HOOPLA IN OUR HOME
BY DEBBY SIMON
Buh-bye, winter doldrums, vitamin D deficiencies, gray skies and unbearably c-cold temperatures. You’ve been replaced by heat, and lots of it. No, not the vernal equinox - This heat stems from hot-blooded rivalries, bitter matchups, major upsets and longshot victories. Winter’s flu has been replaced by a nationwide epidemic known as bracketmania. Yes, it’s MARCH MADNESS, in all its booming glory—which also means it’s that time of year where bright, intelligent, lovely, caring, creative and normally sane people who live or have lived in this house morph into raving lunatics.
As a proud alum of the University of Arizona, (especially when it comes to basketball) I cheer, unabashedly, for the Wildcats (a term that refers to members of all of Arizona’s athletic teams.) Thus, even though I attended and graduated from the U of A, I am not considered a Wildcat. Interestingly, long ago, the U of A actually had live wildcats as mascots; today’s mascots are the costumed Mr. and Mrs.Wilbur and Wilma Wildcat.
Cheering for the U of A basketball team is a lonely activity because we live in eastern Kansas, just across the state line from Kansas City, Missouri (which, though a sports-loving city, has no professional basketball team.) Of equal significance, we are less than an hour’s drive from Lawrence, home to the University of Kansas and the mythical bird mascot known as a Jayhawk. One need not be an athletic team member to be a Jayhawk, nor does one need to be a KU student or alum. ‘Jayhawk’ is a term that has been used since before the Civil War. ‘Jayhawkers’ were groups affiliated with the movement to make Kansas a free-state. After the war, the term became synonymous with anyone living in Kansas. Thus I, a lonely, loyal U of A Wildcat fan, am, by default, a Jayhawk. (I don’t think my family knows this. Please don’t tell them!)
Being a devoted Jayhawk basketball fan where we live is ‘cool.’ Rooting for an out of state team is ‘so not cool.’ Thus, I’m an outcast; an ugly duckling; the black sheep; chopped liver. By now I should be used to the foul wisecracks and unfeathered sarcasm that passes, unfiltered, from the mouths of my family. After all, every year I’m that proverbial salmon swimming upstream. When I mentioned my feelings about being a salmon, our middle child tagged me with my March Madness nickname: SalmonElla (distant cousin of CinderElla.) I survive by pretending it is my badge of courage. I, also being that ugly duckling, allow comments like, “Awww, Suntan U missed another shot!” or “Look, QUICK! Arizona has the ball! Oops. Not anymore!” to roll off my back.
Most difficult for me is trying to ignore the constant proselytizing—the persistent attempts to convert my belief that the U of A Wildcats are the greatest college basketball team, to instead, join the masses and accept KU’s Jayhawks as most supreme team. Thus far, I’ve remained strong and loyal. I’ve refused to indoctrinate myself with their sacred texts- (aka March Madness bracket charts showing KU as NCAA basketball champs.) And then there’s that determined dirge: that compelling Gregorian chant, a hymn known by every Jayhawk fan on the planet. It’s recited in reverence when the official game clock marks the final two minutes of play and a KU victory is inevitable. “ROCK, CHALK, JAYHAWK!” That one single low note, recited by the masses in perfect pitch—that haunting hymn that reverberates from AnyStadium, USA all the way to our home throughout the regular college basketball season and beyond—it’s incredibly powerful. When we’re watching a KU game and the chanting begins, I become musically besieged by true human surround sound.
This year’s basketball tournament play (and our choice seats in front of the TV) began in typical Simon family style. Everyone (except me, of course) wore various KU sweatshirts or jerseys. I wore my bright (but lonely) red U of A t-shirt. We selected our ‘real estate’ for the next two days and proceeded to sit for hours on our respective ends, oblivious to the rest of the world. Yes, this time of year, we are truly the perfect choice to serve as the poster family of couch potatoes.
We sat there pre- SATurday
We sat there, we five
How we all wished K-State
Could have kept it alive
Too entrenched to go out
We just sat there, enthralled
‘Til Wichita State fell
(My family bawled)
Yes, all we could do was to
Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit!
Then what? Jayhawks lost?
Well, Shi---(Oops! I mean:)Sad, they threw fits!
During the KU – Stanford game, we were all 100% mesmerized by the television. No one would even consider answering the door for the pizza delivery guy (who rang the bell sixteen times.) Each of us waited for someone else to climb the stairs, answer the door, grab the plates and napkins and return. Our standoff (which was actually a sit-in) was as competitive as the two teams playing. It reminded me of that childhood game, ‘Don’t blink first or you lose.’
“He’s not going to stay there indefinitely. Aren’t you hungry? You TOLD me to order a cheese pizza,” I stated. Not a single eye moved from the television.
“You go, SalmonElla, this isn’t your team,” they squawked. I obliged. In the few moments it took me to pay and tip the patient pizza guy, gather plates, grab napkins and balance them on top of the pizza box before carefully racing back down the stairs, I started hearing terrifying sounds. My maternal adrenaline surged. I’d never heard such gut-wrenching noise. It was filled with pain, and sounded like a woman (with a baritone voice) in labor. Instantly, I flashed back to asking my friend, Cindy, when I was seven months pregnant with our firstborn, what labor and delivery is really like.
“I’m not going to lie,” she cautioned. “It hurts. Like, REALLY hurts. The closest way I can describe it is, it’s like trying to sh*t a basketball, but through a different orafice.”
The horrible moans grew louder. I hastened my pace, flying down the stairs, napkins flapping. When I finally reached the bottom step, I saw our first-born son, the proud KU alum, kneeling on the ground, facing the television, fists pounding the floor. “Oh, NO! NO!” he screamed in dire pain. “This can’t be HAPPENING! I can’t BEAR this. Make it stop!” He was clearly in severe distress. Was he passing a kidney stone? Had anyone bothered to call the doctor? An ambulance?
“What’s wrong?” I asked, not realizing that the mighty KU Jayhawks were about to lose to the Stanford...Trees. (Trees?)
“SHUSH!” everyone sharply warned.
“This is YOUR fault,” our daughter accused. “You brought bad karma!” She tossed one of the decorative couch pillows at me.
“Ah, so that’s why they’re called ‘throw pillows,’”I thought. “No,” I replied, “I’ve brought pizza.” I set plates, napkins and the box on the coffee table. I then proceeded to watch, in Linda Blair-esque fashion, my all-consumed, hypnotized zombied family levitate and float to the coffee table. There they hovered, still statuesque, eyes never leaving the TV. Pizza slid onto their plates. They then floated back to their original seats.
Moments later, the horn blasted. Number two seeded KU had fallen to Stanford. My family was now in mourning, their teary eyes glazed over. Their faces were red. And, just like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five steps of grieving outlined in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, they quickly reached stage two- ANGER. “Bad refs and bad calls,” our son stated. I’m convinced that, had I placed fresh broccoli by his (or anyone else’s) ears, it would have steamed, perfectly. But the worst was yet to come. They quickly skipped stage three- BARGAINING- and, with all three Kansas teams now out of the tournament, proceeded directly to stage four- DEPRESSION. Their pall spread quickly, enveloping the house with as dismal a feeling as the unending cold, gray skies of the horrible winter we’d just endured.
“Arizona plays later tonight,” I cheerfully offered. I’d watched all three Kansas teams—the K-State Wildcats (NO RELATION!) the amazing Wichita State Shockers and the KU Jayhawks. Doesn’t one good turn deserve another? Was I wrong to expect reciprocity?
“I’m going home to take a shower,” our temporarily despondent son said. “I’ll see you later this week.”
“I’m going to shower, too,” our daughter announced. “And then I’m going to Megan’s.”
“Can’t sit any longer,” my husband mumbled, reaching for the pizza box before heading up the stairs.
No, my family of mourners wanted nothing to do with watching the Arizona Wildcats advance to the Sweet Sixteen! Nor did they watch with me when the Wildcats claimed victory over San Diego State, and moved on to the Elite Eight. But did I even think of gloating? (You bet I did! Gloat, gloat gloat gloat gloat! )
My elation was fun while it lasted. Sadly, my gloating rights came to an end Saturday evening when the Wildcats were eliminated in one of the most heart-stopping, thrilling games I’ve ever witnessed. The Wisconsin Badgers defeated the Arizona Wildcats in overtime by one point: final score, Badgers 64, Wildcats 63. I admit to my own stages of grief. Like our son, I blamed the referees for bad calls. I wondered why (just like KU fans) the key player couldn’t score. And then my senses returned. I recognized that advancing to the Final Four, for any team, is a major coup, and Wisconsin deserved sincere congratulations. I now hope that Wisconsin will go all the way and win the tournament. (No, I’m not kidding, nor am I being sarcastic. Think about it: if the Wisconsin Badgers win the tournament, then the Arizona Wildcats lost to the number one team. If the Badgers don’t win the tournament, then the Wildcats merely lost to a team that outplayed them in the Elite Eight.) Good luck, Badgers. And Wildcats, I look forward to next year’s season.
Post Script: I was stunned, appalled and embarrassed when I learned that U of A students in Tucson began rioting after the game. The main sports story on Sunday should have been about the incredibly intense game and how the Badgers squeaked by with an amazing one-point win in a truly treacherous overtime. Instead, media reported the poor sportsmanship and dangerous behavior of seemingly spoiled (and likely drunk) U of A college students endangering others by hurling glass beer bottles and more. The fact that police were forced to resort to tear gas is repugnant to me. Such behavior (and national attention) reflects poorly on the students and the University. And it minimized the great season that the U of A Wildcats achieved.
With regard to the road to the Final Four (and to life in general) it is always best to take the high road. Perhaps Harry Sheehy, highly respected coach and administrator and current Director of Athletics at Dartmouth said it best: It is your response to winning and losing that makes you a winner or a loser.
