Fare Thee well Yogi

First appeared on March 29, 2016
in The Lebanon Reporter

This is the time of the year when people turn to sportswriters, be they real or pretend, to explain the madness surrounding them. By law, sportswriters possess an aura of all-knowingness. One granted by beings beyond this world, which only serves to make the power all the more dangerous, all the more mystical and pretty much unavailable on HSN.

It is a power that enables sportswriters to not only make sense of the madness, but also refuse to acknowledge when they’re clearly wrong. The good news is, supernatural powers like these come in real handy when Carol from accounting asks why the sportswriters bracket finished last in the office pool.

If you’re like me, you took the hard earned money your children were counting on, whether for immediate sustenance or future college tuition, and let it ride on your ability to see into the future. The madness arrived and suddenly it became wholly unclear why you made the choices you did. You’re left a confused mess, boomeranging to the day your second grade teacher failed at explaining why we have a seven-tee and a six-tee, but for whatever reason there is no five-tee.

These belong to the unexplained. Dark strands of mystery woven together by careful hands, forming the imperfect fabric of life. Things like why North Carolina doubled their three-pointers made against Indiana, why a large coke at Steak and Shake is the same size as a medium at McDonald's or why your father chose to walk around the house in his underwear after eleven o'clock.

And so you stand in the midst of destruction. Your flaming bracket, your cackling co-workers, your wife bellyaching your five-dollar investment in the office pool belies a potential gambling problem. And, of course, your children, who herd around the foot of your recliner like piglets at an empty trough, staring at you, their innocent eyes watering, impatient tummies grumbling.

March is when the great ones separate themselves. And while a fifteen-point loss in the Sweet Sixteen may not be the way Yogi Ferrell wanted to close his career as an Indiana Hoosier, such is the madness of March. Ferrell came in a highly touted freshman. Four years later, he leaves a truly rare species. He was both diminutive and powerful, a jitterbug with range. He wanted to rock u to sleep, he wanted to rip your heart out with the step back or orchestrate another thundering flush. He wanted to prove little guys still belonged, but above all else he wanted to win.
Ferrell finishes as one of only five Hoosiers to score over 1,000 career points, grab 300 rebounds and dish out at least 400 assists. He is the school’s all time leader in assists and stands sixth in scoring. But what makes Yogi so rare is not his rabid productivity, rather it’s the fact he was this productive and still chose to stay four years.

The one-and-done culture in which we exist is the reason for the death of really good college basketball. It's also the reason Calbert Cheaney’s record as the Big Ten’s all time leading scorer has stood unchallenged for almost 25 years. Decisions like Ferrell’s are one factor in the only equation complex enough to explain March Madness; I’d walk you through it here, but math is a lot like witchcraft and witchcraft creeps me out.
In the end, all we can say is thank you. Thank you, Yogi. Thanks for staying another year. Thanks for a lifetime of memories. Thanks for playing your guts out every single minute and, above all, thanks for being a Hoosier.

© 2016 Eric Walker Williams

Ready or Not, the NBA Playoffs are Here

First appeared on April 29, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Like it or not the NBA Playoffs are here. An epically all too long crescendo to a painfully all too long regular season. Unfortunately for you the Playoffs are like a really bad movie you paid forty bucks to see in a drafty theatre dotted with unhappy toddlers and one gravel throated chain-smoker hacking up a lung. The hormones in the teenager behind you are telling him “must kick hole in back of seat” as a couple nearby snickers their way through a very dark and ultimately critical scene.

Still you hang on, through the four game sweeps, twenty point blowouts and inconsistent officiating, the predictable plot twists and token kiss between main characters who never saw themselves together. Others walk out when an unforeseen plot twist turns out to be a dream, but not you, you have invested so much time and money that even the great Chicago Fire wouldn't keep you from seeing the end.

You find no tangible reason for watching other than sports have a way of washing the stink of the real world off us; that and the latest season of “The Bachelor” is over. You fail at explaining to your wife that the Playoffs are a necessary evil because they’re the only truly reliable way of crowning a champion. Still, outside of elimination games, the NBA Playoffs fall well short of installing the heart pounding drama of March Madness.

The totality of the NCAA Tournament’s allure lies in its ability to capture those game seven moments in dozens of match ups spread out over a month’s time. Compare this to the NBA Playoffs which have you wading through two months or more of stagnant basketball peppered with small traces of suspense (see: the last two minutes of the Fourth Quarter). Still, it’s just enough to keep a sucker like you coming back time and time again.

March Madness plays well to Americans for its all you can eat qualities. It’s a buffet of basketball, a cornucopia of competition. And so you sit as only an American can, three day beard, pants unsnapped, gorging yourself until your hollow leg explodes and it looks like a freight train has hit a food truck in your living room. And then your wife suggests getting off the couch to spend more time with your son because when his teacher asked what his parents do for a living yesterday little Johnny stood up and told the class that his daddy watches basketball.

That’s what March Madness is. It’s death by basketball and the NBA Playoffs simply can’t stand next to it. Sure they dress the Playoffs up. Pipe in louder dance music and give out free tee-shirts; an adult large that won’t fit your three year old after one wash.

But there simply isn’t enough lipstick in a Macy’s warehouse to spice these things up. The NBA would be smart to offer a mid-season tournament. A single elimination affair set up exactly like the NCAA Tournament without openly admitting they’re trying to create something exactly like the NCAA Tournament.

They could call it the “February Frenzy” and sell millions in advertising. Instead of “One Shining Moment” they could offer fans “One Really Bright Moment”. Give the winner a first round bye in the Playoffs or the overall number one seed should they make it. For those that don’t, maybe an all expense paid trip to the Final Four would make sense, or at the very least a tee-shirt that fits.

In the meantime tuning into the Playoffs will remain just like a trip to the movies. There are absolutely no guarantees and no chance of getting your money back.


© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Prepare to be Shocked: Wichita State no Cinderella

First appeared on March 26, 2014
in The Lebanon Reporter

The blueprint for life is simple. Eight glasses of water a day, four glasses of milk, six helpings of fruit, a teaspoon of red meat here and there, stay on the right side of the road, avoid falling space junk, squeeze in twenty five hours of exercise a week and maybe you live to see sixty.

The blueprint for building a college basketball program is a bit more complex. Recruiting used to be simple. A high profile coach takes a Friday night trip to a small town gym. Red faced locals stop riding that new coach, the one who thinks you can win games playing zone and walking the ball up the floor, long enough to fawn over the big dog in the crowd. The high profile coach smiles, shakes hands with the parents, walks around and kicks the tires while saying all the right things. The deal gets done with a handshake, sealing a young player's lifelong dream of playing for State U.

Today coaches are up against ESPN, internet rankings, Twitter and the seedy underbelly of AAU circuits. Maybe that’s what made Gregg Marshall and Wichita State so appealing. They seemed to provided a much needed alternative. On the surface they were everything big time college basketball wasn’t.

Enter Kentucky and their high flying Blue Bloods. Hot off the AAU circuit, the best recruiting class in college basketball history. Enter John Calipari. One part college coach, one part politician, one part Dark Lord of the One and Done World. Work the phones, kiss some babies, get the top five guys on the board and ride them like the British are coming. And when the dust settles and they’ve all declared for the Draft, pick up your phone and start over.

Surely Calipari would take one look at Gregg Marshall and tell you that boy’s climbing on the horse from the wrong end. For if John Calipari’s a chef, Gregg Marshall’s an architect. Building something from the ground up. Taking kids so far from Kentucky’s radar they might as well have been playing in some remote Pacific island near Kiribati, shooting coconuts into empty oil drums nailed to palm trees. Molding them, shaping them, teaching them to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Maybe it was the fact Marshall’s speeches seemed so authentic, his words bordering on the prophetic that made me want to see Wichita State drum Kentucky Sunday. “Play angry, play for each other”. Maybe it was the little dog in the big fight that had me clambering onto the Shocker bandwagon, or maybe it was simply the fact that, as a Hoosier, I’m blessed with a bottomless reservoir of hatred for the Wildcats.

Either way it was short lived. In the end Kentucky’s thoroughbreds thundered past the Shockers. Thirty five wins and a cloud of dust. Still the power of the team isn’t lost. What five players, five recruits the big schools barely knew existed, connected on both ends of the floor can do, even when pitted against the best recruiting class in NCAA history.

They took Kentucky to the edge. They mussed Calipari’s perfect hair. And though they came up short on the scoreboard, Gregg Marshall did more than put Wichita State back on the map, he reminded us all what college basketball is supposed to be. Players committed to each other, committed to the name on the front of the jersey.

Players thinking, acting, responding and moving as one. In today’s land of one and dones, Wichita State was ice cold lemonade on the Fourth of July, proving Marshall’s blueprint, while not the most popular, remains time tested.

© 2014 Eric Walker Williams

Michigan's season was bigger than one loss

First appeared on April 11th, 2013
in The Lebanon Reporter

When Jordan Morgan’s shot rolled off the rim at the buzzer giving Tom Crean and the Indiana Hoosiers their first outright Big Ten title in 20 years, all hope seemed lost for the Wolverines. In that moment Beilein’s crew went from talented upstarts, far too young to realize brazen doesn’t wear well in the Midwest, to a group of Thriller-like zombies shocked into a state of disbelief.

They were the closest thing Ann Arbor has seen to the Fab Five since those fashionistas first set foot on campus 20 years ago. Good news for Michigan fans is, while this current batch may have the baggy shorts and above the rim game, they lack the ugly baggage and propensity for calling time outs when they have none. But that moment, on the last day of the season in their own building, should have been the crushing blow in what was already becoming a frustrating end to a promise filled season. A Tyson-style haymaker delivered from Cody Zeller and his national darling Indiana Hoosiers.

On the surface it appeared a turning point for Indiana who, after making NCAA history the week before in becoming the first team to cut the nets down following a loss, finally claimed their trophy. Tom Crean and future All-American Victor Oladipo shared a moment in what they surely believed was a stepping stone to hanging another banner as the Wolverines stumbled off the court like stunned cattle.

Someone more famous than me once quipped “these are the times that try men’s souls” and while it might be difficult to prove, I’m fairly certain they were talking about the 2013 Michigan Wolverines. For as they retired to their locker room to sweep what was left of their hopes and dreams into a Maize and Blue Rubbermaid dustpan every media member in the nation, part-time pretend or not, believed Blue had flat lined then and there. But from the ashes left smoldering on the Crisler Center court came a resurgent group of Wolverines who were, in the infamous words of Frank Costanza, “like a Phoenix, rising from Arizona”.

Michigan’s impressive surge to the Final Four wouldn’t have been possible without two things; the surprising play of Superfrosh Mitch McGary and a near forty foot jumper from Trey Burke that eventually buried then flavor of the month Kansas. For those wanting hard hitting analysis, look no further than an enormous charge from Jordan Morgan, role players like Spike Albrecht and Caris LeVert quietly doing their jobs and Head Coach John Beilein’s innate ability for developing system-specific skill sets in his players.

But in prevailing 82-76 Monday night, Louisville proved to have more experience and were quite simply tougher. There’s something to be said for toughness in this modern world of empty threats and helicopter parents. It takes real guts to reach down inside and find the strength necessary to fight harder at that precise moment when so many before have quit. To fight that which has been conditioned in you.

So we’re left to hope history will remember Michigan not as a team that wasn’t good enough on one night, rather as an exciting team that showed guts in overcoming a disastrous finish to their season. And while another installment of March Madness has came and went bringing an end to the greatest three weeks in sports, we move forward knowing every day puts us one day closer to its return. CBS will put Greg Gumbel back on the shelf for another year, but soon enough the Road to the Final Four will point the way west to Dallas.


© 2013 Eric Walker Williams

March Madness is many things to many people

First appeared on March 20, 2012

March Madness is many things to many people. For basketball fans it is the greatest time of the year because the ubiquity of buzzer beating plays injects itself into the national consciousness faster than a congressman can tap your foot under a restroom stall. For haters of power programs, and fans of those ugly, plain clothed teams who didn’t get asked to the dance, it’s a time to rejoice that David’s stone was true once again as you go online and order a Norfolk State Basketball T-Shirt.

For the average part-time pretend sports columnist it’s a great time as well if for the simple fact the tournament produces such incredible stories. Turns of event that allow you to prattle on about nothing of note all the while stating what is fairly obvious in as many different ways as you possibly can think of; and you do it with pride because this is what your readers have come to expect of you.

It’s a prognosticators playground for they, even those who know nothing about basketball, have a 1 in 64 chance of being right. For Bill in Purchasing it’s a chance to remind people to listen to him because he was, at one time, a stand out varsity player; while others only see him as a bitter pill who has succumbed to both the jagged hands of Father Time and one dozen too many Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins. And while these can wreck his frame and rob the “quickest first step in Wabash County”, they cannot harm his pride.

Drama, upsets, the same 5 commercials looping constantly, March Madness is also a television station manager’s dream. The Genie that is the NCAA Tournament is so mesmerizing it has ridden its magic carpet straight into the Oval Office. And as Obama took time away from solving Mid-East peace to share his picks with the world, it was a chance for the President to both show his non-political side while also pandering to the little-sought-after demographic of former basketball players turned couch potatoes.

For one month we become both zombie and robot, slaves one and all to the melodious voice of Jim Nantz or the herky-jerky Kevin Harlan. Only in March can Gus Johnson make something as innocuous as a twelve year old filling Gatorade cups behind the bench sound like the greatest thing since Neil Armstrong placed his size 11 down upon the surface of the Moon.

But as with everything in life, except bunny rabbits and free beer, there is a dark underbelly to March Madness. Fans of Missouri and Duke are suffering through March Sadness after they made tournament history by becoming the first pair of number 2 seeds to fall in the same year. The finality of the tournament can drop you like a steel hammer. That head-splitting moment when March Madness becomes “April Malaise” leading you to torch your own bracket; frustrated that it wasn’t the best of 6 million submitted online to ESPN.

Or it’s a warrior like Robbie Hummel giving the fight of his life before going down. And it’s the sight of her son dropping his sword for the final time that moves a mother to tears. Yes, it’s the rare combination of beauty and tragedy; Broadway meets testosterone.

But until this moment comes, the Tournament holds great promise. So your team wins a game at a very late hour and you go in and kiss your sons on the forehead as they sleep because that is the only thing that can possibly add to your happiness at that moment. And what a sweet moment indeed.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams