And So It Goes

Brethren: We Sports Brethren have a pretty close connection to the Davidson community. The Cap't was a Florida boy who rocked the Davidson, NC, campus back in the late 60s/early 70s and one of my best friends did the same the past four years. These close ties have made me extremely connected to this March Madness ride that Stephen Curry and Co. have taken us on.

And, man, what a ride.

That's what I'm choosing to remember about the past few weekends of basketball. Not the questionable last play selection, not the fact that big bad Goliath eventually won out, not that a boring Final Four of all #1 seeds is what we've got. I'm going to remember the fact that alumni and friends of Davidson packed a Murray Hill bar in Manhattan to its gills on a glorious Friday night and Sunday afternoon. That this crowd cried out its hokey "Daaaave-iiiiddd-sooooon" cheer and adopted "Sweet Caroline" for a glorious three weeks. The fact that the media fell in love with this
team, with this school. That Dell Curry is back in my life so notably. That LeBron James wishes he had a Stephen Curry on his team. That Jason Richards is the player I honestly wish I could have become (seriously -- Friday night, against the Big Ten champs, he had 11 points, 13 assists, and zero turnovers -- in my head, that's the kind of the stat line the point guard I always believed I would become would produce in March on an Elite Eight team). That on a Sunday night, I'm extremely sad it's over.

Davidson, you have the basketball team we all wish we had -- and for that, I am extremely grateful. More sentimentalities and Wildcat lurve, desde:

Brethren (cont'd): I think the phrase I used the most this weekend was, "That's just absurd! This is ridiculous!" I said it mainly to my buddy, Steve, who wrote about his excitement on this here sports blog when the Cats made it to the Sweet Sixteen.

Because, honestly, what else can you say?

This 1700-person school did some amazing stuff this weekend. Don't let their heroic -- nay, tragic -- loss on this Sunday afternoon diminish what they accomplished. They dominated Wisconsin -- a team from a school 20 times their size. They shot, what, 54%? When you're used to watching basketball and seeing teams shoot 35-45%, and then you see a team shoot 54% for an entire game, it seems like they're making every basket. It's unreal. I feared looking at the really cute girl I met at the bar Friday night while I was talking to her, because fuck, I didn't want to miss anything!

But it's really beyond their amazing run of basketball that's the legacy this team will leave behind. They've helped shine some light on a really good school that produces top-notch people. In my native Southern tongue, quite simply, Davidson is good people.

They played so well. They smiled. They inspired. And even if the second half slipped away and they heroically fought the good fight, I'm not going to let that asterisk this weekend. I understand Kansas won today, but for me, the 2008 NCAA Tournament belongs to Davidson.

Thanks, Davidson. Thanks, Bryant Barr, Jason Richards, Bob McKillop, and of course, Stephen Curry.

I remember why I'm a fan.

Nacho: North Carolina's a little like Florida, where even the ones that don't make the big programs can still go toe to toe with all comers. Like South Florida this past football season.

What Stephen Curry did over these past two weeks will probably inspire a handful of kids to shoot another 50 J's during practice, which means in, like 7 years, college basketball's gonna be wikid amazing.


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New York Knows Davidson

Brethren: I live in New York City, where a close childhood friend who went to Davidson also lives. This past weekend ranks up there as one of the best sports weekends he's ever experienced, as the country embraced his small school on a level never known before. His words:

Steve "HB" Kaliski: In moving from Davidson College to New York City this past summer, I realized I was changing a lot more than my address. I was changing my entire universe. From the friendly confines of the Sweet Carolinian liberal arts to the big bad city, not much would survive in transition. These two worlds have as much to say to each other as a Village hipster and a downtown banker, as Cunningham Fine Arts and Martin Chemistry, as a Ewing dunk and a Curry three. Yeah, not a whole lot in common.

I bring this up simply because it’s impossible to talk about my Wildcat bliss this week without talking about New York. My life as a sports fan has been all about cheering for the underdog, and nothing—not Robin Ventura’s grand slam single in 1999, not the Panthers storybook road to the 2003 Super Bowl, not even Dell himself pouncing on Alonzo in the Hornets’ first playoff run—compares to the totally bizarre pride I felt at the New York Post headline “HOYA DESTROYAS!” Or the New York Times front-page “UNEXPECTED GUESTS.” Or a stream of text messages from 917 and 212 area codes reading “CONGRATULATIONS!”

Man, this is weird. New York knows Davidson.

S"HB"K: And nobody loves it more than the 100-strong contingent of Davidson alumni who gathered at the Eastside’s Mercury Bar this past weekend to watch our cats slay some serious dog. When people asked me where I watched the Sunday game, I said, “At a Davidson bar.” A Davidson bar? Like a Gator bar? Or a Hokie bar? Does such a thing exist? On Friday and Sunday it did, and I’ll never forget it.

You must understand: we ‘Cats are a frenzied population, workaholics and playaholics, avidly ready to cheer for our friends when they’re achieving something remarkable. But most of the time, we settle for localized frenzy, a bubble of fun we save for ourselves, telling others, “You shoulda been there.” Now, this whole “nationwide” idea…this is something different. At least for this week, when people ask me where I went to school, I won’t have to say, “Davidson College…North Carolina…just north of Charlotte…small liberal arts school…yeah…” A simple “DA-VID-SONNNN!” should suffice, and even if I have to clarify with, “You know, Stephen Curry,” I won’t mind at all.

And though I’m thrilled to welcome the world to momentary knowledge of my education, the most meaningful consequence of Curry and Company’s March magic is that I’ve never seen the Davidson community itself so united in enthusiasm. Whether on Facebook or Gmail or AIM, every Wildcat status this week says something like “SWEET 16!!” or “DETROIT ROCK CITY!” or simply “!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” On a campus where academics loom large, it takes a force mightier than a four-point play to inspire this kind of pandemic pride. It takes a four-point play as the ignition for one of the most inspiring underdog comebacks of all time, a comeback guaranteeing that the ’08 Hoyas will never hear “Sweet Caroline” again without a sweet sweet pang of “How did that happen?!”

Wisconsin, beware. No one wants you to succeed.
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Of Man-Babies and Perspective

Nacho: Cap'n Pappy graduated from Davidson in, like, 1912 or something. He gives us his take on his beloved Wildcats, whether we ask for it or not...

Cap'n Pappy: Back in the spring of '69, just a couple of months before Neil Armstrong would take "one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind", I thought I would check the roundball team of the college I would be attending in the coming fall. I mean, how good could they really be? A small group of their students with Rhett Butler accents had just won the College Bowl (kind of a nerd's version of Jeopardy) where college students competed against each other in answering obscure questions about history, archeology, and literature, beating Harvard, Yale, Penn and others. So I adjusted the rabbit ears, the vertical and horizontal on the TV set, and then WALKED BACK ACROSS THE ROOM to sit down (yes our version of the remote at the time was to get your little brother or sister to walk up to the TV and change the channel).

Cap'n, cont'd: Well, it turns out that it was Lefty Driesell's last season at Davidson and Charlie Scott of Carolina would score at the buzzer over the outstretched arms of Wildcat defenders at the top of the key to advance Carolina to the Final 4 from the East Regional (back in the day when ONLY the conference champion went the to the Big Dance). Terry Holland took over from Lefty and my school of 1170 students would continue what would become its perennial advance to the NCAA tournaments during my tenure there. Since I was a Floridian, I had me some learnin to do about ACC basketball and Davidson basketball. Yeah I knew the SEC and Adolph Rupp and the Duke teams of the mid 60's with Marin, Vacendak, and a guy named Jeff Mullins (who would later coach at UNCC). When I got to Davidson I had to memorize the local traditions: Snyder, Hetzel, Huckle, and yes, Terry Holland. I'll never forget the road trips into the Olde Charlotte Coliseum (a 50's vintage building that looked that the UFO that Michael Rennie emerged from in "The Day the Earth Stood Still") to watch Cook, Kroll, Kirley, Malloy, and Bryan Adrian match up against South Carolina with Roach, Riker, and Ribock, and the Tar Heels when Dean Smith had hair. We loved having Carolina students visit the Davidson campus so we could whistle and shout out "Here, Dean" to the lab running around campus (Terry Holland named his dog Dean Smith). Mike Malloy's fro was way better than Will Ferrell's.

I never thought I'd live long enough to see the Cats challenge the power schools again. I cannot tell you how much I love that the Hornets legacy of Dell Curry/Stephen Curry whipped the butts of Ewing Jr./ and JT3. I ran into a die-hard Hokie fan in an airport last weekend who was disconsolate that Va Tech's coach Greenberg offered the younger Curry a possible scholarship beginning in the sophomore year if he would walk on as a freshman. That's only 30 ppg (or is it per half) the Hokies are missing this year. Not to men tion a very nice character antidote to Michael and Marcus Vick. I also love it that Bob McKillop is following in the tradition of Lefty Driesell and Terry Holland in recruiting outside the box. Lefty was one of the first guys to comb the entire country to find a few guys who wouldn't mind moving from Ohio, Florida, NYC, or Australia to Davidson NC to play college hoops and drink beer at Hattie's Truck Stop. McKillop has just expanded Lefty's Davidson horizons to become a global recruiter (Europe/Africa/Australia). Just a note to the Badgers (the next bowl of Cat-food): how many languages can you talk trash in?
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