By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Apr 24, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
The RP’s proudest display — the front pages of the Lexington Herald-Leader from each day after the University of Kentucky Wildcat basketball team secured an NCAA Championship in his lifetime — just got supplemented.
At a moving ceremony, featuring the woman who sits in the desk across from the RP’s office, the lawyer in his office next door, and former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali, the RP unveiled a frame of the Herald-Leader front page from April 3, 2o12, the day after the Cats’ 8th national championship, and 4th in the RP’s lifetime.
The assembled crowd broke into sustained applause at the remarks of keynote speaker Boutros Boutros Ghali, who concluded: “Yo Yo Ma, what a team!”
They were outmatched, but they came from behind and almost made a game of it.
Time after time in the last 5-6 minutes, they had a shot to pull within five points and really make it a nailbiter (think MI, OH, IL).
And yet, every time they had a shot to get close and throw the outcome into doubt, they blew it – missed layups, errant passes, unforced turnovers.
Kind of like Santorum’s errant foray into contraception before the MI primary, his inability to make the ballot in VA or field full slates in Ohio or Illinois, his inexplicable and time-consuming trip to Puerto Rico in advance of Illinois.
When Kentucky hit the big trey w/ just under a minute to play, it was the nail in the coffin.
You just can’t give a team that’s more talented, deeper, and steadier than you so many chances to put you away. Similarly, tonight was probably the nail in the coffin.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: Has Rick Santorum Maxed Out?
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Apr 3, 2012 at 1:00 PM ET
My friend Billy Reed — who happens to also be the dean of Kentucky’s sportswriters — wrote an incredible piece on Kentucky basketball last week for Si.com prior to the UK/UofL showdown. I share it with you here to demonstrate the kind of writing I aspire to — someday:
Outside my home here in Louisville, all hell is breaking loose. Insults and predictions are dropping like bombs. Rational people are fleeing bars and restaurants in search of sanctuary. Offices have become battlegrounds, families are being torn apart, and minor events such as weddings are being reorganized. I now know what Edward R. Murrow must have felt like when he was reporting about the siege of London during World War II.
In more than a half century of covering basketball in Kentucky, I thought I had just about seen it all. Heck, even though I was just a kid in 1955, I remember the flag over the state capital building in Frankfort being lowered to half-mast because Georgia Tech had ended the Kentucky Wildcats’ 129-game home winning streak (still the national record). That was my first clue that basketball wasn’t just a game in my native state.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t prepared for the madness that surrounds me this week. I guess I always knew that Kentucky and Louisville would someday meet in the Final Four. But I never dreamed that it would cause all serious work in the Commonwealth to grind to a virtual standstill. I never dreamed that Anthony Davis’ brow would get more radio and TV time than anything since Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier for the first time in 1971.
To put it into context, this is Super Bowl week in Kentucky. Even folks who only have a casual interest in hoops — yes, we do have some of those — are suddenly expressing opinions and making bets and generally acting like fools.
Naturally, the national media has been in town this week, trying to ferret out basketball crazies to interview. This makes me nervous because when they find somebody like the guy who has the UK logo in his glass eye, it doesn’t exactly reflect well on us. But we can’t deny the obvious. You may have heard about the two senior citizens in Georgetown, Ky., ages 69 and 72, who almost came to blows arguing about Louisville and Kentucky during their dialysis treatment.
The RP was spotted in this picture scouting a new, young 17 foot center named David [NO LAST NAME] in Florence, Italy. Apparently by the RP’s hand gesture, David is proficient from behind the 3-point line — amazing for a young man of his size.
Shortly after this picture was taken, the RP was arrested for climbing on top of David and hanging a UK hat on his head.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Apr 3, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Sports can bring people together. It can divide us, too.
In sports we find heroes to admire and role models who are coping with the game they play so well… in similar ways we find ourselves coping with life. But unlike us they show courage, confidence, and skill….we want to have these too. But don’t.
So we watch and try to learn. And cheer. And talk trash. And cry on the inside (and sometimes the outside too) when our team fails.
And when they win ….on a night like last night….we swell up with great pride.
Because sports also symbolizes factions, groups, and even states.
The “team” we cheer for identifies us. They represent us. When our sports team wins, we win. When our sports team is superior, we somehow feel superior. When they fail, we feel their pain and question ourselves.
They–our athletes–remind us we are not alone but part of something bigger— something more important. A community that ties us together and reinforces our worth– in some vague way. And not just our worth….but our worth among “our people.” Our tribe.
Sports is at once inherently frivolous and yet unquestionably profound. On the one hand, so arbitrary; and on the other hand, so primitive and instinctive.
We humans seem to need conflict and great causes and great battles. Athletic competition has served as a substitute for war. A tool for diplomacy during Cold War detente. And an avocation and form of entertainment during peacetime.
And last night…sports has provided about as much fun as a 4.4 million people can have sitting down. And make those same people feel a good deal prouder of about their state. And a little bit prouder of ourselves. For tonight, at least. And maybe tomorrow, too.
And you thought it was just a silly game with a ball….
The University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball team and the Big Blue Nation weren’t the only winners last night
The First Annual No Labels/Recovering Politician NCAA bracket contest — “No Bracket No Pay” — is now crowning two champions.
The overcall winner — of the original 68-team bracket contest — was “Nate.” “Nate” please identify yourself to claim your prize. In second place was Butler University student Scooter Stein, whose mom happens to be Kathy Stein, the beloved State Senator from Lexington, Kentucky. The RP came from way back in the field of 77 to finish a respectable 7th.
Here's our goofball winner of the Second Chance tourney with his prize, an original bottle of "Duff" beer, available only in Italy, Argentina, and Springfield, the fictional home of Homer J. Simpson
And in the “second chance” bracket — featuring picks for the Sweet Sixteen forward, the winner was…The RP himself! By picking the winners of every single game in the Sweet 16 except for Louisville’s surprise wins, and then accurately predicting the 8 point margin of victory in the finals (the tiebreaker), the RP edged out Friend of RP John Johnson for the title. How fitting that the guy who started this site dedicated to second acts wins the second chance tourney.
Or is it part of the greater international Zionist conspiracy? You decide!
Congrats to all, and don’t forget to go to NoLabels.org, and make your voice heard about “No Budget, No Pay”
By Jonathan Miller, on Tue Apr 3, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
What a night! Or should I say what a morning?
The girls and I woke up at 3AM here in Florence, Italy to watch our beloved University of Kentucky Wildcats capture their eighth NCAA national basketball championship.
Sheer euphoria.
I’ve tried for a few years to put into words what the Wildcats mean to me, as well as their profound impact on my home state. It really is more than a kids’ game — Kentucky basketball delivers sound public policy.
For my fellow members of the Big Blue Nation; for the uninitiated who don’t understand what the fuss is all about; and for the cynics who decry the professionalization of amateur sport, I offer my latest column for The Huffington Post: “Why Kentucky Basketball Matters.” Enjoy:
An uninformed visitor to my old Kentucky home this week might conclude that they’d mistakenly walked onto the compound of a Prozac-fueled utopian cult.
An odd but euphoric delirium had descended upon the hills, hollers and hamlets of the Bluegrass State. Men and women walking more upright, a bounce in their steps, a huge grin on their faces. You couldn’t meet a stranger: In grocery stores and city parks and shopping malls, neighbors who months before felt nothing in common were now greeting each other with warm words, high fives, and fist bumps.
Weeks from now, we’ll return to our regional camps, our partisan corners. But for now, we’re united; the sun’s shining just a bit brighter.
The Wildcats have once again won the national championship. Kentucky basketball matters.
Perception matters. Sometimes more than we want to admit to ourselves.
