It is finally Friday. For some reason this week has been a long one. Temps hit above 70 yesterday. Woo wee, it was nice. The sun was shining. Too bad the wind was blowing strong, but I will take what I can get. I snuck (sneaked?) out at lunch and enjoyed a nice H. Uppman Chairman's Reserve Robusto. This was my first stogie since before the New Year.
How did you do on your basketball brackets? I missed three games yesterday. That is pretty good for me. Although I am by birth and residence a Hoosier, I do not really care too much for basketball.
I know, I may have to renounce my Indiana citizenship. Seriously, Basketball is not the king it once was in the Hoosier State. Class Basketball, cable TV, shopping malls, modern times, and football have all combined to weaken King Basketball. No longer can you count on massive gyms being filled on a Friday night.
The girls basketball programs have sued to make sure they play an equal number of Fridays. Now we see boys games all through the week. I get the fairness thing, but no matter how many lawsuits are filed, you cannot make a sport popular. All the change has done is lessen the popularity of the boys program. I hate to bring politics into it, but that is always the result of trying to legislate "fairness". The result is lowering the outcome for all.
Class Basketball destroyed the old local rivalries. It weakened the overall product. But it has been 15 years. The old way can never return. Those of you from other States cannot comprehend what it was like to sit in a high school gym filled with 5,000 screaming, rabid fans.
3 comments:
I am not a basketball fan either, so I turned in my Indiana for life membership. I think North Carolina has taken over the Hoosier Madness thing with Duke and North Carolina and half a dozen other great teams in the ACC.
James Old Guy
I was just talking with someone about the class basketball system the other day.
When I was growing up, my mom's hometown Loogootee, a town of about 2,000 was HOT. They made it to the top 4 one year and was runner up the next. Her cousin was the coach and ended up being the most winningest coach in Indiana.
I remember those days. You literally would scream until you couldn't talk the next day. Invariably they would be in the final four with the biggest schools in the state and they were successful because they played "stall ball" which is also not allowed anymore.
Class basketball ruined that forever, and after Reggie left the Pacers and then we only had thugs that would rather be shooting guns at strip clubs than shooting the basketball. I haven't watched a basketball game in years.
Then along came Peyton and Dungy and turned our state into football fanatics. Hurrah for that anyway.
Class basketball. Dumb Dumb Idea.
A lot of people move about, so it's no longer "this is my town's (or section of the city's) school." In places where people still go to the schools their older siblings, parents, and maybe grandparents went, I know of one place where it's still that rabid for those reasons, but now it's more of "this is the box I go to learn in" rather than community. But yeah listening to the old folks talk about their high school days, you wonder how people didn't get killed in those intra-city rivalries. Chicago used to have a football playoff between the public school and Catholic school leagues that filled old Soldier Field when it was larger and held 100,000 people, and they packed the house, and pro teams were the hot stove league after thoughts.
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