Why we can't stand Duke

I have heard the question asked this week why everyone was rooting for Butler during Monday's NCAA Championship Basketball game. Part of the reason was obvious as American's we love the underdog-and Butler was without a doubt that. But part of the reason is that many of us can't stand Duke ( I am not sure the feeling would have been different for Kansas, Kentucky,Syracuse or many of the other major programs), The problem is the exposure-nearly every one of Duke's games was on ESPN or ESPN2 or ABC or CBS and Dick Vitale spends a good portion of his time gushing about how wonderful Duke (or is it Dook?) is. Then there is the feeling that the selection committee made it as easy as possible for Duke to make the Final Four. Look at the teams they had to beat Arkansas-Pine Bluff (who won the play-in game-I still don't understand how the play-in game does not play the highest seed-in this case Kansas), California, Purdue (who had lost there best player a couple of weeks ago), Baylor and West Virginia. In a certain sense they remind me of Notre Dame football-they spend all there time beating there chest and saying look we win and we do it the right way-If you really do it right you don't spend all your time telling people about it.

The Frustrations of a Fan

Well I'm back and it's been a while. As the NHL playoffs get underway I am watching the annual meltdown of my favorite team the San Jose Sharks. This brings back the frustrations I have had as a fan in my life. When I was younger the Oakland Raiders were my favorite team-and it seemed they always fell one game short of the Super Bowl-who can forget the Immaculate Reception ? Then of course there is my alma mater-Fresno State and there annual let down-time and again our PR loving coach (Pat Hill) talks about the BCS and builds our hopes and then we lose (again) to Boise State. Of course in the early part of this decade it was the Sacramento Kings-I still haven't quite figured out how they lost to the LA Lakers-it took a freak shot in game 4 (Robert Horry), horrific officiating in game 6 and finally a free-throw shooting display from hell in game 7 (we still took them to OT) in order to lose that series.

The again there were those glorious moments-perhaps none better than last years incredible run by Fresno State to the NCAA Baseball crown. But maybe the reason we are fans is for those incredible moments when everything comes together and we can forget all those disappointments.

A Green Jacket ?

As you know this is the week of the first major tournament (The Master's) of the golf season. You also probably know that the winner is given a green jacket. My question is who thought of the Green Jacket ? Do you know of anyone that owns a Green Jacket outside of Augusta ? Have you ever seen anyone wear a Green Jacket outside of Augusta ? Someone must have said way back in the beginning-we need to have a UNIQUE award for the winner of this tournament. But a Green Jacket? Even a plaid jacket would be better than that. I know that the winner of the tournament is very proud to have the jacket-but outside of Augusta do you think they ever wear it.

As you may know the people the run the Master's are a bit hoity-toity. They once had a TV annoucer fired-for calling the Master's crowd a "Mob". There were 70,000 people there-of course they were a mob-but we don't have Mob's at the Masters-we have ugly Green Jackets !!

An Athlete with Class

Tonight the Sacramento Kings will retire the Jersey of #21 Vlade Divac. For those of us who live here in Sacramento we know that Vlade was at least as important as any other King during the glory years between 1999 and 2005. No Vlade was not the most talented players on the team (that honor would have to go to Chris Webber) but he was clearly the leader. Divac's playing skills have always been under appreciated- a typical game for Vlade would be somewhere between 10 and 15 points, 7 to 10 rebounds and 5 to 8 assists-stats that can only appreciated by the true Basketball fan. More than his playing ability though was Vlade's ability to lead and his professionalism. With Divac you never heard any griping about anything (unless it was to the ref's after one of his famous flops) and there was never a hint of any kind of unethical behavior.

Most importantly Divac set the tone for the Kings-he never got to high and he never got too low-once the game was over he was ready to move on to the next game. As Kings fans we often complained about his inabiltiy to jump or how he could not do this or he could not do that-Vlade we were wrong ! Welcome home and THANKS for everything you did for us.