…Continued from the previous post.

Reporting from the bleachers at the North American Olympic Table Tennis Trials, I have a scoop for you. I have identified the most insincere words ever spoken.

They are the ones uttered by a world-class table tennis player who has just won a point when their shot has ticked off the very edge of the table on their opponents’ side:  “I’m sorry.”

Seriously – that’s what they say. It’s a show of sportsmanship at the elite levels of the game. “I’m sorry,” translates into, “This is a great match between two worthy opponents, and now I’ve received an undeserved lucky break because my shot has skittered off to where you can’t fashion a devastating return to keep this rally going.” Or something like that.

For my part, I’ve always experienced a slightly different scenario whenever I’ve played the game. If a shot hit by either me or my opponent nipped the edge and bounded away, the beneficiary of this fortunate bounce would spend the next several moments triumphantly strutting around uttering spasmodic cries. The casual onlooker might think we’d just been given a hotfoot. But no, we are actually happy—because we fervently meant for that shot to land there. Not that we could deliberately repeat that result given a hundred more attempts.

I tell you this in order to provide a service. If you should ever happen across a table tennis game in progress, you will now be able to tell at a glance whether you are watching world-class table tennis or the recreational variety. The “I’m sorry” (or equivalent raising of hand to signal regret) will tip you off. The absence or presence of spasmodic cries, however…will not. I have it on good authority that some elite table tennis players do like to emote. Loudly and frequently, in fact.

Not all of them do so, but those that like to react after winning a point typically utter a punchy single syllable. The women yell “Sa!” which is not really a word. Nor is “Cho,” which is the non-word of choice for the men. Why? Nobody I’ve talked to quite knows. It’s just part of the game, even though I could never quite get it out of my head that it qualified as taunting one’s opponent—especially when delivered after they’ve just messed up a shot. But with a few dozen matches under my belt, I’d gotten used to the custom.

That is, until I watched Andre Ho of British Columbia, Canada play. For Ho likes to double-size his “Cho.” And then add an extra order or two. All of which is accompanied by a little dance around his end of the table. He performs this routine with such annoying regularity, I continually expected his opponent at some point to come over the table at him. I’m pretty sure that the typical NFL wide receiver, or virtually any NBA player, for that matter, could relate—but only to a point. Eventually, even Chad Ochocinco would probably pull Ho aside and whisper, “Ahh, don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

Evidently it works for him, as he became the first player from these North American Trials to lock up a spot in the 2012 Olympics. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to own the rights to the earmuff concession in London this summer.

But, hey – the guy is only 20 years old. I’m sure that the rest of the North American Olympic contingent will set a good example for him, what with the maturity that they get from being a little longer in the tooth. They’ll obviously…wait, hang on…this just in…what’s that you say? Ho actually falls within the older demographic segment of table tennis Olympians from this continent? How can that be?

Well, first there’s Ariel Hsing. Shortly after Andre Ho had punched his ticket, the 16-year-old San Jose, California resident scored one for youth over experience when she beat Canadian Chris Xu, a 43-year-old Olympic veteran whose game is based on patient, spin-heavy shot-making that tends to drive her opponents into fits of over anxiousness. Xu had thus far had her way with her young American foes in these Trials—by simply allowing them to beat themselves with their own aggressive tactics.

Ariel Hsing serves to Chris Xu

Apparently, Hsing had received a memo on this topic.

Down 2–1 in games, she reeled off wins in each of the next four games and, to her own apparent amazement, wound up holding a bouquet of flowers while being introduced to an appreciative crowd as an American Olympian.

If the Hsing camp was happy, Mina T. Son and Sara Newens had to be ecstatic. Graduates of Stanford’s M.F.A. Documentary Film and Video Program, Mina and Sara had come across Ariel when she became the youngest ever U.S. Women’s Singles Champion and had decided to film a documentary about Hsing and fellow American table tennis prodigy Michael Landers. Having worked passionately on their Top Spin project for many, many months, it must have been surreal for it to play out in this manner—becoming filmmaking Olympians, so to speak.   

Next came Lily Zhang, another Californian teen sensation—she from Palo Alto. Zhang was one of those who had succumbed previously to Chris Xu’s “spider to a fly” strategy, so when the opportunity came back around in the semi-finals of knockout play for the third and final women’s Olympic spot, she was ready. Putting her nearly 16 years of life experience into the effort, Zhang spotted Xu a 2–0 lead in games before roaring back. Game 7 was a heart-stopper, with the players exchanging points and the lead—until Zhang put the “Lily hammer” down (a little Winter Olympics humor for you), winning the final four points and continuing on as the final surviving U.S. player.

The next day, Zhang made quick work of Canadian Anqi Luo in the final, 4–1, and it was then her turn to bask in the glow of partisan applause. And in a bit of quirkiness that is positively…well, Olympian…the U.S. women’s team was granted an additional third spot in the Games because—oh, never mind, the explanation will only give you a headache. Suffice to say, 15-year-old Erica Wu, the third-highest American finisher, was more than happy to fill the role.

Hey, somebody had to add some youthful exuberance to the squad.

If you’re wondering about the identity of the guy who is happily clutching the American flag along with the Dream Teens, he’s Timothy Wang of Houston, who skillfully navigated the men’s competition to earn his very own Olympic dream.

Just so you know, there’s absolutely no truth to the rumor that Wang was merely given a spot so that Team USA’s London carpool would include someone who carried more than a learner’s permit.

When I pulled into the parking lot at the Bond Park Community Center for the North American Olympic Table Tennis Trials, that sensation struck me full force. Then again, it’s probably because I had been there before. Precisely 68 days prior, in fact. That was the day on which play had wrapped up in the U.S. Olympic Table Tennis Trials, providing me with a lasting image of eight deserving athletes holding flower bouquets aloft and waving to an appreciative, enthusiastic crowd.

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! It was one of those treasured moments in sports in which you realize that you are witnessing a special piece of history. For on that day, these four men and four women earned something they’d remember for…well, for 68 days. Because that’s how much time would elapse before they’d basically have to do the whole thing over again.

The Olympics are a strange and wonderful thing. Unparalleled in the history of sport, and a strong contender for a medal in the history of confusion. There will be 26 different sports played in the XXX Olympiad in London this summer, each one utilizing a different process and set of criteria for identifying the athletes that will represent each nation. I could explain all of the intricacies of the selection process to you…but then you would have to kill me. Well, maybe not have to kill me, but trust me—you’d want to.

Legend has it that the ancient marathon was born when a messenger named Phidippides ran the 26 miles from the Greek town of Marathon to Athens to announce the news of a Greek victory over an invading Persian army—and then died on the spot. It’s a good thing that the marathon was not an Olympic sport at the time, for if that scenario were to unfold today, protocol would make it such that on-site medics would be required to resuscitate Phidippides, who would then be instructed to return to Marathon, round up a couple of Trojans and a handful of Turks, and then run the 26 miles back again—with the first of the group to arrive earning the official right to announce the original military victory before dropping dead.

But I digress.

The point is that there are only so many spots for table tennis players in the Olympics, so simply qualifying for one’s national team is no guarantee of a Virgin Atlantic flight across the pond. It has been decreed by…the decree-ers, I guess, that only six North Americans can play in the Olympics, and since our neighbors to the north also have designs on the honor, we had to settle things on the court. Once and for all. Unless…if one team of either men or women earn no more or less than two of the available singles spots…oh, never mind. You’ll start thinking about that whole “killing me” thing again.

The important thing was that the table tennis—and the viewing thereof—were destined to be exquisite.

The beauty of watching the sport played at this level is that you can almost put yourself mentally in the middle of the action. I mean, who among us hasn’t played enough ping pong to have become at least acquainted with the rules and basic strategies?

Future quick-serve victims Reed, Landers, Wang and Hugh

Of course, if I ever found myself across the table from Team USA members Barney Reed, Michael Landers, Timothy Wang, or Adam Hugh, I would have absolutely, positively no chance of returning one of their serves. And on my serve? Well, I’d stall and wait until they had to tie their shoe…and then quick-serve ‘em. Because that’s the only way I’d ever win a point.

The case would no doubt be the same if I was facing off against any of the women’s Team USA members on hand—Erica Wu, Judy Hugh, Lily Zhang or Ariel Hsing—except that I would be embarrassed employing the quick-serve strategy. See, Hugh is just 22 years old…and she is by far the grande dame of this quartet. Wu, Zhang and Hsing are 15,15, and16, respectively. A quick-serve borders on child abuse here.

Simple-minded as I am, just the mere spectacle of ping pong balls moving at speeds of more than 60 mph is enough to amaze me. There is, however, far more going on in a match than players seeking to embed the ball in the chest of their opponent. If only I were privy to some knowledge about the strategies being employed…if only…if only I had someone to explain to me a how a table tennis match was unfolding—walk me through shot selections and strategies.

Well, I’ll save you from the suspense, for in fact I did—Sherry Graham, to be specific. I had met Sherry while mutually enjoying the U.S. Trials in February, and was delighted to find her also in attendance at these “NorthAms”. Over the course of the next three days of table tennis, she was able to provide the kind of added perspective that makes watching a sport played at the highest levels so much more enjoyable. Others, such as Leah and Jarol Duerksen—event volunteers from Iowa City—and Winston-Salem’s Dave Combs, chimed in with helpful commentary at various times throughout the weekend, but it was Sherry that became my true Table Tennis Mentor. Winning the North Carolina senior doubles championship and competing in the national Senior Games will earn you those kind of chops.

But back to that whole “familiarity” thing…

While the U.S. Olympic Trials was an event marked by gradually building drama that mounted over three days to a crescendo in its final few matches, I soon discovered that things would be much different at the North American Olympic Trials. Here we went to DEFCON 1, intensity-wise, shortly after the first paddle met the first ball.

A kiss for luck: Team USA member Ariel Hsing

Sparing you the tedious details, suffice to say that each of the coveted Olympic spots available was to be determined by a separate tournament-within-a-tournament (or “Event,” as the International Table Tennis Federation liked to call it). In fact, two of those trips to London were to be handed out before the end of this very day.

Consequently, Event One became tense at Minute One, when an eight-man single-elimination Event commenced with side-by-side Canadian vs. American matches. On Table 2, America’s Michael Landers and Canada’s Pierre-Luc Theriault duked it out, while on Table 1, Timothy Wang of Houston and Pierre-Luc Hinse of Quebec began what would be an eventful period of two days spent in each other’s company. 

To be continued in next post…

No, it’s not the fruit salad spread or the do-it-yourself waffle griddle (although both are certainly better than a sharp stick in the eye). What’s got me all worked up is my motivation for traveling across the map to be here in the first place: today begins the North American Table Tennis Qualification Tournament for the Games of the XXX Olympiad.

Or if you prefer—the Trials. I only used that other highfalutin title to impress you. I got it online, from the Prospectus of the event. Yep, I said Prospectus. Evidently, I’m either going to see some fantastic table tennis this weekend…or sit through a mutual fund investment seminar. At this point it’s too early to tell.

According to the Prospectus, the best table tennis players on the continent are going to drop in and spend a few days going through a “procedure intended to comply with the Qualification System as published by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).” A “procedure?” How will it start—with opening arguments? Will the procedure be covered by the athlete’s health insurance?

I scanned further for answers, and learned that, “The North American Team quota will be determined according to the ITTF rules for 2012 Olympic Games,” and that “The ITTF will allocate a 3^rd spot to the qualified NOC, and this NOC will nominate the player selected by its own selection criteria.”

I began to long for the comparatively simple language of those mutual fund materials I spoke of.

Anyway, let me break it down for you, as the Yakking Heads on ESPN are fond of saying. Both the U.S. and Canada have previously held Olympic Trials for their respective nations, winnowing the field of potential Olympians from our shared continent to four battle-tested men and women from each country. All 16 athletes have now descended upon the Raleigh, NC suburb of Cary (referred to locally as the Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees).

Men's U.S. Olympic Table Tennis Trial winners (l to r): Barney Reed, Michael Landers, Adam Hugh, Timothy Wang

I know all of the above to be true because in February I had the pleasure of attending the U.S. half of those dueling Trials, held in the very same Bond Park Community Center that will play host to the NorthAm’s—a term I just made up on the spot. During those U.S. Trials I became quite enamored of the eight athletes that survived a grueling 11-match round robin to take the podium. I also became fascinated with the game itself.

If your concept of table tennis is informed only by the grudge-laden ping pong tournaments held in one of the neighbor’s basement “rec rooms” when you were a kid, then you probably wouldn’t recognize the sport as it is played at elite levels. Allow me to add some perspective.

An official table tennis table is 9’x 5’, which fits snugly into your basic rec room. In contrast, that same 9’x 5’ table looks nearly lost inside the standard court used for international competition. Why? Because the combatants need a ton of square roaming footage in order to reach and return the forehand smash shots of their opponents. Envision if you will, an aerial view that consists only of the table’s surface and a 5 foot border all the way around that table. During an elite men’s table tennis match in progress, that view would often be unpopulated by anything other than the ball whizzing into and out of view. The athletes themselves are likely to be found 10 or more feet away from their end of the table.

Here’s a snapshot of what it’s like to view the sport at this level…

In the dwindling stages of the U.S. Trials, a player named Han Xiao was handily winning a do-or-die match against Razvan Cretu, a player who had already been mathematically eliminated from earning one of the coveted top four places. A lengthy volley saw Cretu back further and further away from the table, as he sought to defensively lob back one powerful shot after another. Eventually Cretu was forced to retreat all the way back to the three-foot-high barrier that marked the limits of the court. The fact that his high-arcing lobs from there were actually drawing table on what seemed like a postage stamp sized landing area in front of Xiao was spectacularly grin-inducing. But he wasn’t done.

Razvan Cretu serves in an earlier Olympic Trials match against Mark Hazinski

When Xiao eventually won the point with a shot just out of Cretu’s reach, a smiling Razvan acknowledged warm applause from the crowd for his efforts…and then decided to give us a bit more of a show. On the final point of the match, Cretu reprised his back-away defense. This time, however, when he ran out of room on the court, he lobbed an especially high return to buy time—and then climbed over the barrier to play out the point from the pedestrian walkway. This lasted for several volleys, and the fans ate it up. When it was over, Cretu received what I’m sure is the loudest ovation ever accorded to a table tennis player who had just lost a match 4-1.

Right now, I’m looking down the barrel of three days of that type of “procedure.” Be honest now—wouldn’t you be pumped too?

As you may already know, I wrote a book about someone who goes to a lot—I mean a lot—of sporting events. Curiously enough, that someone was me. So you’d think that, like any other rational person, I would’ve gotten it out of my system by now. But, with It’s Game Time Somewhere in the capable hands of my editor, I’ve found my mind wandering of late. And what I find myself contemplating is…“How?”

Or more specifically, “How is it that, seemingly against all odds, a thriving world of organized sports could flourish in this country?”

Don’t get me wrong—I think that this is a fantastic thing. A healthy mind in a healthy body, and all that. And thank goodness there is a network of sports-enabling organizations operating in stealth mode out there, because the days of disorganized sports are long gone. If you don’t think so, try finding a pick-up game of pretty much anything other than playground basketball. Go ahead…but give yourself plenty of time.

I don’t have a firm grip on the exact route we’ve taken to arrive at this state, but I’m sure that any attempt to research the topic would quickly evolve into a symposium involving each one of the social sciences known to man—plus a few that we’ve yet to name. The point is that, as a society, the evaporation of unorganized sports left us with two options:  (1) Get organized; or (2) Spend our collective leisure time with buttocks glued firmly to the couch.

Venturing out for a look-see pretty much anywhere in America will quickly provide proof that option #2 has been embraced by an enormous portion of the population. And enormous is definitely the operative word here.

Much more difficult to verify is the fact that there’s also been a whole lot of option #1 going on as well. So I will save you the trouble. Remember that book I referred to? While doing the research for It’s Game Time Somewhere, I had the pleasure of encountering entire communities that have sprung up around the elite pursuit of lesser-known athletic endeavors—and I’m not even touching here upon those that support basic weekend warrior recreation (a topic for another time).

While all of them are wonderfully unique, these communities share one basic principle—a lack of funding. And that makes it absolutely, positively essential that certain community members adopt the “labor of love” approach to remuneration for their efforts in keeping things afloat. Yes, sports are a huge business in this country, but 98.6% (an educated guesstimate) of the associated revenue flows into the coffers of the major professional sports leagues and (redundantly) the NCAA. Hey, it’s an expensive proposition to produce enough epoxy to adhere millions of butts to bar stools and living room furniture.

My affection and admiration for the people that divvy up the remaining 1.4% (educated guesstimate plus basic mathematical skills) of America’s sports dollars knows no bounds. But I don’t understand how it can be that there are so many people out there either performing or facilitating great feats of athletic performance with so little in the way of monetary reward or media attention to show for it? It defies logic, let alone economic theory.

It would be one thing if these folks went through periods of sacrifice that were linked to a foreseeable payoff. I have no trouble figuring out the motivation of the minor-league baseball player, for example—they can inspire themselves by envisioning the phone ringing with The Call…

“Hello formerly unknown, destitute athlete, this is Scott Boras calling.”

What about all the others though—the athletes that for one reason or another found themselves proficient in and devoted to one of the dozens of less visible sports that human beings pursue around the globe? And those that coach and train them? Those that organize and produce the events that allow them to compete and hone their skills? What’s in it for them? What keeps them going?

Fortunately for me and my potentially exploding brain, a quick look at the calendar reveals that this is an even-numbered year, which can mean only one thing—the Olympics.

Every athlete laboring in the obscurity that envelops the “second tier” sports dreams of taking part in the Olympics. Every four years, the apparatus that supports that dream kicks into gear, culminating in a glorious fortnight in which the eyes of the world are on you and the rest of the elite athletes in your sport. Yes, shortly after the Olympics end you go back to sharing Ramen Noodle recipes, but for that week or two…

So it occurred to me that some insight may just be sitting out there for the taking. I figured that if there were any definitive answers to some of the questions above, they surely had to be linked to the Olympic quest. The problem is, they typically don’t let random people run around the Olympic Village repeatedly asking “Why?” in the manner of a four-year-old on a sugar buzz.

Then I remembered something that had caught my attention while wandering around in the second tier sports world. It is relatively rare to hear an athlete say, “My goal is to win an Olympic medal.” Much more common is the statement, “My goal is to go to the Olympics.” And they don’t mean as a spectator.

Think about it—if you make the U.S. Olympic Team in any sport, you will, for the rest of your life be able to say “I was an Olympian.” Not even Scott Boras can offer that. Well not yet, anyway.

Carrying through that line of thinking, it struck me that, while the Olympics themselves get all the attention, it just might be that the Olympic Trials are the true pinnacle of drama. In the run-up to each Olympiad, thousands of American athletes scrupulously plan their training—and their very existence—around the date of the Trials for their sport. If they make the cut, they are an Olympian. If they don’t…well I hate to be cruel, but they remain invisible to all but family, friends and a handful of aficionados of their sport. So no pressure or anything.

I began to become fascinated by this concept of the ultimate all-or-nothing, and by extension, the specific events that would play host to this human theater. And you know what happens when I become fascinated by a sporting event…

Welcome to my newest project.

To be continued…

On paper, the game looked to be a blow-out. In reality, it looked even worse, starting with what management consultant types like to call “the optics”.

It was Game Three of the Big West Conference tournament, pitting regular season champions Long Beach State against #8 seed UC Davis, and the ratio of fans of the former to fans of the latter was somewhere between 25:1…and infinity. While Long Beach State sported a packed and well-orchestrated student cheering section, UC Davis countered with what I have already sent to the Basketball Hall of Fame as my nomination for Most Dedicated Fans.

Five young women in lime green sports bras had painted G-O-A-G-S across their respective stomachs, and committed themselves to spending nearly two hours on their feet supporting UC Davis in a game that could only charitably be called a lost cause. This wasn’t David vs. Goliath. This was David’s little sisters against Goliath’s older brother. Minus the slingshot.

The bright yellow uniforms adorned with simply “The Beach” made a team that was already physically imposing look even bigger. Maybe it was just me, but Long Beach State actually appeared to glow as they went through their pre-game routine. And when the game started, they were one big neon streak. The entire 49er entourage was in constant motion, right down to the bench, where a constant stream of subs rotated in and out of the game.

Tip-off: Let The Track Meet Begin

The transition game of The Beach was what we old-schoolers used to call a “fast break”. On a rebounded shot the ball was fired out to a guard on the wing, who then pushed the ball down the middle of the court. Teammates raced to fill the two outside lanes, and a fourth player fell in behind as the trailer. Because of today’s relentless emphasis on setting up the three point shot, you just don’t see that kind of fluid, beautiful basketball anymore. It was poetry in motion.

In one particular three minute span of time, the 49ers scored four straight baskets in this manner, with two of them culminating in a thunderous dunk – one off of a bounce pass feed, no less! Prior to that moment, I had been under the vague impression that the NCAA had ruled the bounce pass illegal some time during the ‘90’s.

I was on a four-games-in-one-day basketball binge, taking in the entirety of the first round of action. Rather than wearing down though, I found myself energized. Halftime had arrived in an eye-blink, with Long Beach State holding a 41-21 lead. And UC Davis hadn’t even played that badly! And in a tidy one hour and 41 minutes, the game was over. My closing thought on the contest was this – can a game ending with a score of 80-46 be described as “not as close as the score would indicate?”   

I sat back to catch my breath. Happy fans of the 49ers trooped up the aisles, no doubt on their way somewhere to celebrate a great start to its assault on the conference’s automatic NCAA tournament bid. For me however, this was where the going would get tough.

It was somewhere between 8:00 PM and dawn. All of the teams that I knew anything about had already played. The only game remaining was between the #4 seed Cal Poly Mustangs and 5^th seeded UC Riverside. With the departure of the boisterous Long Beach State fans, an eerie quiet descended upon a now-sparsely populated Honda Center.  So I did what needed to be done. I upgraded my seat – but not without first doing some considered comparison shopping of course.

Eventually I settled upon a center court aisle seat, nine rows back from the courtside VIP section. I shared the row with one elderly gentleman who appeared to be kindly. I say “appeared” because he was more than a dozen seats away – too far for a good look. Hey, I like my space. What really sold the deal though, was that the previous occupants of my end of the row had left behind a nearly full bag of peanuts in the shell. A free dinner!

I was barely settled in my new digs when, from somewhere in the bowels of the arena I heard loud voices chanting in rhythm. And then from the tunnel emerged the force of nature known as the Cal Poly Mustang Band. It was as if, while I sat and munched on my peanuts, a Thanksgiving Day parade had broken out. I didn’t get an exact count, but I’m guessing there were 540,000 band members, each marching in lock step and playing for all they were worth. A cheering squad comprised of most of central California followed them, and when everyone in green and gold had finished romping in, the entourage easily outnumbered the entirety of the population sitting in the stands across the court from me – leftover Long Beach State supporters who lazed like so many Beached lemons in their plush seats.

It was right about then that something dawned on me; something that had taken me three games and more than eight hours to figure out. This conference tournament was as much about celebrating the end of a successful season of competition as it was about qualifying for a single double-digit seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament. This was all about taking part, and the roster of participants only started with the guys wearing the uniforms.

Taken in its entirety, the whole day-long experience was like one big multi-faceted talent contest. And a good one, at that! Every team in the tournament had brought a full dance team and band, and all of them had quite clearly practiced long and hard over the course of the long season. This was their time in the spotlight, and they were all relishing it. 

It was evident in the faces of the cheerleaders and dance squads as they watched their opposite numbers perform. When one squad was on the floor, they held the rapt attention of every member of the other. Throughout each school’s entire routines, smiling faces on the other side were trained on the court, palpably rooting for their kindred spirits to do well.

With this new perspective, the matchup between Cal Poly and UC Riverside suddenly became compelling to me; the game, the dance routines, the rituals engaged in by fans of both teams. And yes, even the Mascot Challenge.

Of the eight mascots that had strutted their stuff throughout the day, Musty the Mustang reigned supreme. He killed it during the shooting contest, nailed the beanbag toss and the wiffle golf ball chipping. And UC Riverside’s Scotty the Bear was no slouch either, winning the only successfully completed mascot sprint race of the day with a dive across the finish line.

No doubt buoyed by Musty’s performance, Cal Poly came back from a 34-28 halftime deficit, starting the second half with a 13-1 run. Dominance thus established, they never looked back, eventually winning, 66-54 and advancing to the next night’s semi-final game. 

I was finding out that the Big West Conference was more like the Big West Community. So it was entirely appropriate that the Mustangs closed out the day’s festivities, because based on what I saw, I’m convinced that Cal Poly offers a degree program in “Community”.

Theirs is an extremely tight-knit group that extends from the floor well up into the bleachers. It was evidenced in the band members who clambered up into the stands to serenade Mustang backers during a break in play, and especially in the actions of the team, who after exchanging congratulations with the UC Riverside team, came over to salute their fans before leaving the floor. From beginning to end, it was Cohesion, with a capital “Co”.

I stayed until the last, taking it all in; perhaps hoping that just maybe there was yet another game that due to a clerical error hadn’t been listed in the program. March Madness would officially begin in just a few days, but I had a leg up on most everyone else. For I had seen not one, not two, not three…but four Mascot Challenges, along with all of the charm that the littlest Big conference had to offer.

Cal State Fullerton Cheeleaders Rise To The Occasion

The place wasn’t exactly overrun with media types. And if there were swarms of television cameras, they were extremely well-hidden. But nevertheless, this was Big.

I was luxuriating in wall-to-wall basketball at the Big West Conference Championships, having just taken in Game One between UC Santa Barbara and the University of the Pacific – the appetizer in my feast of four consecutive games.

Joining me in the buffet line for Game Two was Calvin Davenport, a retired microbiology professor who had spent the last decade-plus of his 40-year teaching career at Cal State Fullerton. He, like me, had come by himself to the Honda Center simply to savor a constant parade of basketball – and of course to lend support to his former employer in the Titan’s game against the UC Irvine Anteaters (yes, I said Anteaters). Calvin proved to be a gracious gentleman and a knowledgeable fan, feeding me a steady stream of Titan tidbits. Once a teacher, always a teacher.   

For example, I learned that Cal State Fullerton had claimed the #2 seed in the tournament by handing regular season champ Long Beach State its only conference loss of the season, just five days prior. And that the team had been built the old-fashioned way – by collecting transfers disgruntled with a lack of playing time at other schools. The CSF roster featured players that had played previously at San Francisco, South Florida, Missouri, and California.

Evidently though, 7^th-seeded UC Irvine wasn’t impressed by that pedigree. They came out and played pretty much perfect basketball for the first 5:19 of the game, to take a 15-6 lead and inspire a CSF timeout. Perhaps their performance was influenced by the fact that they were too young to be nervous. The Anteaters didn’t have a single senior on a squad dominated by freshmen. They had just one mode, and it was full speed ahead; as if it had never occurred to them that they had anything to lose. In other words, they were dangerous.

As the two teams talked things over in their huddles, the court was given over to the Mascot Challenge. And from the outset, it was readily apparent that Peter the Anteater never had a chance – a 3 foot tall head will do that to you. He couldn’t even see the ball unless it was at eye level, so for him, chasing down errant shots took the form of an Easter egg hunt.

When it was over, Peter handled the loss with aplomb. Calvin however, was perplexed. As a man of science, he had actually seen anteaters in the wild, and Peter’s laid-back manner was strongly at odds with the reality of nature. Evidently, somebody hadn’t done their homework.

A small scoring flurry brought CSF back to within 29-21 at the half, and you kind of got the feeling that it was a preview of things to come. And sure enough, the Titans came out aggressively in the second half. It would be a nice comeback win – if they could just…get… over…that…hump. The young Anteaters hung tough, as if they knew that once they fell behind, it would be all but over for them. So they didn’t.

The kind of day that CSF was having was embodied in one possession during which senior forward Omondi Amoke managed to misfire on three layups in a span of just a few seconds. Had any of those shots gone in, the UCI lead would have been cut to three for the first time since early in the game. The ball refused to go down though, and in a heartbeat the margin had been stretched to 41-32. Calvin became concerned, pointing out that the normally reliable shooting of the Titan guards had gone south at precisely the wrong time.

And so it went, with CSF many times pulling to within four or five points of the lead, only to have UCI respond to extend it back out to seven or eight. Would CSF ever get that big turning point bucket? At one point it seemed particularly inevitable when a long overdue three-pointer cut the lead to 53-51; thus triggering the closest thing to a crowd frenzy we’d seen all game. Calvin was encouraged.

Encouragement gave way to optimism when, with two minutes left in the game, UCI abandoned their aggressive style in favor of “playing not to lose”. Their first slowdown possession worked though, as the Anteaters drained the full shot clock before scoring to make it 58-53. CSF quickly countered, 58-55 – and then fouled. Unfazed, UCI made both foul shots.

This scenario repeated itself for the rest of the game. CSF would score, then quickly foul – and UCI would convert the free throws. In the end, it struck me that I had just witnessed “Upset 101” – a textbook case of how a #7 seed can beat a #2 seed. But maybe that’s because I had spent the game in the enjoyable company of a lifelong educator. And hey, even Calvin was begrudgingly impressed.  

As marathons go, this one had been cake. I had cruised through the first two games of the day, and could have easily eased right into a third straight. But that wasn’t going to happen until 6:00 PM, and it was then just 4:00. On the positive side, it was refreshing that a college basketball doubleheader could be completed in just four hours (including a 30 minute break between games). On the negative side, it was a real momentum killer.

Not a problem, though – I did what anyone would do. I drove the mile or so over to the The Promised Land. I speak, of course, of Angels Stadium, where the box office was doing a brisk business in anticipation of a season full of Albert Pujols-sized thrills.

I found a bench in the plaza, where under the shade of an oversized Angels hat I relaxed and unfolded the L.A. Times sports section. And what I subsequently read greatly impacted what I anticipated seeing when I returned to watch top-seeded Long Beach State play UC Davis.

Evidently, Larry Anderson, the Big West Defensive Player of the Year, had sprained his knee in Long Beach State’s final game of the regular season, and wouldn’t be available until the NCAA tournament – assuming his 49er team won the Big West tournament and garnered the conference’s one solitary spot in the Big Dance. I wondered how this would change things.

It wouldn’t take long to find out.

To be continued in the next post…

The Big West: One Big Dance Party

I woke up enthused. Scratch that – I was borderline giddy.

See, in the March Madness pecking order, I love Championship Week at least as much as the Big Dance itself. And I was going to spend the day within close range of four first round games in the Big West Conference Tournament. Four straight games in which somebody’s season would end, and somebody’s would survive for another day.

But let’s put first things first – the name. The Big West Conference. It conveys…well, big-ness. The word “big” is clearly favored by the country’s glamour college basketball conferences. The Big East, the Big Ten, the Big 12. All very sizable entities, dripping with tradition (and not coincidentally, with money). It’s the natural order of things. So does that not make the Big West a power conference as well?

Well…not quite. The Pac-12 is the granddaddy of conferences on the West Coast. Long, long ago, they determined that “Pacific” trumped “Big”, name-wise. So the moniker was left to be snapped up. Surely there is what is popularly referred to as a Mid-Major conference in the region? Well, yes there is. Down one notch in the college basketball food chain is a highly successful conference that has regularly made noise on the national scene – the West Coast Conference.

What the…? Two conferences passed on Big? Yup. So what’s one step down from a Mid-Major? A…B-Minor, maybe? It just so happens that there is yet another confederation of basketball-playing colleges in California, this one chock full of schools with names that are heavy on acronyms and hyphens. They probably looked around one day and said, “Well, if they’re not using ‘Big’, and they’re not using ‘Big’…why not us?” And so they did.

It was like an NBA team with the #3 pick in the draft suddenly finding that, oh let’s say…Michael Jordon, had fallen to them. Things like that never happen, you know? What’s that you say? That actually did happen? OK, bad analogy.

The point is this:  monolithically sounding as the Big West Conference Basketball Championships might be, in fact the whole thing is much closer to being downright cozy. Yes, it’s played in Anaheim’s Honda Center, which houses an NHL team, and which may or may not become the next home of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. But tickets sales are limited to the lower bowl of the arena. And the conference is more than generous in its allocation of seats to the students, cheerleaders, dance teams and bands of each team. You kind of get the feeling that everyone in the building knows each other on a first name basis.

Which was just fine with me, because I was there for the duration. My day pass ticket was good for each of the four first-round games. I would be sampling the wares of eight different teams and their attendant supporters.

Somogyi Makes Himself A Defensive (Buda)Pest

Game One began at High Noon:  UC Santa Barbara vs. University of the Pacific. After a slow start, UCSB displayed why they’d become synonymous with “spoiler” in this tournament over the years. Their scoring was balanced, inside and out, with a stifling defense made even more formidable when 7’3” Greg Somogyi (of Budapest) was in the game backstopping and blocking shots.

UCSB nicely exhibited their ability to score a lot of points in a hurry with a blitz at the end of the first half to take a 43-29 lead into the locker room. And the second half was a brisk affair, with the Gauchos extending upon the hammer-putting-down that closed out the first twenty minutes of play. Watching the game wind down to a final score of 72-52, I wasn’t quite sure which was the more relevant question:  (1) How did UCSB only wind up with a #3 seed, or (2) How did Pacific earn a #6 seed?

With the outcome of the game never really in question, it freed up my attention to focus on the truly competitive contest at hand – the Mascot Challenge.

Woven in and around the timeouts and halftimes of each game, the Challenge matched up the skills of the two fully costumed mascots in a series of activities, culminating in a “sprint” race. And this was where things broke down in the contest between the Pacific Powercat and the UC Santa Barbara Gaucho, briefly and uncomfortably providing a glimpse of the gradual decay of sportsmanship in the country.

It was pretty simple. The two mascots started at opposite end lines. They were to run to the opposite end line, pick up a decorative lei placed there, and return to their starting point. Technically it necessitated the two mascots crossing paths twice, but then again…it’s an awfully wide court.

It probably goes without saying that the outcome of a mascot competition is greatly influenced by the costume worn. In this case, the Powercat, wearing a furry jump suit and a reasonably small headpiece was relatively unencumbered. The Gaucho…was not. If the bulky clothing, complete with flapping poncho weren’t bad enough, the huge head in need of constant support served to drastically reduce visibility and mobility.

And so it was that while the Powercat sped down the court, the Gaucho…tottered. He had only just made the turn to head back up the home stretch, when for some inexplicable reason, the Powercat leveled him with a forearm shiver – and then high-stepped over the finish line without so much as a glance backward.  It was a completely indefensible act, not remotely funny or entertaining. A “winning is the only thing” kind of action.

The really odd thing though, was that mine appeared to be the only jaw in the arena that dropped. The P.A. announcer “calling” the Challenge half-jokingly said “I don’t think the body check was part of the competition”, but otherwise…nothing. Not a gasp, a boo, a jeer…nothing. Everyone who saw it just shrugged and accepted it at face value.

Temporarily at least, some of the enthusiasm that had greeted my day had gone giddy-up.

To be continued in the next post…

We're Looking For A Few Good Fans

The year was 1977. I lived in Ithaca College’s East Tower, a structure that housed 12 full floors of student residents. And on the Saturday of the national semi-finals of college basketball, I camped out in the first floor television lounge, watching first Marquette defeat UNC-Charlotte on a contested last-second basket, and then North Carolina edge a vintage Runnin’ Rebel team from UNLV by a single point.

It might have been called one of the best Final Fours of all time…except that the phrase wasn’t in common use at the time. It certainly wasn’t trademarked – or even capitalized.

But the thing I remember most about that classic double-header was that I was alone for its entirety.

Other than the occasional stray that came by to use one of the vending machines, not a single one of my fellow students joined me in the lounge to view this basketball extravaganza. And if you’re thinking that they were all watching it in their rooms…not so fast. This was the Paleozoic Era of television, somewhere between rabbit ears and cable, with neither available in great supply in the East Tower.

No, unthinkable as it may seem today, there just wasn’t much interest in the event outside of the usual college basketball hotbed suspects.

Slow forward to the next year. In 1978, I had company. In fact, my roommate Doc and I (and a couple of other stragglers we enticed with the promise of beer) actually made an outing of the Final Four – then in its first year of Capitalization.

On a sun-kissed early Spring Saturday, we wandered into a nearly empty Ground Round restaurant, took up residence at the bar, and remained there for the next five hours, watching Duke beat Notre Dame and Kentucky upend Arkansas. A few other patrons drifted in and out, but we were the only people dug in at that bar for the entire afternoon. We emptied several pitchers, shelled and ingested roughly 3,000 peanuts, and left a sizable tip. It was one of the best days of my young life.

Two years later – my senior year – ESPN began televising the full slate of first round NCAA tournament games, with coverage starting in the early afternoon and extending until past midnight. It was Christmas in March. We watched all the games. Saw every single minute. We had nothing more pressing to do – I did mention that we were seniors, didn’t I?

In 1982, I filled out my first bracket sheet. I won that pool and a case of beer, when a skinny freshman named Michael Jordon hit a jumper that won the national title for North Carolina against Georgetown.

Three years after that, what was then officially called March Madness expanded to 64 teams, and I started taking vacation days from work on the first Thursday and Friday of the tournament, road tripping to wherever my friends were gathering to revel in the festivities.

And next week I will get on a plane and travel across three time zones to Frog Hollow, New York, where my buddy Kels has hosted an annual get-together for…well, I’m not sure for how long. I just know that it’s the one weekend each year during which time stands still and many of my oldest and dearest friends bask in college hoops, and in each other’s company.

What I’m trying to say here, is that the Big Dance and I have some history.

As if swimming around in hours of coverage of the actual tournament wasn’t enough, at some point I also came under the spell of Championship Week. Years ago, when CBS went and cornered the market on all NCAA tournament games, ESPN countered by broadcasting hours and hours of conference tournament competition – the games that ultimately determine the bulk of the participants of the national tournament itself.

As Championship Week rolls on, it becomes a smorgasbord of conference title games. If you’re so inclined, you can see all of them, down to the humblest of conferences. It becomes a veritable alphabet soup of basketball, and most of it is of the do-or-die variety.

I am an unapologetic sucker for drama, and I’ve found it available in droves in conferences whose names carry at least four words or a hyphen – or both. This is where schools that are not part of the basketball plutocracy reside. To the kids playing these games, the phrase “at large” refers to escaped convicts. They know that a win in their conference championship game means that, for a week anyway, they’ll be part of The Show. And conversely, that a loss means they’ll watch the whole thing on TV like the rest of us. Their entire season is on the line.

Oh, it’s not easy ingesting Championship Week on a weak stomach. You have to open your home to something called a Joe Lunardi, and subject yourself to being blanketed with the nonsensical term “Bracketology” over and over and over and over and over and…sorry, I got sucked into the endless promotional loop. But if you can endure all that, then spending Championship Week with ESPN is just about the best way on the planet to welcome in the month of March.

Or so I thought…until Goldstar emailed me.

Goldstar is God’s gift to people who love to go out, but don’t love to pay full freight. For years I’ve taken advantage of their ticket discounting services to attend all kinds of events at drastically reduced prices. How do they do it? I don’t know. But I also don’t know how my car works, and that doesn’t stop me from driving. So I always open their emails.

And one came a couple of weeks ago that asked me if I’d like to attend all four first round games of the Big West Conference basketball tournament – spend ten hours watching live college basketball from the comfort of a lower bowl seat in the plush Honda Center…for just $17.00.

“Why yes,” I responded. “In fact, I’d like that very much.” Christmas in March. Reinvented once again.

To be continued in the next post…

I’ve been around for a while. I’ve seen speculative bubbles inflate and burst, from stocks to housing. It would be easy to Monday morning quarterback all of them – to look back and say “Well, duh. I saw that coming a mile away.” Hindsight does, however, provide some valuable perspective; some tell-tale signs to look for in the future.

Here’s one:  When experts all agree that “There appears to be no limit to the growth of [fill-in-the-blank]”, it’s quite possibly the beginning of the end. Time to edge toward the economic exits.

In the sober reality of the post-2008 meltdown, you just don’t hear the phrase above uttered very often these days. That’s why it leaps out at me when almost every day I hear some variation of that theme uttered about the National Football League.

It seems as if the Yakking Heads that work for all of the major media outlets are convinced that if they say this often enough, and with an offhand, “well everybody knows this” manner, it will preclude anybody from noticing the unaffordability of attending games and the troublesome healthcare findings linked to the NFL.     

Yes, Americans do love pro football far more zealously than they do any other sport, and I agree that the NFL is the unquestioned leader in all things financially oriented in the sports industry. The numbers don’t lie, and I would never accuse numbers of telling even the most innocuous fib.

But I’m not totally sold on the idea that the game itself is the thing. And since I’ve heard not a whisper about this from industry news sources of any type, I guess I’m going to have to be the one to break the story. You read it here first:  People watch the NFL in huge numbers largely because people are betting on the NFL in huge numbers. 

Think about it. Do you know any avowed sports fan that does not bet on the NFL in some form or fashion? Do the phrases “fantasy football” or “office football pool” ring a bell? Now consider those same avowed sports fans and their level of betting activity on baseball. Basketball, other than the obligatory March Madness pool? Hockey? I will bet (oops, evidently it’s contagious) that you’ll come to the same conclusion that I have reached. If a sports fan is inclined to wager on sporting events, the NFL is far and away most likely to be the focal point of their gaming hobby.

In fact, fantasy football gambling is pervasive enough to have spawned a full-blown cottage industry. There are TV and radio talk shows, blogs, and iPad apps dedicated specifically to fantasy football trades and waiver wire recommendations. Web sites compete with each other to provide the most sophisticated fantasy league information and scoring services. ESPN employs people that actually carry the moniker “Fantasy Football Expert” (their mothers have got to be so proud).

I mention this because the word “fad” comes to mind. And I blasphemously propose that if the more or less innocuous gambling that is intertwined with the games were to plateau, or God forbid taper off, the NFL would suffer a serious blind side hit to the uninterrupted growth of its viewership.

Now, I know the folks that run the NFL are significantly smarter than me, so I’m sure this line of thought has been thoroughly explored within the hallowed executive suites. Which brings me back around to the topic of NFL football coming to Los Angeles – whether we want it or not.

The NFL is running out of ways to deliver new eyeballs – and we’ve got a lot of ‘em here in the Southland. If the second-largest metropolitan area in the country can be brought into the fold, the NFL can demand ever larger payments from the media outlets that carry its games; who will in turn promise advertisers that “yes, of course you are getting maximum value for your marketing dollars.”

But here’s the thing. There is no way to quantify that. No way to guarantee that people are watching the wall-to-wall barrage of commercials that pollute NFL telecasts. In fact, there is far more data to suggest that people are doing anything but paying attention to what’s on the screen during breaks in play.

This much I know from experience:  No matter how stridently some companies may disagree, there is no way to definitively track an ROI on sports sponsorship “investments” that don’t involve contractual business quid pro quos (like having a sports property move all of its banking relationships to the new title sponsor of its stadium, for example).

So advertisers settle for generic measurements like…aggregate population of cities with league franchises, for example.

Back in the olden days when IBM absolutely ruled the computer hardware market, there was a popular saying that went something like “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” If you were in charge of technology procurement for some large company, you could never be faulted for buying more of the market leader’s desktop computers, even if you knew it wasn’t necessarily the best investment of the company’s money. It was the safe thing to do.

For those that hold the purse strings for advertising dollars spent by Corporate America, the same dynamic holds true. It’s unlikely that anybody ever got fired for buying yet another package of commercials to be aired on NFL telecasts.

Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you saw an IBM PC?

It’s a little more than two miles from Torrance Beach to the King Harbor Pier, and during my round trip of that route, this is what I saw taking place:  A surfing contest; a couple of “beach boot camp” workouts in session; beach volleyball lessons being conducted (as well as multiple games in various stages of play); people undergoing SCUBA certification classes; a Save The Bay volunteer trash pickup sweep; and a small rock band being filmed doing…something.

And all of those folks were there in addition to the hundreds of us out to walk, bike, board, or blade along the path. Or to simply plop down in the sand for some concentrated wave-staring time.

This weekend scene plays out with regularity not only up and down the coastline, but inland as well – in parks, on trails and on playing fields of all kinds. Maybe it’s because it’s free to use all of these open spaces and we can’t resist a bargain. Or maybe it’s because we all have, on average, roughly 4.3 square feet of what people in other parts of the country colloquially refer to as “yards”.

Whatever its root causes, the entire scenario struck me as being at odds with the notion that the inhabitants of Los Angeles desperately, passionately yearn for an NFL football team.

Conventional wisdom among the talking heads of the sports media has for some time now considered it a fait accompli that pro football is coming to the City of Angels. But out here in the real world, if you listen really, really closely, you’ll hear the sounds of hundreds of thousands of shoulders being shrugged. In a word…whatev-er.

Finally, one nationally known sports commentator set out to clarify – to set things right. “I don’t think you’ll see an NFL team in Los Angeles,” he said. At last! Someone with some perspective on the situation!

“No,” he went on, “there will actually be two teams there. And soon.” He was, of course, uttering these words from a studio in the Northeast, with his finger firmly on the pulse of L.A. – from 2,800 miles away.

Now, unless things have recently changed, my understanding of our society is that it is based upon free enterprise, which in turn is captive to the laws of supply and demand. So I have to ask…where’s the demand?

See, I talk about sports a lot. As do most of the people that I talk with. But I can only recall one conversation during which someone said to me anything remotely along the lines of “Won’t it be great when L.A. gets an NFL team?” Curiously enough, that person happens to work for one of the two organizations vying to secure just such a thing.

Don’t get me wrong – people here do show support for NFL football in great numbers, proudly wearing their logo’ed apparel on the way to their favorite tavern on Sunday afternoons in season. But they’re diehard fans of the teams located in the cities from which they’ve emigrated. There are Packers bars. There are Steelers bars. Bears bars, Giants bars, Patriots bars. Hey, Raiders bars even come complete with full-time bail bondsmen on staff! I’m not thinking that a new NFL team in town is going to displace that kind of lifelong devotion to the teams folks grew up with.

As for the rest of us, there are two potential options currently being bandied about for a facility that will house Our Very Own Team(s).

The first is a plan to construct an enormous shoehorn, which will in turn be used to squeeze an NFL stadium into the already quite cozy entertainment district of Downtown L.A. For the purposes of discussion, I’m willing to set aside the fact that the interchange of freeways that would deliver 68,000 people more or less simultaneously to this engineering marvel was recently named the most congested stretch of road in America. And for a Monday Night Football game, this onslaught of humanity would take place at roughly 5:00 PM – you know, a time when there’s not much going on in terms of other traffic.

No, of much more importance is this question…where would people tailgate? Nothing says “Authentic American Experience” quite like dropping the tailgate and sparking up a grill on the middle floor of a 12-story parking garage.  

The second alternative lies further east, in a place called City of Industry. Roughly 31 miles separate City of Industry from Century City. Google Maps indicates that the drive takes roughly 40 minutes (or 4 hours, 35 minutes in traffic). Why does this matter? Because Century City is roughly the geographical center of L.A.’s Westside. And as “Slick Willie” Sutton is rumored to have said when asked why he robbed banks –“Because that’s where the money is!”

I’ve got a nagging suspicion that the economic movers and shakers of greater metropolitan L.A. are not chomping at the bit to drive through Downtown on their way out to a place called City of Industry in the picture-perfect weather that typifies an autumn Sunday.

This is all irrelevant to the bigger picture though. The fact is that the NFL needs our eyeballs, and who are we to withhold them? After all, it’s not like there’s really much else for us to do on Sundays…

To be concluded in next post…