As Good as It Gets

I doubt if I can explain to you why the Final Four is a better sporting event than the World Series, the Super Bowl or the NBA finals. I have covered virtually every major competition in the world, except that sled-dog race in Alaska, and I can honestly say that, other than the Olympics, I would rather be at the NCAA basketball tournament than any other series, game or match.

There is something more human, less impersonal, about college basketball. It isn’t so much about success. It isn’t so much about glory. It’s about ... oh, I don’t know ... sentimentality, I guess. It is tantamount to capturing a Kodak moment in someone’s life, as tenderly as pressing a corsage between the pages of a diary after a romantic dance at a prom.

I still recall bumping into Jim Valvano, the nutty North Carolina State coach, poolside at an Albuquerque hotel in 1983, balming putting balm on his chapped lips. “Do you be-LIEVE this?” he practically shouted at me, grabbing my sleeve. “Me, in the Final FOUR! Did you ever think you’d see me in the Final Four? Just being in this TOR-nament is amazing to me! Me, Jimmy V, in the TOR-nament!”

He gripped my hand with both of his, pumping furiously.

“Isn’t this FAB-ulous?” Valvano yelled, as a tumbleweed blew by. “The Wild WEST! The Final FOUR!”

“Yeah, good luck,” I said.

Which is when he asked: “I know you, don’t I?”

I must have laughed for five minutes. Here was a guy, so juiced, so jazzed, that he stopped strangers to share it. He recognized my face, but couldn’t recall my name. It didn’t matter. While I was still recovering from his blitz, Valvano stood a few feet away, similarly bending the ears of two granny-aged tourists in Louisville Cardinal caps and a waiter serving them drinks.

For me, the entire Final Four experience is one to savor, whether it means enduring the “Rocky” theme music from four pep bands per session, or listening to the bumptious John Thompson and Jim Boeheim as they justify their contempt for anyone who dares dispute their imperial majesty, these self-important men who make their living instructing grown boys how to bounce a leather ball. Give me an Al McGuire or a Ray Meyer, any time, any gym.

Better still, give me the players.

Give me the 21 baskets that UCLA’s Bill Walton made in the 1973 championship game against Memphis State. Give me the 27 rebounds San Francisco’s Bill Russell pulled down in the 1956 title game against Iowa. Give me a man with fast hands, such as Duke’s Tommy Amaker in 1986, or Mookie Blaylock from Oklahoma a couple of years later, each stealing the ball seven times in a national championship contest.

If there is anything I admire, it is excellence under fire.

Or give me some of the more neglected stars of hoops, such as Mark Wade from Nevada Las Vegas, personally dishing out 18 assists in a 1987 Final Four semifinal against Indiana. Or in the same game, fearless Freddie Banks, firing up 19 three-point shots for UNLV while his Bobby Knight-coached opponents were busy passing. And let’s not forget sparkling Jim Spanarkel, making all 12 of his free throws for Duke in a 1978 semifinal victory over Notre Dame.

I can see individual plays and players inside my head, rerun and rewind them with my mind, like a projector.

Goose Givens, shooting southpaw from the baseline. Larry “Special K” Kenon, ripping down rebounds. Darrell Griffith and the Doctors of Dunk, doing their thing. Gene Banks, playing to the crowd. Patrick Ewing, swatting shots into the mezzanine. Ralph Sampson, simultaneously graceful and wobbly as a flamingo. Lynn Shackelford, shooting rainbows. Rick Mount and Ernie DiGregorio, aiming shot after shot after shot.

And those moments that never go away: Lorenzo Charles dunking his way into history, Keith Smart scoring at the horn, and my personal favorite, Ed Pinckney and his Villanova teammates screaming, “April Fool! April Fool! We fooled you all!” after playing the perfect April 1 joke on Georgetown in the 1985 final at Lexington, Ky.

If only I could have seen every NCAA play.

I could have seen Villanova over Brown, 42-30, on March 17, 1939, at Philadelphia, in the first NCAA tournament game of all time. I could have seen Villanova over Houston, 90-72, on March 13, 1981, at Charlotte, in the 1,000th NCAA tournament game. I did see Michigan over Seton Hall, 80-79, in overtime, on April 3, 1989, at Seattle, in the 1,500th NCAA tournament game, one that happened to be for the national championship.

The 2,000th will be played next March.

I wouldn’t miss it for the world.