My favorite Final Four stories revolve around the great
rivalry of UNLV and Duke in 1989 and 1990. I was really into college basketball
at the time. I had season tickets to St. Johns at the Garden. They had just
went through a great run with Walter Berry and Chris Mullin and had a great
rivalry with Patrick Ewing at Georgetown. I went to both the Pre-season NIT and
the NIT at the end of the year with all the losers who didn't make the NCAA
tournament. So the rivalry of UNLV and Duke was a riveting story at the time.
That rivalry is in fact a meataphor. A meataphor for our
political scene these days. One of the best meataphors I have seen. You see
these two teams were set up to embody different world views. Different values. Different
parts of what makes up America.
UNLV was urban and black and fast and loose. Tark the Shark
was the coach. He had tons of NCAA violations. His teams had a lot of support
from the Casinos. They didn't get paid. Per Se. But Greg Anthony set up a T-Shirt Company that
all the Casinos bought tons of shirts from to sell in their gift shops. The
Frontier Hotel had a whole shop with just UNLV gear. I bought a couple of those
t-shirts. He make a couple of hundred grand a year off of it. Another dude had
a valet service that brought in big bucks. Everyone on the team had a rice bowl
supported by the casino industry in town. Not strictly illegal. The rules were
bent not broken. Plausible deniability. But effective. So effective that they rampaged
through the 1989 season and slaughtered Duke in the Finals. (Think Trump)
Duke was the other side of the coin. Straight arrows. Rule
followers. White. Or as white as a basketball team could be. The coach Mike
Krzyzewski was a Dean Smith acolyte. The best player was the prototype of the
college kid you get today. A smart mouth hipster Christian Laettner who was one
of the most despised players in college basketball history. He was in on the beginning
of political correctness at the University and pushed the envelope for Social
Justice Warriors. He used to pretend he was gay by hugging and kissing guard
Brian Davis and acting out and daring people to say something. He famously
fouled a guy and stepped on his chest when the poor sap was hurt on the floor.
Of course the people at Duke had money so they were not financially corrupt.
Just morally. They were stone hypocrites. They said one thing but did another. Pretense was their guide. They were just as amoral as the people at UNLV but were just a
lot less honest about it. Rigid. Brittle. Phony. (Think Ted Cruz)
The two teams had two hard fought Final Fours. UNLV won the
first round bitch slapping Duke big time. Duke eked out a win against a
heavily favored UNLV which had gone undefeated during the regular season. The
one on two foul shots by Laettner on a bullshit call by the refs and a missed
shot at the buzzer. The establishment put their thumb on the scale. They didn't
want to be embarrassed again by the rebels and misfits and Tark the Shark. Sort
of what they want to do at the Republican Convention. I mean they didn’t love
Duke all that much either. They would much prefer that Dean Smith and North
Carolina win. (Think Mitt Romney) But between the two alternatives they would
give it to Duke over UNLV. Unless they could find a way to sneak in North
Carolina.
So just like in sports you have to pick your team. You can
go with the rebels. The ones who bend the rules and make mistakes but still win
most of the time. Or you can go with the more conventional white bread approach
of the team with the pedigree that is oh so much more respectable. Or you could
hold out hope for the team that isn't even in the tournament. Maybe the refs
and the NCAA can do something and award them championship even though they are not in the tournament.
Sports is a meataphor for life. Pick your team.
Enjoy the game.
18 comments:
Fuck you, Jimmy, you are so wrong you can't even see right from where you are. "The coach Mike Krzyzewski was a Dean Smith acolyte" bullshit covered with more bullshit. Coach K went to West Point and played under Bobby Knight and was an assistant coach for him at Indiana, too, prior to coaching at West Point, then going to Duke. He has been at Duke since Dean Smith was only slightly senile. Back when UNC players sort of pretended to be students, unlike today. How you can conflate those two is beyond me. What next, Sherman was a friend of the South?
All that said, I always kind of did like Tark the Shark and those were the days, for sure. Get that man a towel to gnaw on!
I am sorry if I am wrong Sixty. I always thought that Coach K and Dean Smith were best buddies and cut from the same cloth. I always lump coaches into two categories. Straight arrows and bent nails. Smith and Coach K and Bobby Knight for the matter are straight arrows. Tark and Louie Carnesca and John Thompson and Petitino and Tubby and Nolan Richardson are bent nails.
What I was feebly trying to say is that Coach K followed Dean Smiths clean image and style and not the outlaw style of Tark the Shark.
It sort of the same way you would talk about authors. Someone could write in the style of lets say Robert E. Howard. Or in the style of JRR Tolkien. Both fantasy authors. But very different. So if you say someone is an acolyte that doesn't mean anything other than style.
I don't know why I associate Coach K and Dean Smith all the time. It is sort of the same way I put Billy Martin and Earl Weaver and Davey Johnson as one style of manager and Sparky Anderson and Jim Leyland and Tony Larussa as another style. Does that make sense?
I just like to shoot my mouth off without thinking. You know like an asshole loud mouth blowhard bully with New York Values.
Me and Trump. Peas in a pod.
I prefer Robert E. Lee and Jubal A. Early, but in no way is Coach K an acolyte of Senile Dean Smith, unless you redefine acolyte to mean bitter rival.
Next time you are in Durham you should stop by the Emily Krzyzewski Center - the guy who runs it is Montignor Jughead, a well known schnorrer.
And fuck Earl Weaver, too, while you are at it. Send in Eddie Murray, lose the series. Might as well sent in Eddie Murphy, you hump.
I stand corrected. Acolyte is the wrong word. How about "fellow traveler?"
They seem to be cut from the same cloth. In other words they pretend that they are concerned about student athletes and the players instead of just winning and making money.
Coach K is to Dean Smith as Ted Cruz is to Robert Taft as Donald Trump is to William Randolph Hearst.
Does that sort of make sense?
Coach K served this nation after graduating from the Trade School.
Dean Smith was something you scrape off your shoe - he and his entire university have been cheaters for decades. Afro-American studies indeed. I would tell you what my neighbor said about UNC except it might cause the weaklings here to faint. My neighbor has been a Duke fan since the 1950s and used to pay 25 cents to attend games in Cameron Indoor when he was a high school student. Ticket prices have gone up since then.
Dean Smith was not worthy enough to shine Coach K's shoes. Compare their records, compare how they carried themselves, but whatever you do, do not mention Coach K's hair dye. That would be wrong and personal. It's not as though we ever mention The Donald's hair, right?
To be honest I am not a fan of either Dean Smith or Coach K. Or Bobby Knight for that matter.
I am more a Tark the Shark or Kevin Mackey kind of guy.
I don't like the holier than thou types. Just sayn'
Bobby Knight, holier than thou? Jesus H. ..., he's famous for throwing chairs on the court at referees, something The Donald might try at the convention.
Knight used to rough up his players, just like Lewandowski slapped the shit out of M. Fields.
This sports analogy ain't working out too well.
I think that coaching tends to bring out the worst in some personalities. Coach K is hated for the foul language he uses - it's almost as if he is from Chicago and worked in New York and was in the Army or something.
Bobby Knight was a full on head case. A seriously unbalanced individual.
UNC tends to hire idiot coaches, like the one who will probably win the national championship tomorrow. They also hire really good players and pay them well.
Tark was just all around entertaining, of that there can be no doubt.
I hope there is a special place reserved in Hell for assholes like the former Maryland coach Lefty Driesell. He put the scum in scumbag. And smooth move, Maryland, for leaving the ACC - how is that working out for you, eh?
Coach K will retire after there is no chance that Jim Boeheim retires and eliminates the possibility that K's lifetime wins record cannot be surpassed. So, what is that, 2 more year or so? Then out with the old, in with the new.
Why did they pin on Tark the agnomen "the shark"? Did he have a predominate firm upright dorsal fin? Rows of razor-sharp serrated constantly replacing teeth inside a huge gaping and extending mouth? (Shark: Goddamnit! I bit my tongue again.) Does he had a huge liver that takes up to 25% of his body? His skin is like a rasp that grates ginger? He has large black lifeless eyes? Was it his powerful vertical tail? His aqua dynamic form? It's a real puzzle. We're left wondering did he bark in the dark or hark on a lark when he marked and narked out his friend in the park dressed as Quark in Ferengi Ozark? Or what? My favorite part is, whatever the reason, how the nickname they gave him accidentally rhymes.
It's as if you knew him, Chip.
Besides the rhyme, The Shark ate at least four towels in the course of a game.
Another Sports analogy:
Trump is the 69 New York Jets, Cruz is the Baltimore Colts.
Trump is John Madden, Cruz is Tom Landry
Trump is Tiger Woods, Cruz is Byron Nelson
Personally, I've always been a Bob Knight fan. Mostly because the Left-wing sports writers hated his guts. Same thing with Coach K. Plus, Knight won the Olympics in '84 and John Thompson lost in '88.
John Thompson - straight up racist - he admitted during an interview that he would not allow white players on his team. And by his team I mean Georgetown. He is nothing more than Adolph Rupp in black face - what a moron.
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