Home > March to Atlanta: Hoop Head > Archives > 2007 > March > 27
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Today’s Final Four memory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
First a disclosure: Never cared for Kentucky basketball. OK, I strongly disliked the Wildcats. When you’re born and raised in Indiana, the true home of hoops, that’s just the way it is.
So the 1966 Final Four was wonderful for a lot of reasons.
That’s when the Texas Western players became the Jackie Robinsons of the college game.
March Madness in Atlanta:
Check out the AJC’s Final Four pageThey shocked Kentucky for the national championship, and remember this about those Wildcats: They were coached by Adolph Rupp, not exactly a card-carrying member of the NAACP.
As a youth in South Bend, Ind., Kentucky losing to anybody was great stuff, but this was better. This was Texas Western becoming the first all-black starting team to beat an all-white team in the NCAA finals.
This was Arthur Ashe winning Wimbledon and Tiger Woods capturing the Masters before they even happened.
All was right with the world. Notre Dame, that little university in town, was preparing to take another national championship later that season in college football. Plus, before Texas Western came along, UCLA had won the two previous Final Fours, and the Bruins were on the verge of grabbing seven in a row after 1966.
You see, UCLA’s coach was John Wooden, and he was one of us as a native of Martinsville, Ind. He also spent 11 years in South Bend coaching at Central High School, where more than a few of my relatives were alums.
We were in hoops heaven — at least when the Fighting Irish weren’t blocking and tackling.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Final Four, Terence Moore's Final Four memory
Today’s Final Four memory
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Was this Kentucky? I mean, here were the Wildcats spending the aftermath of capturing a national championship as giddy souls? They did everything from dancing to screaming to rapping.
This was 1996, when the Wildcats followed Rick Pitino’s mandate throughout a dominating season to enjoy “the precious present.”
This wasn’t 1978, when the Wildcats were the most joyless team ever to win it all. In fact, that senior-laden, grim-faced bunch was expected to do nothing less by Kentucky’s suffocating fan base. It was called “the season without celebration,” and I followed the Wildcats closely near the end with a sense of dread.
Then, 18 years later, I was in East Rutherford, N.J., to see the striking contrast. A new generation of Wildcats were losing their minds after the ultimate victory over Syracuse. Derek Anderson was among nine Kentucky players who would dribble in the NBA, and he said, beaming from beneath his Final Four cap, “Coach Pitino always tells us to enjoy these moments, because they are the best times of our lives.”
Too bad it was the worst of times for those other Wildcats.
Or so it appeared.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Final Four, Terence Moore's Final Four memory
