March Madness? No Kidding!

By Rick Horowitz

It's an outrage! That's what it is -- an outrage! I mean, I just couldn't believe it when they put the names up on TV.

They had this team and that team and this other team. They had 64 teams -- 64 teams -- fighting for the biggest prize in basketball, and you're telling me they didn't have any room for the Phrantic Phrasemakers of Rick's Correspondence College and Sandwich Academy?

Who's running this tournament anyway, morons?!

We had one of our best seasons in years, no question about it. A couple of breaks here and there, we could be talking about going all the way -- Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four...who knows? And now our kids are supposed to go home and watch everybody else playing for all the marbles? Ridiculous!

I told our kids right after the last game they've got nothing to be embarrassed about. I mean, they've got a couple of things to be embarrassed about, but nothing that made it into the papers, so what difference does it make?

They played hard all year long, and that's exactly the kind of spirit we were looking for. When Teddy Ray Parquet tore up those knee ligaments early in the season? That was just his enthusiasm taking over. And I'll tell you this: It would never have happened if that other kid hadn't stared at him that way.

Teddy just lost it for a minute, that's all, but did he go visit that kid in the hospital and sign his cast? Of course he did! That's just the kind of kid Teddy is -- and think what we could have done if he hadn't been out those 15 games for aggravated assault.

Meanwhile, you talk about impact players, you have to talk about Sakeem ("The Extreme") Dupree. It wasn't just all the backboards he shattered everywhere we went, but the way gave this team instant respectability, especially on the road. If you ask me, that thing with the dwarf was blown completely out of proportion.

It's all about image anyway, that's the trouble with this tournament. We've got a kid here -- I'm talking about Edgar Stifsky -- who can outdribble any point guard in the Big Ten, the Big East, the Big West, you name it. So the dribbling gets his chin all wet, and sometimes he makes puddles at the foul line -- big deal! Is that any reason to keep a team off TV for two years?!

Of course we had some other disappointments, too -- I guess the biggest was probably Bicuspidov. When we signed Grigor Bicuspidov from Kazakhstan last summer, we realized we were getting a pretty raw talent, but we figured it's not every day you can bring in a kid who's 8-foot-5. How did we know he was afraid of heights?

All in all, though, the kids have been absolutely tremendous, and what can you say about Coach that hasn't been said a million times before in the police reports?

Think what you want about the man, but "Skip" Townes gets more out of a ball club than any coach I've ever had the privilege of working with. Some guys do it with motivational speeches in the locker room, other guys do it with electric cattle prods -- who's to say who's right? And the trainer says the scars aren't even permanent.

All I know is this: We played Tracy's Barber College to a standstill for almost 15 minutes last month. Tracy's threw a real scare into Mt. Mercy A&T, who nearly upset Sensodyne, who stuck it to U. Wish, who beat Siskel-Ebert in overtime, who once shared a plane with Kansas, who are No. 1. in the entire country. I rest my case.

We're the best darn 3-26 team out there.

3/9/97

©1997 Rick Horowitz. All rights reserved.