WHO LED US SPORTS FANATICS ASTRAY?

Is it me or is there so much happening in the sports world these days it's hard to keep up with it all?  In some respects it a sports fanatic's heaven.  I wonder though, how much people get done at work or if they're spending a vast majority of their time surfing the internet checking on scores or the latest transactions.   Look out your bosses may be watching....

Indiana's Will Sheehey added to the hysteria with this shot

Not only do we have the NCAA tourney games in high flying-upset happening mode, we also have Major League Baseball in the wind-down phase of spring training, football is going through its free agency period headed to the NFL draft...hockey is knocking on the door to the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NBA is....well who knows and does anyone really care?

But that's only a tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  Let's make mention of some other sports that are receiving a fair amount of attention these days.  How about the Ladies portion of the NCAA tourney, the NIT, the WNIT, the CIT, the WBI, there are games all over the place. Then there's NASCAR each and every weekend and PGA Golf both from the men's and women's side.  Oh, and let's not forget the NCAA Men's Frozen Four, that's just about to begin.  Minnesota won the Women's side this past weekend...did you know they played that Championship?  Wow.  What else?

Well...NCAA wrestling just concluded with Penn State winning their second straight championship, the California women won their third NCAA swim title in four years, Florida won the NCAA Men's Indoor Track Championship and Oregon took the Women's crown.  It was the third title in a row for both the Gators and the Duck, women. Or is it Duck-women?  Duckwomen?  Lady Ducksters?  Whatever you want to call them, they appear to be dominating the Ladies track scene.  I'm probably forgetting soccer to some degree but it seems like they play year round and there's always some Cup at stake....so you can certainly get filled up there.  Gymnastics held the Pacific Rim Championships last weekend as preparations are being made for the 2012 Olympic team.  I'm sure there is more and if I left your sport out, don't be offended. Take a deep breath!!!

 Now come to your senses because I think I have the answer to all this craziness.  It's mom's fault.  Yes, Moms.  At least that's what one sports nut believes.  His name is Joel Sircus.  Here's his story:

"Behind every true sports fanatic lies an enthusiastic supporter.  It’s high time that I thanked the woman who introduced me to my love of sports.

Indulge me for a moment.  To those who brave the bitter cold to watch their team take the field, or spend hours upon hours each week pouring over box scores, there exists for each fan a catalyst, someone who helped incite this rabid fanaticism.  Ask any lover of sports where it all started, and I guarantee that without skipping a beat, each one could launch into the origin of their own narrative — the person who first put a ball in their hands or let them stay up late to watch the end of a nail-biting playoff game. Jordan had his father, Ali his trainer, and Larry Bird his brothers.

Though I may not possess the same talent or prowess as any of these aforementioned sports deities, I too, like so many others, can trace my passion back to one very special person.  And as I have come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever extended an adequate thank-you for first exposing me to the world of sports — a world which has come to carry tremendous weight and importance throughout my life.  So, while this may be more self-serving than my normal column, I hope that you’ll bear with me.  With that said, this one is for you, Mom.

I’m not really sure where, when, or how my mom stumbled into an affinity for sports. She was never an athlete herself, and grew up in a household where the sports section was the first thrown into the trash from each morning’s paper.  What matters is not how it happened, but that from the time I was born, my mom served as my guide, concurrently exposing my malleable mind to football, basketball and baseball.  My mom sat with me in our basement while we sorted the thousands of basketball cards I had collected into binders based on all-star appearances, shooting percentage or career point totals.  My mom consoled me on that October night in 2003 when the Cubs imploded against the Marlins — just five outs away from winning the pennant.

My mom fanned my competitive flame.  I would stay up at night playing basketball on the hoop affixed to my wall until I could sneak a game off of her.  My mom, throughout my time in high school, woke up day after day at 5 a.m. to take me to early-morning practice, and then ducked out of work early in the afternoon to make sure she saw me play.  My mom let me sneak away from family functions to run to the bar and catch the final minutes of a big game.  And it was my mom who — just because they are my favorite team — donned a Colts jersey, strutted into Foxboro and started talking smack to Patriots fans who were three or four times her size.  My mom introduced me to my first love, and she continues to share it with me today.

Here’s the dirty little secret, though.  I’m not sure my mom even really likes sports that much.  I think when it really comes down to it, she is just a diehard fan of being a mom. I think that all those years ago, she could sense that I was falling in love with these hobbies, and she decided that rather than sitting on the proverbial sideline to watch it happen, she preferred to get in the game with me.  That’s why she sends me texts such as “Bulls doing a good job hanging in, but I have a feeling they will come up short.  If only Luol Deng weren’t hurt … ” during the Bulls-Heat game two weeks ago. It’s her way of talking about the one thing that’s constantly on my mind.

And that’s why, 10 years ago, my mom started the most important tradition we share — watching the NCAA tournament.  As college basketball quickly became my favorite sport, my mom recognized how important March Madness was to me.  I’ll never forget how, when I was in fifth grade, my mom came into my room the first Thursday morning of the tournament and told me that I didn’t have to go to school.  She took off work, and we spent the next four days glued to the TV comparing brackets, drinking Slurpees and catching each other up on our lives. This ritual has continued for the past 10 years and fills several scrapbooks’ worth of memories.  Those four days are my Mother’s Day — a chance to celebrate and thank the woman who has given so much to me".

Joel, you don't know how fortunate you are.  When your mother leaves this world, only then will you know how much that time you spent together meant.  All I can add is you are one lucky man.  If your sports story is anything like Joel's.....tell your mom today how much you appreciate her and her love of sports. 
 
Thanks for reading,

John     






 

MARCH MADNESS TURNS INTO NCAA INSANITY

This is an exciting time for Men's College Basketball.  And well it should be.  No matter what name you want to put to what we're about to experience again, "The Big Dance, The Final Four or March Madness",  the fanatics will be coming out of the wood unlike any other sport in the United States.  Not the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals or the Stanley Cup can compare.  And it's not just the games themselves that cause the hysteria.

Some would say there's a formula to the lunacy.  Millions watch CBS Selection Sunday. ..... follow that with hours of "Bracketology" where the "analysts" dissect each game.....and then it's time for making an "educated" guess for an individual bracket which gets dropped into a contest, company "pool" or family challenge.  If anything has been proven over the years, it's that there is NO recipe for success.  Some entrants choose the winners by mascots, some flip a coin, others fall in love with school colors or there is the method of going strictly by the higher seeded team and God knows what else.  No matter the philosophy used, each thinks their bracket is the winner.  Is that delusional or what?

Will Kentucky Reach the Top Again?

For the NCAA, there is a method for this madness.  The basketball tournament funds up to 96 percent of their annual budget.  It has become a cultural, financial success that has generated huge television ratings.   Last year offered something new for the viewer.  "All the games all the time" was a ratings success the first weekend of March Madness.  Instead of just some of the games on CBS, every NCAA tournament game -- First Four, second and third rounds -- was on CBS, TBS, TNT or TRU-TV.  The first round games averaged 8.4 million viewers, a 14% increase over last year.

When news broke last year that an autistic teen named Alex Hermann had picked every game correctly through the first two rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, reports focused on the unlikelihood of the event. After all, the odds of maintaining a  perfect bracket through two rounds—if you choose the top seeds in every game—are a mere 1 in 13,460,000. (Alex's unlikely feat appears to be unverifiable, because the website he used allowed changes after the fact, but for our purposes we'll assume it happened as reported.)

What people often lose sight of amid the excitement and human interest of stories like this is the fact that extremely unlikely things happen every day.  People win the lottery, even though the odds a Mega Millions entry will win the jackpot are just 1 in 175,700,000 and the odds for a Powerball entry are 1 in 195,200,000. Those odds are an order of magnitude less likely than Alex's March Madness picks (assuming, for the sake of argument, he chose the top seeds).

Okay, back to the fun. How good of an evaluator of match-ups are you?  Are you lucky? Or do you "wing it" with your predictions?  And.....what's at stake in the pool you're in?  Bragging rights, money, a trip or maybe some type of trophy.

Eight years ago, I put together a NCAA Bracket Challenge for our family.  The winner each year of the the pool is awarded the Kelling Family NCAA Traveling Trophy (two-foot high trophy with a basketball in a globe).  For some 350 plus days, the champion gets to maintain his superiority over the rest of the contestants.  Some winners have taken the trophy to work as a conversation piece, another put it on a mantle in the living room and others have put it away for safekeeping.....hoping "additional" care will enable them to defend their title.  It's been a whole lot of fun even though it took me six years to win the darn thing.  My youngest son won twice and my mother and sister hoisted the trophy once before I did.  Think it wasn't a relief when I finally won?

Who's the favorite this year?  Most would say Kentucky.... a team on a mission to win its eighth National Championship.  But there's also Syracuse, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas or a team I like watching, Missouri.  Could Murray State be this year's Cinderella ala Butler or VCU?  Time will tell. 

This weekend we turn back our clocks with Daylight Savings and it's Selection Sunday.  What a couple of great ways to help us acknowledge that spring is here and NCAA insanity is about to begin. 

Good luck with your bracket/brackets and keep reading,

John   

50 YEARS AGO...A SPORTS NIGHT UNEQUALED

March 2nd, 1962.  A day many of you weren't around for let alone remember.  For sports fans, it was a night unlike any other courtesy of the man they called "Wilt the Stilt".  ESPN's Donald Hunt wrote a fantastic story concerning Chamberlain's heroics.   His article, in its entirety is below.  It is a read unlike any other sports story I can recall.  Its lengthy for sure, but take a moment to relive something we WILL NEVER see again. 

The Greatest and the Stilt

"When you think about some of the most amazing individual accomplishments in sports, very few, if any, are more remarkable than Wilt Chamberlain's NBA-record 100-point game. Chamberlain put on a performance that more than likely will never be eclipsed by any NBA player.

The 7-foot-1, 275-pound center scored 100 points in leading the Philadelphia Warriors to a 169-147 victory over the New York Knicks on March 2, 1962, at the Hershey Sports Arena in Hershey, Pa. The "Big Dipper" shot 36-for-63 from the field and an incredible 28-for-32 from the free throw line. That was really something because Chamberlain was only a career 51.1 percent from the foul line. He played all 48 minutes.
That amazing game was 50 years ago. Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers All-Star guard, is the only player to get within hailing distance of Chamberlain's mark. Bryant scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors in 2006. He was still 19 points from the century mark, and that's with the 3-point shot.

Al Attles, former coach and general manager of the Golden State Warriors, played in that game. Attles, a 6-foot-4 guard, played in the Warriors' backcourt with Guy Rodgers, who was one of the NBA's most outstanding playmakers. Attles shot 8-for-8 from the field and 1-for-1 from the free throw line. He didn't miss a shot. Rodgers handed out 20 assists that night.

"I did all right, but Wilt had the big game," Attles said. "He was really dominant. Wilt had a tremendous game. It's been 50 years since that happened. It's the 50th anniversary of that game. It's truly stood the test of time. The thing I remembered about the game is Wilt didn't want to score 100. He wanted to come out of the game. Frank [McGuire, the Warriors' coach] kept him in the game. Wilt was very careful. He didn't want to rub it in. He was very conscious of that. We had some good players on both teams. Guy was a fantastic player. But Wilt was really special that game."

The Knicks did everything they could to try to slow Chamberlain down. Darrall Imhoff was the center for New York. Although Imhoff guarded Chamberlain around the basket, he had plenty of help from his teammates such as Richie Guerin, Willie Naulls and Cleveland Buckner. They all had big games. Guerin had a team-high 39 points. Buckner and Naulls scored 33 and 31, respectively. In a normal game, this would have been enough for the Knicks to defeat the Warriors, but Chamberlain's power dunks and finger rolls were just too much.

Chamberlain scored 23 points in the first quarter. He had 41 points at the half. He scored 28 points in the third quarter. And he tallied 31 in the fourth quarter, connecting on 12 of 21 shots from the field and seven of 10 shots from the free throw line.
Although Rodgers had 20 assists that game, it was Joe Ruklick, former Northwestern star, who made the pass to Chamberlain to score his 100th point. Ruklick, a reserve guard for the Warriors, carved out a spot in NBA history for himself.

"After I made the pass to Wilt for his 100th point, I went over to the scorer's table," Ruklick said. "I told the official scorer to give me the assist. I wanted that. I don't remember the year, but I said to Wilt, 'What was I doing in the game when you were trying to score 100?' It was before the basket. Wilt said, 'I told Frank to put you in the game.'

"Wilt and I were friends. He gave my son the jersey he wore in his first college game. I'm the only opposing player he invited to Kansas when they retired his jersey number."
The game didn't mean much in the standings. It wasn't a playoff or championship game. The attendance was just 4,124. Bill Campbell, a longtime Philadelphia sports radio announcer, called the game on the old WCAU radio station. Campbell is sorry he didn't make a copy of that historic broadcast of Chamberlain's legendary game.

"The thing that really stuck out in my mind is that I failed to tape it," Campbell said. "That was a dumb error on my part. I got so consumed with trying to keep track of the points and making sure I did it correctly. I thought about it when I was driving home that night. I wasn't a rookie in this business at that time. I had been around for awhile.
"Wilt called me from Los Angeles after he was elected to the Hall of Fame. He asked me if I had a tape of the fourth quarter. I said some of the fourth quarter. He said, 'Send it to the Hall of Fame.' As a matter of fact, the next morning in the office, I got a call from a fan.

"[The fan] said to me, 'I'm sure you have a tape of the game.' I pretended that I did. I couldn't bring myself to tell him that I didn't. He said, 'On my homemade recorder here at home, I managed to tape a little bit of it. I have a couple minutes of the fourth quarter, including the period when he got his 100th point.' He said, 'If you would [like] to have it, I can send it to [you].' He did send it, as I told Wilt this is the only thing we have pertaining to the 100-point game."

There is a book on the game. Gary Pomerantz is the author of "Wilt, 1962: The Night of 100 Points and the Dawn of a New Era," which provides a great deal of insight into the night when Chamberlain turned in his amazing performance.

"It's really something when you think about it," Pomerantz said. "There's no television coverage of the game. There are only a few photos. Wilt had this sensational game that only a few people saw that night. When Kobe scored 81 points, there was television coverage of that game. You can get a DVD of his game.

"Wilt's 100-point game really helped the NBA. He was such a gifted athlete. After he scored 100 points, people around the league wanted to come out and see this guy play the game."

Chamberlain has a special place in history. The Philadelphia 76ers clearly understand that. They have obtained the original court on which Chamberlain scored his 100 points. The historic court was purchased from Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, which had stored the court previously throughout the years.

A majority of the court will be preserved for posterity, and will be used and displayed at several venues. These include the Wells Fargo Center where the 76ers play and the team's practice facility in Philly as well as in Hershey. Also, the Sixers will donate some of the court to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Harvey Pollack, who is now director of statistical information for the Philadelphia 76ers, covered the game for the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Associated Press and United Press International. He was also the Warriors' public relations director. But more than writing a game story, Pollack is known for one of the most popular photos in sports history. He was responsible for writing the number "100" on a plain white sheet of paper and handing it to Chamberlain; the photo was taken by Associated Press photographer Paul Vathis and is now a classic. Pollack, 89, has been involved with the NBA since it started in 1946. He has vivid memories of Chamberlain's unforgettable performance.
"The Philadelphia Inquirer decided not to send their beat writer to cover the game," said Pollack, a Hall of Famer. "They asked me to cover it for them. I brought my portable typewriter. Meanwhile, Associated Press and United Press International had staff members in Harrisburg, but they didn't know much about basketball.

"I'm actually the one who let the whole world know about this game. It's the biggest night I've ever had in all my 65 years in the league. I had to send a one-paragraph lead along with my game story. The Inquirer wanted to know every kind of shot that Wilt made.

"After the game, I checked everything out with Dave Richter, who was the official scorer. Once I got finished with Richter, I went to the locker room. We had one photographer [Vathis] at the game who worked for AP; he came there with his son. He saw by halftime that Wilt was going to do some fabulous feat. So, he went to the car and got his camera.

"I asked him, 'Did he get a shot of Wilt?' Then I said, 'Did something happen here tonight that was unusual?' He said, 'Yeah, Wilt scored 100 points.' I said, 'Let's do something to indicate that.' I grabbed an 8½-by-11 page out of the notebook. I wrote 100 on it. I said to the guy, 'Get the ball.' He asked me if Wilt would do it. I told him Wilt would do anything for me."

Pollack chronicled Chamberlain's NBA career. He knew Chamberlain as well as anybody who ever covered him in the NBA.

The 1961-62 season might have been Chamberlain's greatest individual year. He averaged 50.4 points a game. He scored an incredible 4,029 points while averaging 48.5 minutes a game. During that season, Chamberlain had games in which he scored 78, 73, 67 and 65 points.

As a prep star at Philadelphia's Overbrook High School, he scored 90 points in a Public League basketball game in 1955. In his first varsity game as a sophomore at Kansas, he scored 52 points against Northwestern. Chamberlain, who died in 1999, played in the NBA from 1959 to 1973. He played for the Philadelphia Warriors (which later became the San Francisco Warriors), the Philadelphia 76ers and the Los Angeles Lakers. He led the 1966-67 76ers to an NBA championship. Chamberlain also guided the 1971-72 Lakers to a league title. He has the second-highest scoring average (30.1 points per game) in NBA history, second to Michael Jordan by fractions of a point. Chamberlain was a four-time MVP.

"Wilt is by far the greatest player of them all," Pollack said. "When Wilt retired in 1973, the NBA record book for that year listed 128 records that he held. As of last year, 98 of those records still stood, and that's 39 years after he had retired."

And one of them is his 100-point game.

I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane and our special thanks to Donald Hunt.  Awesome man.  Wilt would have been proud of this tribute.  You captured it all.

Thanks for reading,

John