What I remember most is how purely surreal it all was. Look, my friends and I weren’t going to be confused with Spicoli and his crew from Fast Times, were we? There were few rebels among us, and certainly no cause.
Our idea of overcoming authority was that we all “coincidentally” got the flu on the second Thursday of March. It was the basketball flu, or more specifically the Big East flu for what it was.
Forty-odd years later, it is unlikely that the fair-minded Marianists of Chaminade High School would retroactively penalize points for such scandalous conduct, but it is the price of coming clean. If so, that is the price to pay for confessing.
(Kudos to Coach Dan Feeney and my Flyers team, who, by the way, won the Long Island Catholic League title again this week, the first time in 30 years that they have won back-to-back titles).
So, either my dad or my uncle had a hook, so one of us got a ticket, took the LIRR to Penn Station, and went to Syracuse Orange, this great color of Georgetown (and Villanova). will join the tapestry of Blue, St. John’s (and Boston College) red, and we got there at 1 o’clock for the early game, where we made plans for the day.
Sometimes he would be sent off between the second and third games in accordance with the rules. Back in the day when you couldn’t actually get attention by walking around the garden corridors, we could hide under the stands or wander around the garden corridors and get “lost”. The only rule we followed was that we stayed until the end of the last game, about 10 hours after everything started.
The Big East Tournament returns to Madison Square Garden this week, as it has every year since 1983. Three Top 25 teams and at least two other NCAA Tournament teams will be in attendance, and as always, there will be a nostalgic atmosphere. Definitely go along with the fuss.
No basketball league is as steeped in its history as the Big East, but teams like UW honor that tradition year after year, fielding teams that could easily have played with the big boys of old.
Now there are many more teams and many more matches. Thursday is still a big game, with four games at the Garden, OBs, boosters, and basketball fans who don’t bring their dogs on the hunt arrive in the morning and stay until after midnight, with all kinds of basketball fun in the middle. is packed into. Thursday is always the day when college basketball as a whole feels exciting.
And you know what?
There are fewer and fewer things in college basketball that you can celebrate just for the purity of it and enjoy it just for the fact that it makes you feel good. The whole sport feels like a never-ending business deal these days, but it’s only temporary. A lot of joy was squeezed out of it. One of the reasons the Big East remains a dominant elite league is because good teams understand and excel at the game’s modern business models.
That’s fine.
You can forget all that when the tournament comes to town, especially on Thursday when its four games occupy the large gymnasium from noon to midnight. Do children still get “sick” from gardening to get fit, like I and my peers used to do? I’d like to think they are. I think this is one of the few that I can recommend something like that.
See you soon.
Wack’s Wack
It’s been 19 years since Paul Giamatti started working without even receiving a nomination for his role in Sideways. I hope Oscar officials right his old mistakes and give him the trophy for The Holdovers this time.
I think Anthony Volpe will be an All-Star this year.
Women’s History Month is the perfect time to remember the pioneering PR career of Mets star Shannon Ford, who passed away from cancer eight years ago this week. She approached her profession with both compassion and fearlessness and was loved by everyone. “She was one of a kind,” David Wright said recently. “I don’t know what I would have done without her help.”
Jalen Brunson looked pretty healthy for a guy who looked like he got shot in the foot last week in Cleveland.
hit back vac
Kevin Bryant: It’s a wonder Saquon Barkley was able to get past the line of scrimmage, playing behind one of the worst lines in the league when everyone in the stadium knew what the call would be. If the Giants walked him, it would be worse than mishandling the offense — something I didn’t think was possible.
back: I know there’s this idea in the NFL that a dime is enough to be an effective running back. It looks like we’ll be able to see up close whether that’s true or not.
J.R. Roberts: Knicks marketing needs to convince Shaquille O’Neal to come out of retirement and join the new guard for the Shake Shack promotion. Also, am I the only one who confuses all of Bogdanovich? When we see that Peter doesn’t have a jump shot…
vacuum: Who said there’s no room for laughter on a drizzly, gray day?
@Frank Boesch: Can we put an asterisk on the “field is for the players” rule? One of my happiest memories was after Game 5 of the ’73 NLCS. I begged my late parents to allow me to walk down Shea’s ramp from the upper floors and (peacefully) out onto the field and out the CF gate.
@Mike Vac: Granted!
Michael J. Henegen: Although it was a trade rather than a free agent departure, Roberto Luongo, acquired by the Islanders in a trade, became one of the worst players in New York sports history. They gave up the No. 4 overall pick after spending his rookie year part-time. He finished the same career as Lundqvist, ranking fourth all-time in wins. It doesn’t come out at all though.
vacuum: And now it has happened!
