It's a great day to be a Wahoo

I woke up today still smiling about UVA's win over VT last night.

I've been a Wahoo fan for years. While heralded in the academic realm, UVA's never been known as a football school, like Florida State (in their '90s heyday of course) or a USC. Despite sharing a state border with Duke and UNC, I'm not sure anyone's called UVA a basketball school either.

In my lifetime the big UVA sports accomplishments have been in lacrosse, a sport I first learned about when I saw American Pie, soccer and of late, tennis.

The overwhelming majority of positive things I've heard said about UVA basketball have been about Ralph Sampson, the undisputed king of Wahoo basketball, who played from 1979-1983. All I can tell you about him is he was the best player in the country at the time, was a 7'4" (yeah, you read that right) center and led UVA to its only Final Four in 1983. Oh yeah, then there was the biggest upset in college basketball history, when the #1 Sampson-led Cavaliers lost to a then-unknown school in Hawaii called Chaminade. UVA is all about Ralph Sampson facts and is always mentioning on viewbooks and other "come to our school" literature that he and Katie Couric (two of the most famous alums) lived on The Lawn. Fancy.

UVA's won the ACC in basketball once -- in 1976. They've been the the Final Four once -- the time with Sampson in '83.

And geez, up until last night we had even lost to Virginia Tech in our last three outings. All were decided by three or less points or an overtime.

This is the plight of the UVA fan. You watch in fear. How bad are they going to beat us this time?, you think when you enter our football stadium against a ranked opponent. Or How long until they blow it?, when they somehow build an comfortable, seemingly insurmountable lead.

But at last, we broke down that barrier at least. My Hoos beat the Hokies 75-61 at the JPJ last night. (And even crazier, beat #12 Clemson at home over the weekend. But this is our rival. This is Virginia Tech!)

Finally, I can say (and this will surely come back and bite me at some point)...

HOOS WIN, SUCKAS!

At least they did last night. And even more today than most days, I'm proud, proud, proud to be an alum.

Reilly on Free Speech and Sports

When I was younger (10 or so, let's say), I remember helping my brothers make cardboard signs for them to take to a Steelers game. I remember vividly the Prang marker set we used and how clever my brothers and I thought we were when we made a sign that said

No
Body likes
Cleveland

when the game was televised on NBC. Oh, we were smart ones all right.

I think I speak for most when I say that signs are a fun and jovial part of the atmosphere at sporting events. Most support their team, sometimes they make small jabs at the opponent, and yet other occasions they call attention to completely different phenomena (for example "Hi Mom, please send $!" pleas). Whatever the inspiration, signs are overwhelmingly a tradition that many sports fans have come to embrace.

Not so at the University of Virginia, according to Rick Reilly's latest story. According to some sort of rule there, no signs of any size are allowed at sporting events anymore. Not even "Go UVA!," not even a message on a sheet of notebook paper. The only exception, unsurprisingly, are advertisements.

As a former UVA student myself, I'm pretty appalled by the school's stance against free speech. Apparently it is some sort of new athletic department policy. Reilly interviewed former UVA football standout Ronde Barber about the situation and Barber said, "Seems odd. You'd think if there was one university that would stand up for free speech, it'd be Virginia. When I was there, the signs were really clever."

I graduated after Ronde Barber, and thankfully, sometime before the new communist revolution. And I'd have to say, my experience was pretty much the same as Barber's. UVA may not have had national championships in football or basketball, but we had clever fans dammit!

Of all of the amusing signs people brought to games, my favorite was one that someone had a picture of Dick Vitale's head Photoshopped into a Duke cheerleader's uniform. Some friends and I had camped out 17 days -- yes 17 days! -- for the big UVA-Duke basketball showdown at UVA's University Hall (U-Hall, because we love to abbreviate everything at UVA). Anyway, my friends and I got front row seats to the contest, and a group with that poster was right behind us. To no one's surprise, Dick Vitale was there to broadcast the game.

I'm not sure this is the exact picture, but it looks exactly how I remembered it in my head. Source: http://www.truthaboutduke.com/news_month.php?m=November&y=2005

And how do you think he responded? He laughed and even autographed the sign for the students! Unbelievable. I think this says in a nutshell why people should be able to make signs; they make for a good laugh, add to the enthusiasm and atmosphere of the game, and hey, the best can take whatever heat is dealt. Like Reilly said about coach-slamming signs, "Who, exactly, is Virginia protecting here? Groh? The man can handle himself. After all, he was once the head coach of the New York Jets." Right on, Mr. Reilly.

The whole controversy is downright disturbing. UVA was founded by Thomas Jefferson. That's right, the very man who penned the Declaration of Independence, our nation's third president, and so fervently stood for rights like free speech. Good ol' TJ (or Teej as I liked to refer to him back in the day) would roll over in his grave if he knew what was going down at The University these days. As Reilly said, it's un-American, and where is the line drawn? Does this mean that in the coming years the Lawn won't have free speech either? No organizations intercepting unsuspecting students in an effort to get them to join their organization/show up to their meetings/donate money/buy their baked goods/rally behind their cause? As annoying as I found those soliciting tables (I'd walk the 2 or 3 minutes out of the way to avoid them), I 100% support their right to be there. Maybe it's time the UVA athletics department took the same stand.

Significant Others and Team Allegiances

What do you do when your significant other has rooting interests differing from your own? Coming from relatively similar geographies, this issue is rarely broached in my own relationship. However, with the NCAA tournament showcasing so many teams, this issue has inevitably surfaced.

I'm from "ACC Country," which means picking your one ACC team to root for regardless, hating either Duke or Carolina (for me, Duke), and talking smack about your conference's superiority during basketball season, peaking in March. It also means once the tournament starts, rooting for all the ACC teams (except maybe Duke or UNC, depending on your preference), especially for someone like me, who gets to see their team in it about as often as Halley's Comet.

My boyfriend, a Hoya alum, however, is a Big East fan. ACC fans and Big East fans don't generally get along. Both tout their respective conferences' strength of schedule, traditional matchups, powerhouses, and how many teams get invited to the Big Dance. Well the Big East got 8 bids to the ACC's 4 this year, so needless to say, my argument this year hasn't been particularly compelling.

Besides the ACC, I also tend to root for so-called "mid-major" schools hailing from smaller, lesser known conferences from Virginia and North Carolina. In past years that has included University of Richmond, Virginia Commonwealth University (aka VCU), George Mason, Old Dominion, and UNC-Wilmington.

When the bracket first came out for this year's tournament, I was particularly excited about Davidson, a mid-major out of North Carolina. I knew they were undefeated in their conference and were on a 22-game win streak, but what had impressed me most about Davidson was their ability to play with mighty Carolina in a game at the start of the season. Ranked #1 at the time, UNC escaped with a narrow 4-point victory. That's not to say the teams are even close to the teams they were at the start of the season, but this still left a lasting impression on me. When I saw that Davidson was a #10 seed and was facing #7 Gonzaga in the first round, I was certain that Davidson would be victorious and move on to the second round to face #2 Georgetown. As it happened, the first found was a lot closer with the Zags than I had anticipated, but the outcome turned out favorably, with a Davidson victory. I thought Georgetown would face a tough opponent in Davidson in the second round, but you pick your entire bracket before any of the games happen, so only time would tell.

Then came the big showdown between David and Goliath on Sunday afternoon. My boyfriend, whose weekend plans revolved around Georgetown's playing schedule (and reasonably so), was glued to the action. Speaking on the phone before the game, I wished his team good luck, but chose not to convey the fact that I was rooting for Davidson. Watching the game in the comfort of my home I could freely root for Davidson without apology, but I felt like a fraud inside. When Davidson slipped by Georgetown in the waning minutes, I was excited for the Cinderella possibilities, but this pleasure was immediately soured by the anguish I knew my boyfriend was experiencing.

I have found that the best solution to this predicament is to be supportive, but to keep your own rooting interests silent. Unless it's a team you fervently root for all the time, or the "other" team in a contest featuring a team you hate, it isn't worth being over-the-top in your rooting interests. We'll see how this approach works in the coming weeks. I have to root for some underdog, and none of the others particularly interest me right now. Though to be honest, the tournament is addictive every year, no matter what storylines surface.

In the meantime, gooo-ooo-ooo Davidson. 2 more days 'til the return of the Madness!

Picture source: CBS News website: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/23/ap/sportsline/main3960789.shtml