by Hank Brockett
That the game was one with a backdoor pass to a streaking layup only bronzes the memory. Of all the games played before and since, with all the Clark Kellogg interludes in between, this was the moment when it wasn't just a 13 seed beating the 4 seed. It was the triumph of hard work, coaching, smarts and a little luck over high school All-American status, reputations propped by talent crutches and the overwhelming feeling of being above such first-round nuisances.
But that, you see, reveals the most enticing aspect of triumph against the odds. The best underdogs come from nowhere, probably playing in a conference with stops in Parts Unknown and Nowheresville. It appeals to our most basic urges when a team throws conventional wisdom for a ride, thrilling in the chaos of it all. Now, Princeton had engaged in some of the greatest close calls of recent tournament memory. Good fans knew retiring coach Pete Carril could squeeze the most out of any ragtag group of hoopsters. But whoever tells you they expected that famous win is clearly talking after the fact.
When you've tasted the sweet sugar of upsets, it creates a different kind of fan. College basketball encourages such practice with office practitioners of bracket-ology. Then, instead of all the talk of preseason No. 1's or bloated big conference squads, it's a case of scouting the most likely five seed to fall to a twelve seed. Because statistics show it's inevitable at least one will fall ... it's just a matter of picking which bandwagon to hop on.
The current college football season exposes these practices as deadly boring if landed in the wrong hands. While college basketball upsets occur in four of the fastest-paced, chaotic days on the sports calendar, college football games take place on the gridiron buffered by weeks padded with hype. March Madness? True. Separation Saturday? Ugh. With so much time to fill, ESPN and other national sports media outlets attach themselves to the cause du jour because, well, there can be only so many stories about how a blind kid playing Duck Hunt would have a higher shooting percentage than most NBA ballers.
With 22 years of experience in avoiding all the potential "America's Teams" in favor of the spunky upstarts with weaknesses, imagine the surprise in noticing a lack of loneliness on the Northern Illinois University bandwagon. A series of wins over big rep schools meant my alma mater had become "validated" by the words of people who probably had seen about three highlights of the Huskies' season. Never mind those crazy words in the season previews, about how Maryland had scheduled a "scrimmage" against NIU for a season warm-up (I'll never forget, Trev Alberts). And while I knew the chances for Cinderella's casting were slim at best, it would be a lie to say hearing the letters N-I-U on national television wasn't a thrill to even the most self-pitying of the school's faithful.
There are very few teams who defy all sports logic and reason to succeed on the most publicized of stages. So as the last well-wishers stepped off the NIU publicity blitz following the Bowling Green loss, it was both with a sigh and a smile. I had been getting sick of all the company.
That the same scenario played out with Texas Christian University isn't surprising. When you become the main focal point, the most frequent conversation starter and the subject of roughly 35 ESPN "Fact or Fiction" segments, it's a foreign place. Soon, you've got fans for all the wrong reasons, hoping for your success to further their own causes. You've become a symbol, and no one asked for your approval. It takes a while to find out, but of-the-moment teams always discover the truth -- inside the hot-air hurricane, rumors of an eye are greatly exaggerated. The game seems old before the first coin flip or jump ball.
When the last echoes of "Do they belong?" questions fade, the sporting landscape is left with life post-national validation. The press boxes are returned to all the usual suspects. Fans readjust to the fleeting whim of the sports crawl along the bottom of the screen. "Come on, they're almost to the 'N's, don't go to commercial now!" When the commercials do hit, there are reminders that these are the facts of life -- at least television reality show life. Bachelor Bob went from underground sensation and lovable upstart in the first Bachelorette to the leader of his own dating circus. Suddenly, the plump Journey fan is a little slimmer, a little tamed down, a little more ... conventional. In the professional wrestling world, the smarter fans would start a chant in times like these: "You sold out! You sold out!" The smartest fans know better. This is the arch of the successful underdogs.
This year, the Gonzaga Bulldogs were ranked No. 12 in the preseason national rankings for college basketball. The small West Coast school has used the '00s to springboard into the national spotlight year after year. From nothing other than the memory of John Stockton sprung upset after upset, and last year they engaged the heavily hyped Arizona Wildcats in one of the best college basketball games I've ever seen. More attention doesn't mean everything has changed, though. Teams still don't see the benefit in traveling to Spokane, Washington for a home game there, so all their big games are on the road. And while there are players of respected conventional skills, they still land the intriguing folk-hero-in-waiting. This year, it's a kid with a midrange shot and the goal to be the next Larry Bird. Oh, and he's diabetic and sometimes takes insulin shots during time outs. Sometimes, you can just tell a great story from its first paragraph.
So what becomes our underdog sports culture? As long as there are analysts, there will be the overhyped. So the enemy will always exist. And in the most unlikely of places new candidates will emerge. Maybe it's the football team in Boise State. Maybe it's a bunch of three-point shooters at Northern Arizona. Or maybe it's Dennis, a likable nerd who won over all his competitors with the rarest of traits - kindness - in just a few short days on NBC's reality show Average Joe. What the best fans of both sport and life realize is that winning isn't easy, and winning time and again is even more difficult (save Villanova in 1985). Dennis didn't get his girl. Princeton lost handily in the second round in 1996. Fans of the upstarts don't dwell on the momentary swells of hype and national recognition.
I like to think they just appreciate that everyone has a chance at history. After the UCLA game, Coach Carril said, "If we play UCLA 100 times, they might win 99. But this was one time tonight, and tonight we won." True believers like those odds.