|
 |  |
|
AD PARTNERS
|  |
Thanks to the Deane of ceremonies
Posted: Friday March 17, 2000 03:29 PM
By Tim Crothers, Sports Illustrated WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Eight teams were already eliminated from the NCAA tournament by the time Lamar coach Mike Deane sat down to begin his introductory press conference at 7:45 on Thursday evening here at the Joel Coliseum. It's always a disorienting feeling to be in a section of the bracket that doesn't begin playing until the second day. The only March Madness in these parts on Thursday came when one of the 418 assembled reporters blocked another one's view of the TV at the end of the Kentucky game. We gathered here, as tradition dictates, on the remote chance that some befuddled coach or player might somehow stumble into an amusing quote. Things didn't look promising at all for the first three hours and 45 minutes of press briefings. Oh sure, we learned that Butler's Mike Marshall cuts teammate Andrew Graves's hair. We learned that Duke's Shane Battier is feeling more in tune with his Buddha dharma. We learned that Lamar is named for Mirabeau B. Lamar , the president of the republic of Texas from 1838 to '41 and an enthusiastic advocate of slavery. There was even the magic moment when a sportswriter from the Quad City Times actually corrected the grammar of a student-athlete from the University of Pennsylvania. By my count the phrase, take it one game at a time was uttered a total of 26 times, including an impressive twice in the same sentence by the Illini's Lucas Johnson. Yup, it looked like the highlight of the day would the 4:30 strobe test. But then the coach of a team listed at a trillion-to-one to win the NCAA tournament kicked off his media chat like a Vegas stand-up. Deane quipped that he'd been working hard the last three days to get his players not to look past Duke. He told us about a phone message from his mentor, Jud Heathcote, saying, "Congratulations on getting to the Big Dance, but I wouldn't spend a lot of money at Arthur Murray because you won't be around long." Finally, he called his team's matchup with the top-seeded Blue Devils "a potential St. Patrick's Day massacre" and said he had tried to convince his players they had a chance because they were on Central Time and thus the game would appear to be starting an hour earlier for them. From all of the 418 grammarians at this venue, I say, "Thanks, Mike Deane." It's guys like you that help us write so good. Tim Crothers is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated. The opinions expressed
here are solely those of the writer.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
