries, like Michael Jordan, and the stars of today.

Sadly, no one will never know.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

It probably seems odd to say this, but the defending college basketball champion is in a decline.

I am speaking, of course, about Duke, the team that beat upstart Butler in the national championship game last year.

In the last two or three decades, Duke's basketball program has sort of filled the vacuum that was left at UCLA after John Wooden retired in the 1970s. Sure, UCLA has won a few national titles since then — but nothing close to what the Bruins were doing when Wooden was running the show.

In those days, UCLA was in the national championship game almost every year. The NCAA Tournament field was much more exclusive then — typically only the conference champions and a few independents — so just being in it was an achievement for just about any other program.

But UCLA always expected to win it — and win it UCLA did. UCLA won 10 tournaments in 12 years — seven in a row between 1967 and 1973.

The closest thing we've seen to that since Wooden's retirement has been the Duke program.

Most people would tell you — and they're probably right — that Duke's coach, Mike Krzyzewski, deserves the credit. He's been the coach there for more than 30 years. He's taken Duke to 11 Final Fours (second only to Wooden), and he's won four national titles.

When he wins three games next season, he will be the most successful coach (in terms of victories) in NCAA Division I history. Barring something that is totally unexpected at this point, it is a sure bet that he will reach that milestone — probably sometime before 2011 is over.

He could have achieved it much sooner, though. If his Blue Devils had gone to the NCAA Tournament championship game, he would have won enough games to earn that distinction.

But they lost to Arizona last night, and now they must wait until next season to see him overtake the leader, Bob Knight.

During the late '80s and early '90s, Duke won half of the national titles it has claimed in the Coach K era — and made more than half of its Final Four appearances.

Those were the glory years for the Blue Devils.

Since the 1995–96 season, Duke has returned to the Final Four at a less imposing clip — roughly once every four years (and only twice in the last decade).

Far more frequently, Duke has made it to the regional semifinals (the "Sweet Sixteen"), where the Blue Devils have gone down half a dozen times since 2002. This year, it was to Arizona. In 2009, it was Villanova that eliminated Duke. In 2006, it was LSU. The year before that, Duke lost to Michigan State. In 2003, Kansas turned back Duke. The year before that, Duke lost to Indiana.

There was a time when Duke, like UCLA before, was an automatic pick for everyone's Final Four. But no more.

The times they are a–changing.

A Champ of a Different Color

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It is almost a cliche now to think of basketball as primarily a black sport.

That sounds racist, I know, but it is simply a statement of fact.

It is a recognition of the almost total transformation that basketball has experienced in the last half century, a transformation that may well have begun 45 years ago tonight when Texas Western University (now the University of Texas at El Paso), with an all–black starting lineup, won the national basketball championship over perennial contender Kentucky.

No other team, no individual coach or player has had the lasting influence on college basketball that that team had.

Black athletes were not new in America in 1966. They had been participating in professional sports for many years, and most schools outside the South had black players on their rosters, but until 45 years ago tonight, no team in any sport had fielded an all–black starting lineup in a championship game.

On that night in College Park, Md., Kentucky was making its fifth appearance in an NCAA final. The Wildcats had never lost an NCAA title game before.

The Miners of Texas Western, meanwhile, had never been in a championship game, and they were widely expected to lose that one. Many people acknowledged that Texas Western was good, but it was the first college in the South to integrate its athletic programs.

The Miners' coach, Don Haskins, made a point of recruiting black players — a fact that contributed to his inductions into both the Basketball Hall of Fame (1997) and the College Basketbal Hall of Fame (2006).

It was admired in the mid–1960s, too, but, in spite of ample evidence of black competence in all other endeavors, white athletes were still widely regarded as superior by most Southerners.

Black athletes were the great untapped natural resource in the South, but few people in the region realized the impact they would have on all sports. Even among more enlightened observers, there was a prevailing belief that an all–black lineup simply couldn't compete with an all–white lineup.

Nevertheless, the Miners won with an all–black starting lineup.

It is interesting, now, to look in the rearview mirror and see what people are saying about that time in history, that night and that team.

I was not yet old enough to be in elementary school — and my family did not own a TV set at the time — so I have no memory of it. But things were clearly changing in the South.

In my little hometown in Arkansas, for instance, segregated schooling was coming to an end that spring. Generations before me had gone through a segregated school system, but I never knew a time when blacks and whites did not attend school together.

March 19, 1966 "might just have been another day for millions upon millions," Bill Knight of the El Paso Times observes.

(That is a particularly intriguing comment for me because I mentioned this anniversary to my father at dinner the other night — but, although he is old enough to remember that night and my parents were passionate advocates of civil rights, he doesn't remember Texas Western's victory.)

"But, for the world of college basketball, it is a landmark," Knight writes. "For a basketball team, a band of brothers, it was the moment of a lifetime. And, for the city of El Paso, that day did, does and always will loom larger than the beautiful blue desert sky, will always cast a warm welcoming shadow grander than the Franklin Mountains over the city."

John Wallingford of the Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune recalls that Texas Western came to Seattle two weeks before the championship game to play Seattle University in the regular–season finale. The undefeated Miners were ranked #2 in the nation and were assumed to be next in line for the top spot following Kentucky's loss to Tennessee earlier in the day.

But Seattle ended up handing the Miners their only loss of the season.

Hollywood didn't exactly give an honest portrayal of that "pothole" in its 2006 "Glory Road" movie retelling of Texas Western's triumph, Wallingford wrote.

That may be so, but the fact also remains that, with the Miners' victory 45 years ago today, "the complexion of the game changed for good," writes Wallingford. Whether you take a few modest liberties in telling that story (as "Miracle" did in its dramatization of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team) doesn't change the bottom line or its inspirational quality.

In the Christian Science Monitor, Geoff Johnson and Rex Nelles have called the Miners' victory one of the NCAA's top 10 Cinderella stories of all time.

I guess you could call it a "statement game" — before anyone really knew what one was.

When they met the Wildcats 45 years ago tonight, University of Maryland junior Gary Williams was there, and he remembered that Kentucky fans treated the Miners "as if it was beneath their team to even play the Texas Western guys," wrote John Feinstein in the Washington Post when Haskins died in 2008.

Feinstein also wrote that Williams remembered that, after the game, he heard "Kentucky fans saying to one another, 'We need to get some of them.' It wasn't long afterwards that everyone began to recruit them."

The game that was played 45 years ago tonight changed everything about college basketball, Feinstein observed. "Basketball people now refer to Texas Western–Kentucky as the Brown v. Board of Education of college basketball."

I suppose it is appropriate that this 45th anniversary occurs during an NCAA Tournament that will crown its champion in the Lone Star State.

Other Texas schools have been in the Final Four, but Texas Western remains the only one to win a national championship.

And, other than a couple of U.S. Olympic teams, it is the only team enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

The Impossible Dream

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"To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go."

Joe Darion
"The Impossible Dream"

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At Richmond and Morehead State today, they know about Cinderella stories in the NCAA Tournament.

And, while theirs may be short–lived, their victories over Vanderbilt and Louisville, respectively, entitle them to enjoy the sensation of having beaten the seemingly unbeatable foe. They may well come crashing back to earth tomorrow.

The NCAA Tournament has a reputation for upsets. It is one of the main reasons that sports fans tune in to the games in the early rounds. They want to know who will be Cinderella this season.

Upsets were sort of uncommon in the old days of the tournament. Of course, part of that was because the field was much smaller, primarily conference champions and one or two independent programs. Until comparatively recently, there weren't enough slots for every team in the Top 20 to participate. It's kind of hard to call a victory for any Top 20 team much of an upset, even if comes against a higher–ranked team.

Still, upsets did occur from time to time.

They became more frequent when the field began to expand. That was what diminished the NIT, but it certainly brought excitement, an air of mystery, to the NCAA Tournament.

I'm not really sure when the tournament began to develop its reputation for upsets. Maybe it was in 1983 when North Carolina State upset powerful Houston in the championship game. It might even go back to Texas Western's unexpected victory over Kentucky 45 years ago tomorrow.

I do know that it was a reputation that was already established by the time the tournament began 25 years ago this week.

I was working on the sports staff of the Arkansas Gazette in those days, and I had graduated from the University of Arkansas, where I had been part of many exuberant crowds at football and basketball games.

Razorback fans were spoiled in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They were accustomed to seeing their basketball team compete in the NCAA Tournament, sometimes doing quite well.

But in the mid–1980s, Eddie Sutton was gone, Nolan Richardson had been hired but was frequently distracted by his young daughter's battle with leukemia, and the basketball program sometimes had the appearance of a rudderless ship.

In March of 1986, Arkansas fans were looking elsewhere to fill the void left by the Razorbacks, and Arkansas–Little Rock stepped up.

In the first round of that tournament, two No. 14 seeds won their opening–round games against No. 3 seeds — Cleveland State beat Indiana and UALR defeated Notre Dame. The ride didn't end for Cleveland State right away. The Vikings got to the Sweet 16 before losing to David Robinson and Navy by a single point.

But, for coach Mike Newell's Trojans, that was it. They lost two days later to North Carolina State.

That first–round game sure was memorable, though.

We had no TV in the newsroom in those days so we had to listen to the game on the radio. My memory is that just about everyone on the sports staff was pulling for UALR. It was the only Arkansas team in the tournament and, besides, who wanted Notre Dame to win?

Well, there was one Catholic guy on the staff, and I think he might have been pulling for the Irish, but he wasn't vocal about it.

I remember the Gazette's sports staffers gathered around a radio in much the same way that families must have listened to radio broadcasts during the Depression. A couple of the youngest staff members sat on the floor. The older staff members sat in chairs and listened intently as UALR built and maintained its lead.

Before long, people from the news side had gravitated to the sports department to listen to the radio.

After Newell left UALR, he spoke of his gratitude to all the people who came to the games and pulled for the Trojans in the days before their five–year postseason run that included three appearances in the NCAA Tournament. That, he said, was when he had been "selling a dream."

And, for one evening, UALR's students and fans permitted themselves to dream the impossible dream of being the ones who would cut down the nets and hoist the trophy in Dallas' Reunion Arena.

It didn't happen that way for UALR. It may never happen for UALR.

But, for that one evening, the Trojans could dream of it.

My Final Four Picks

There was a time in my life when the NCAA Tournament dominated all my waking moments.

I worked on sports copy desks for many years, and I can assure you that "March Madness" truly is insane. Think it's only crazy from the spectator's side? Wrong! I was never so exhausted — mentally as well as physically — as I was after working a night shift during the NCAA Tournament.

And, no matter who won the tournament, I was always glad when it was over.

After I left sports copy desks, I sort of left the madness behind, too. But I continued to pull for my alma mater, the University of Arkansas so I continued to be interested in the Razorbacks' fortunes. As their influence has waned, so has my interest — to the point where I no longer pay much attention to basketball — and, therefore, rarely pay much attention to th NCAA Tournament brackets.

However, for whatever reason, I have filled out a bracket this year. And I thought about posting it here — but it was just too big.

So I decided to simply summarize my predictions for you. Here goes:

• East: A lot of people have No. 1 seed Ohio State winning it all, but I don't. Maybe it's a bias on my part — a little payback, perhaps, for Ohio State's victory over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl. Anyway, I picked No. 4 seed Kentucky to beat the Buckeyes in the Sweet 16.
  
  I don't believe, though, that Kentucky's relatively young lineup will get past No. 2 seed North Carolina in the regional final.


• Southwest: When I was younger, I didn't like to pick a No. 1 seed to make it to the Final Four. I guess it seemed too much like picking the favorite at the race track (a place I visited from time to time when I was in college and for awhile after graduation).
  
  Sure, there's always a reason — at least one and it's usually a good one, too — why the favorite is the favorite.
  
  There are a couple of regionals in this year's tournament in which I have concluded that the top seed really is the likely winner. I know that upsets happen in the tournament every year — and I have, actually, picked some upsets in this year's field — but I'm picking all the higher seeds in the Southwest to prevail.
  
  I think No. 4 seed Louisville might be a tough out in the Sweet 16 and No. 2 seed Notre Dame might cause some problems in the Elite Eight, but, when the dust settles, I think No. 1 seed Kansas will win the region.


• Southeast: As I say, I have picked two No. 1 seeds to advance to this year's Final Four, and I have identified Kansas as one.
  
  But the winner of the Southeast won't be the other.
  
  I do pick No. 1 seed Pittsburgh to advance to the Elite Eight, although I was torn over whether to pick Pitt or No. 5 seed Kansas State in the Sweet 16. And I think Pitt could be tested in the second round against No. 8 seed Butler.
  
  No, I think Pitt will fall in the regional final against No. 2 seed Florida. The Gators may struggle at times. They will probably face No. 7 seed UCLA in the second round, and UCLA might be playing with a lot of emotion since this will be the Bruins' first NCAA Tournament since legendary coach John Wooden died last summer. But that emotion stuff is likely to be more effective against No. 10 seed Michigan State than it will be against Florida.
  
  The Gators might also be tested in the Sweet 16, where I think they will face No. 3 seed BYU. Some folks think Florida will face No. 6 seed St. John's or No. 11 seed Gonzaga in the Sweet 16, but I think BYU will get past either of those teams.


• West: I don't know how this stacks up against what other people are predicting, but I've predicted the most "upsets" — i.e., the games in which the lower–seeded teams win — in this region.
  
  I think No. 9 seed Tennessee will defeat No. 8 seed Michigan in the first round. I also think No. 11 seed Missouri will beat No. 6 seed Cincinnati.
  
  But that's it. My days at the track taught me that favorites pay off more often than longshots do. So the rest of the games in the West should follow form, and I think No. 1 seed Duke will defeat No. 2 seed San Diego State in the regional final.

Which brings us to the Final Four.

All eyes may be on North Carolina and Duke as they square off on one side. That's only natural. They have a long rivalry, and they have been in many Final Fours between them, but they have competed in the same Final Four only once (1991), and they have never faced each other in one before.

This will be an historic chapter in their epic rivalry

The Kansas–Florida game may be overlooked — and I think that may well be to the benefit of the winner, Kansas. Not as much pressure.

Thus, after Duke emerges with what may be a hard–fought victory in its semifinal and Kansas defeats Florida, I predict that Kansas will win in the championship game on April 4.

Enjoy the games.

Putting the Kibosh on Louisville

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You know, when you consider what happened on this day in 1981, it is kind of ironic that the University of Arkansas fired its basketball coach yesterday.

I suppose the odds are pretty good that you don't remember where you were and what you were doing 30 years ago today.

But I do.

I was still living in my home state of Arkansas. I was a journalism student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, the home of the Razorbacks. Regardless of religious faith, that's really Mecca for most Arkansans (and I guess you have to have lived there — or someplace similar — to understand).

On this day in 1981, I was in my hometown of Conway, Ark., which is about 120 miles to the southeast. It was spring break, and I was visiting old friends in Conway that week.

The NCAA basketball tournament got under way that Thursday, on March 12, 1981. Before it ended, John Hinckley would attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan. Later that year, someone would shoot Pope John Paul II. Somebody else had already murdered ex–Beatle John Lennon a few months before.

In mid–March, Razorback fans rejoiced in the basketball team's opening round victory over Mercer, but then a sense of foreboding set in. The next opponent would be Louisville, the team that won the national title the year before.

Arkansas and Louisville were to face each other on Saturday afternoon, March 14, 1981, in Austin, Texas. Austin, as any long–term Razorback fan could tell you, had been the scene of many Arkansas disappointments over the years, most of them in football.

But that had been in contests with the University of Texas.

Razorback basketball had really taken off in terms of popularity in recent years. Eddie Sutton took the Hogs to the Final Four in 1978, then they were within a whisper of returning to the Final Four in 1979 before Larry Bird and Indiana State knocked them off in the regional finals.

Spring break was nearing its conclusion. I was planning to drive back to Fayetteville the next day, but on that Saturday, I went over to visit my Aunt Bess and watch the game with her.

Aunt Bess wasn't really my aunt. That's just what everybody called her, and she was probably old enough to be my grandmother. She treated me as if I were her grandson. Matter of fact, she had a grandson who was close to my age, but he lived two time zones away so I guess I was kind of her surrogate grandson.

I used to stop at her house after school on Wednesdays, and we would drink iced tea and talk for an hour or so about all sorts of topics. She was old school about a lot of things, and she did her best to pass along lessons for living.

And, like just about everyone else in Arkansas, she was a Razorback fan.

On that Saturday afternoon, we watched in dismay as the Razorbacks fell behind and trailed by a single point with about five seconds remaining. U.S. Reed dribbled the ball a couple of times, then heaved a desperation shot from midcourt as the buzzer sounded ...

... And the ball amazingly went in the basket.

The three–point shot was still several years from becoming a reality so Reed's shot was only worth two points. But that was enough to turn a one–point deficit into a one–point triumph.

I have never had a feeling like it — before or since.

Aunt Bess and I leaped up from where we had been sitting. We yelled in unison, and then we embraced.

As I have written before, Aunt Bess was devoutly religious. She saw the hand of God in everything. In hindsight, I was always envious of that sense of assurance. Aunt Bess never seemed to doubt that there was a purpose in everything, but I often did. I still do.

But Aunt Bess was certain of what she had seen.

"The Lord took it away from us," she said with a big smile, "and then he gave it back to us."

There was "a reason" for that, she told me, but, 30 years later, I'll be darned if I can figure out what it was.

Arkansas got routed by future SEC rival LSU in the next round.

The Coaching Situation at Arkansas

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They'll be announcing the NCAA Tournament pairings today. Not so long ago (or so it seems), that was an important day in my life.

In my home state of Arkansas today, there seems to be some uncertainty about the future of the relationship between my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, and the basketball coach, John Pelphrey.

Pelphrey's position was a bit shaky when the Razorbacks went one and done in the SEC Tournament last week, but the reports I heard indicated that, even so, he would remain the coach for another year.

Lately, there have been reports that Pelphrey violated NCAA rules, and many people now seem to feel that all bets are off.

I have no special insights into the situation. Since I no longer live in Arkansas, I often feel as if I am an outsider when it comes to these things. Today, I have been trying to learn what I can from a distance.

I was acquainted with John Brummett, now of Arkansas News, when I lived in Little Rock and worked for the Arkansas Gazette. He is, as he says, a political columnist, not a sports columnist, but the lines are often blurred in Arkansas when the Razorbacks are involved.

And I think he makes a good point when he says that Arkansas has lost its "brand." One of the things I always admired about Brummett was his way with words, and he shows that in his column about Razorback basketball.

"The problem with University of Arkansas basketball," he writes, "is that it ... is Elvis without a hip, Dylan without a lyric, Michael Jackson without the moonwalk."

Football will always have an identity in Arkansas, but other sports need a "brand" with which fans can identify. Basketball got that from Eddie Sutton and Nolan Richardson. It doesn't seem to have gotten that from the coaches who have come along since.

Harry King of Arkansas News says there won't be an announcement made on Pelphrey's fate until the weekend is over at the earliest — and if the Razorbacks somehow manage to get into the NIT, it will probably wait until after they have been eliminated.

Joanne Gerstner at the New York Times reports there have been rumors that Missouri coach Mike Anderson is a top contender for the job. Anderson, as Gerstner observes, has roots in the Arkansas program, having been an assistant under Richardson when the Razorbacks won their first — and, so far, only — national basketball title in 1994.

Ah, yes, 1994. I remember it well.

It had been years since I left Arkansas, but I followed the Razorbacks that season with a real sense of pride.

I had been just a schoolboy when Sutton came to Arkansas and turned the U of A basketball program into something more than a diversion between football seasons. The national title was like the culmination of all his efforts.

It had grown before my very eyes. It was still growing when I left the state. And, nearly 17 years ago, it blossomed under Richardson into a national champion.

The Razorbacks made it back to the national title game the following year but lost to UCLA.

I don't know all the details about what led to Richardson's departure from Arkansas — and it isn't really something I want to explore today, anyway — but things just haven't been the same for the program since he left.

In the years after I left Arkansas, I always knew the Razorbacks would be in the NCAA Tournament, so I didn't really pay close attention to the regular season. And even when they dropped from the national rankings, I wasn't overly concerned.

But in recent years, the Razorbacks seem to have returned to the basketball swamp in which they existed before Sutton came along.

Sutton brought a magic to the Arkansas basketball program, and Richardson picked up the baton when Sutton dropped it in his haste to take the job at Kentucky, but Sutton made his way back to Oklahoma, where he made a new name for himself at Oklahoma State.

Thus, I think one of the most interesting reports I have heard comes from Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman, who suggests that Arkansas might replace Pelphrey with his former Kentucky teammate and now Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford.

Could Ford restore the magic that the Arkansas program needs to bring fans to the games and make Razorback basketball nationally prominent again? His first two years at OSU resulted in 20–win seasons and consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, but the Cowboys' record this year was much like Arkansas', and it is doubtful they will make it three in a row.

Still, if the U of A's administrators believe Ford can restore the Arkansas brand — make it his own — it might be worth a try.

The Wizard of Westwood

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John Wooden, the man who made UCLA synonymous with basketball dominance, died today at the age of 99.

If you look up "a tough act to follow" in the dictionary, you'll probably find Wooden's picture next to the definition.

At one point, Wooden coached UCLA to 88 straight wins. His teams won nearly 100 straight home games, and four of his teams finished the regular season 30–0. He won seven straight national titles, 10 in all, the last in 1975. UCLA has won a couple of national titles in the 35 years since Wooden retired, but every time the Bruins have won it all, they have done so in Wooden's shadow. I suspect it will always be that way.

He "is often considered one of the greatest coaches in college basketball history," says the caption beneath the photo on his obituary in the New York Times.

I would take it a step or two farther than that. I would rate Coach Wooden as one of the greatest coaches in college history — the kind of legend that football coaches like Bear Bryant and Woody Hayes were.

I was fortunate to live at the time that I did. I have seen — mostly through the miracle of television — some of the greatest teams, greatest players and greatest coaches of all time. But, whereas Bryant and Hayes were rough around the edges, Wooden was a smooth, thinking man's coach. Maybe it was the nature of the sport he coached, but he always struck me as being more approachable, always ready to share the wisdom he had acquired in his life.

Basketball can be a deceptive game. On the surface, it can seem to be all about individuals accumulating points, but it is really about fundamentals, teamwork and defense. The lessons Wooden had to teach were as applicable to life as to the basketball court.

And much of it he shared through his 1988 book, "They Call Me Coach:"

• "Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow."


• "Talent is God–given; be humble. Fame is man–given; be thankful. Conceit is self–given; be careful."

I feel the same way I did the day Bear Bryant died.

On that day, I felt that something special had been lost forever, and it had.

Tonight, once again, I feel that something special has been lost forever. And, once again, I am right.

R.I.P., Coach.

Butler Didn't Do It

After last night's NCAA Tournament finale — in which Duke defeated Butler, 61–59 — the pastor of my church posted a brief comment on Facebook: "The murder mystery fan in me was really looking forward to saying, 'Butler did it.' "

In the literary world, I suppose there are few phrases that have become as cliched as "the butler did it" — even though, as I understand it, the writer who is most often credited with originating that phrase, Mary Roberts Rinehart, never actually used it in one of her books.

And, as someone who spent many years on sports copy desks, I'm sure that more than one copy editor in this great land of ours fantasized about writing a headline that said "Butler Did It" — or something equally clever — for this morning's newspaper.

It reminds me of an occasion when, as a sports copy editor for the now–defunct Arkansas Gazette, I was assigned to write the headline for the football game story in which the Arkansas Razorbacks — who had been praised in the preseason as a potential national champion — hosted the Miami Hurricanes in a game played in Little Rock. The 'Canes routed the Razorbacks that day, effectively ending all talk of a national title, even though it was only September.

As I sat in front of my computer screen, I happened to think of an old line, "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good," and I used that as the basis for my headline, which was "An ill wind blows through Little Rock." I was — and still am — proud of that headline, the inspiration for which, I believe, originated hundreds of years ago. But I often wondered just how many people got the allusion. I'm sure there would be even fewer today.

Butler didn't do it, of course, and so copy editors were deprived of the storybook ending that many craved. Of course, with the abundance of David vs. Goliath comparisons, the game was practically drowning in allusion as it was.

Nevertheless, it is an opportunity to point out the risk that accompanies using allusions in headlines.

Don't get me wrong. Using allusions in headlines is one of the few ways that copy editors can flex their intellectual muscles, but my years on newspaper copy desks taught me that these things can backfire if you aren't certain that all of your readers will pick up on your reference.

One of my favorite bloggers, John McIntyre, a former editor for the Baltimore Sun, has written at his You Don't Say blog (and elsewhere) about an incident that occurred in the Baltimore area in 1996 that inspired such a headline that others didn't get.

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"On July 4, 1996, when President Bill Clinton visited Maryland's Eastern Shore, a bald eagle named Freedom, which had been nursed back to health after an injury, was released into the sky to commemorate the occasion.

"Unfortunately, Freedom was attacked by a couple of ospreys and ended up back in the bird hospital. When The Baltimore Sun put the story on its front page, the task of writing a headline fell to Paul Clark, one of the ablest copy editors I have ever worked with. He came up with 'Freedom's just another bird/ with nothing left to lose.'

"That headline was applauded in the newsroom and praised in the in–house newsletter. But when I offer it up as an example of the craft to my copy editing students at Loyola College, I get a roomful of blank looks. Janis Joplin singing 'Me and Bobby McGhee' is presumably the kind of music that only older people listen to."

John McIntyre

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Allusion, as Mr. McIntyre points out, "should enrich the reader's experience by providing an additional layer of meaning. But if it gets in the way of grasping the principal meaning, it is intrusive and counterproductive."

That doesn't just apply to headlines, though. When my brother and I were small, my mother was fond of making points with references to the radio programs from her childhood — i.e., "the Shadow knows" or Amos 'n' Andy or Jack Armstrong the All–American Boy — or observing, when we played games like Monopoly, that someone's stash of Monopoly cash gave the appearance that that person had been "taking a walk in Jack Benny's vault."

By the time my brother and I came along, radio was mostly music and sports, and we didn't have a frame of reference that enabled us to understand what Mom was talking about. We didn't know about the Shadow. We hadn't heard the jokes about Jack Benny's penny–pinching ways.

For most allusions to work, they must be fresh, and that requires a certain amount of judgment on the part of the writer or the speaker. Such judgment must be rendered on a case–by–case basis.

There was a time, for example, when "Where's the beef?" was a popular commercial catch–phrase that was frequently used as an allusion. In 2010, however, the reference is probably unfamiliar to nearly anyone under the age of 30.

In 1963, when Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, he began by saying "Five score years ago ..." and most listeners immediately understood the allusion to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address a century earlier.

When I was in junior high, my civics teacher required everyone in the class to memorize and recite the Gettysburg Address — consequently, my classmates and I would have understood King's allusion. But I don't know if teachers require their students to memorize that speech these days. Beyond a cursory study of the Gettysburg Address in their history books, most, if not all, modern young people might not get it.

Likewise, since the Watergate scandal, just about every scandal that has come along has been given the suffix "–gate." I guess most people still get that reference. Watergate remains the most notorious scandal in recent memory, having brought down a president. But I can remember, in the days when the Watergate scandal was just becoming known to the American public, that it was referred to as "another Teapot Dome," which was an allusion to a political scandal from half a century earlier. I wonder if anyone — other than history majors — would get that today.

Allusion, as Mr. McIntyre wrote, can enhance the reader's experience — but it won't work if the reader doesn't know what you're talking about.

Well, congratulations to Duke. I guess no allusion could enhance the experience of seeing last night's game — even if the ending wasn't as dramatic as the one in "Hoosiers."

Butler didn't do it, but the Bulldogs weren't losers. They did everything but win the game.