March Madness: Many Shining Moments

Call me crazy, but my favorite times of the year usually revolve around sports. The obvious exclusion to that would be Christmas, Thanksgiving, my anniversary, and my boy’s birthdays.

But even those days are somehow surrounded by some type of sport.

Some of my very favorite times of the year have to be mid-to-late October.

Usually around that time my Braves are in the thick of the playoffs, and my UT Vols are begging for my attention while playing some of our biggest rivals like Georgia and Alabama.

Then you have the bowl season. Sure we’d rather have playoff in college football, but gathering around the TV for hours at a time on New Year’s Day is about as good as it gets.

Unfortunately there’s a lull between the bowl games and mid-March.

Sure there’s regular season college basketball. which I love, but it just can’t compare with the weekly pomp and splendor that is college football.

That is, until mid-March.  

Not only do we say farewell to cold weather, early darkness, and colorless scenery, we finally welcome warmer weather, extended daylight, and beautiful landscapes.

I view the spring as the beginning of the new sports year. Everything is blooming anew. On the outside it’s flowers and grass. In sports all of our teams’ hopes are renewed.

We welcome spring training baseball and that little event we call March Madness.

Whether its baseball and you are looking forward to how your team will fare over the next seven months, or the NCAA tournament where every team in the field has a chance, it’s a new day.

That new day started on Selection Sunday when the March Madness field of 65 was announced

Yes sir, it is that time of year.

Some of my fondest sports memories happened in the Big Dance.

There was that 1992 Elite Eight when the hated Duke Blue Devils defeated the Kentucky Wildcats on a cross-court pass to Christian Laettner who basically turned around, faded back and instantly ripped the hearts out of the Big Blue faithful.

Then the Michigan Fab-5; Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King and Ray Jackson; took the Wolverines to two straight NCAA finals; only to lose both times.

The second time being the infamous ‘Webber time-out technical foul’ that cost his team the national championship and gave Dean Smith his final one.

Who can forget the 1995-96 Kentucky Wildcats team that had guys like Tony Delk, Ron Mercer, and Antoine Walker? That Kentucky team lost to UMass to begin the regular season, but defeated the Minutemen at the Final Four on their way to a national championship win over Syracuse.

What about the 1996-97 Chattanooga Mocs? Led by Seniors Johnny Taylor and Chris Mims the Cinderella Mocs defeated No. 3 seeded Georgia in the first round, and No. 6 seed Illinoisin round two. The Mocs glass slipper would fall off, however, in the Sweet 16 against God Shammgod, and Austin Croshere of Providence.

Then there was the ’98-99 Duke team that went 37-2 behind talent like Shane Battier, Trajan Langdon, and William Avery. The Blue Devils were 9-point favorites, but UConn’s Khaled El-Amin, and Rip Hamilton would lead UConn to the win in one of the best college championship games ever.

Two years later the Battier-led Blue Devils would win it all with what might have been one of the best teams of the last decade. Battier, Carlos Boozer, Chris Duhon, Jason Williams, and Mike Dunleavy were absolutely unstoppable that season.

In 2003, Freshmen Carmelo Anthony and Gerry McNamara would lead Syracuse to Jim Boeheim’s first national championship win in his 25-plus seasons as head coach.

In 2005, future Vols savior, Bruce Pearl led his University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee team to upsets over Michigan State and Syracuse to advance to the Sweet 16.

Last year’s final was awesome as well.

Memphis had the game in hand with a little more than a minute to play.

Thanks to some gutsy heroics by Jayhawks Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush, and a special thanks to Memphis’ two best players, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose who went 1-for-5 from the free throw line in the final 1:15 of regulation; Kansas won the instant classic in overtime.

Yes, there are countless memories.

Memories of players like UNCs Eric Montross; Duke’s Bobby Hurley; Kentucky’s Jamal Mashburn; Arizona’s Mike Bibby; Utah’s Nick Van Horn; Michigan State’s Mateen Cleaves; and Davidson’s Stephen Curry.

Memories of Cinderella’s like ’96 Princeton, '98 Valparaiso, ’01 Hampton, ’06 George Mason, ‘08 Davidson.

Then there are the images of Jerry Tarkanian biting his towel; Adam Morrison crying after a bitter loss; a giddy Mateen Cleaves jumping around on a gimpy ankle in preparation for a championship celebration; Roy Williams cursing on national TV following his last Final Four loss at Kansas; and the countless celebrations following national title games.

The influence of March Madness on fans and the sports world as whole is confirmed when anyone of those names, teams, or images are mentioned and your mind immediately goes back to that moment.

That one shining moment.