Men will never understand pocketbooks. Women will never understand college basketball T-shirts.
Men will never understand why a 100-pound woman must carry a 35-pound satchel wherever she goes, even if it is to the supermarket for a simple quart of milk. Do they really need all that … stuff? Women will never understand why a man will hang on to a Gonzaga basketball T-shirt until there are more holes than shirt.
They just don’t understand.
Now that NCAA basketball is starting, we, the roundball delirious, move those historic garments to the top of the T-shirt pile. Blue Eyes hates when I wear those shirts because they are not “flattering,” like that makes any difference at this stage of the game. I try to explain the value of these shirts, but she just doesn’t understand.
She doesn’t understand that for the past 25 years March has meant Red Sox Spring training, yes, but also March Madness, the NCAA basketball tournament. That’s when we all have pools, side bets and sentimental favorites. It only takes five players to make a basketball team. That allows a “Cinderella team” to catch fire and knock off the biggest powerhouses in the country. If that team can pull off that stunning upset, maybe the underdogs among us can make it, maybe even win the lottery.
A special day in March was always breakfast at the Waffle House reading USA Today with their matchless NCAA tournament coverage. When your special team won a huge game against a top 10 opponent, you celebrated … then bought the T-shirt. It’s a man thing.
Take those Gonzaga shirts. I have several. I had never heard of the Spokane-based Jesuit school until it started knocking off a big time opponent every year. It did it so often that Gonzaga is no longer an underdog. I have several decaying, holy “Zag” shirts.
It was the 1999 tournament when I discovered Gonzaga. The team beat seventh-seeded Minnesota 75-63; beat second-seeded Stanford 73-72, then sixth-seeded Florida 73-72 before losing to eventual champ and top-seeded Connecticut 67-62. In 2001, the team beat fifth-seeded Virginia 86-85, 13th-seeded Indiana State 85-68, and then lost to eventual champ and No. 1 seed Michigan State 77-62.
Gonzaga wouldn’t take anyone by surprise again.
“What’s a Valpo?” Blue Eyes used to ask when I wore that treasured T-shirt.
Valparaiso was another college that came out of nowhere to start knocking off the giants. It made its bones in 1998 when then 13th-seeded Valpo trimmed fourth-seeded Mississippi, 70-69. The team toppled giant Florida State before losing to Rhode Island, of all teams.
Give me two, triple XL.
Butler was another team that came out of nowhere to stun the NCAA tournament. It beat North Carolina, and then almost beat Duke for the national championship in 2010. If I remember, Gordon Hayward just missed the last second three-pointer. I was watching, screaming from a Fort Myers sports bar.The underdog Butler made the Final Four in 2010 and 2011. The Celtics were so impressed with Butler coach Brad Stevens that they hired him as coach.
That damned Jefferson Phil was always winning those basketball pools. I didn’t know that he actually went to Wisconsin-Milwaukee until years later, after Milwaukee beat Boston College, then Texas in the same week. No one else had Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the pool. He did. I had never heard of the school.
I think Phil won some money and I got him a T-shirt when I ordered mine. It seemed that Wisconsin-Milwaukee coach Bruce Pearl had attended Boston College and started as an assistant coach there. The Panthers fell to eventual runner-up Illinois that year, and Pearl left Wisconsin-Milwaukee for Tennessee.
I only got to a few NCAA tournament games because they are so expensive and are usually a half continent away. But in 2011, I did attend the Princeton (yes, Princeton) game against national champ Kentucky, a game in nearby St. Petersburg. Princeton had maybe 50 loyal fans compared to Kentucky’s well known traveling army. But Princeton hung on until the last second before falling 59-57 on a Brandon Knight layup. Knight had missed his first seven shots, giving Princeton life. That game was so thrilling that I bought two blue Kentucky shirts.
I had to have them.
I had been hanging around Fort Myers for 20 years and never heard of Florida Gulf Coast University. That was because the team was only two years old in 2013. Florida Gulf Coast was delightful, nicknamed “Dunk City” and blasting perennial powers in the Big Dance. That school burst upon the basketball world when it knocked off the No. 2-seeded Georgetown Hoyas. The swagger and highlight-reel dunks were something to behold for the first No. 15 seed to reach the Sweet 16 after beating No. 7 San Diego State in the Round of 32. Florida Gulf Coast was in just its second season of Division I tournament eligibility.
Florida Gulf Coast made me money. I bought the shirt.
I treasure these ratty shirts. They will be with me forever, and she will never understand.
Women just don’t get it.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the BDN in Rockland for 30 years.