The annual frenzy known as March Madness is now over and a new national championship team wears the crown. The tournament comes by its frenetic name quite naturally because year after year virtually anything might happen as one college battles another. Unlike football that has become somewhat predictable and mostly the domain of universities with large amounts of money to spend, basketball is a sport that is still open to even small somewhat unknown schools. Whether public or private, it doesn’t seem to matter because as the minutes on the clock tick down nothing about the ending is ever certain. More than one Cinderella team has scored a victory in the final seconds making the game  of round ball perhaps the most exciting sport on the planet.

Last night Villanova proved once again that all it takes is one sensational play just before the buzzer to humble giants. In an historic victory the team surprised North Carolina by scoring the first ever three point buzzer beater to become the national championship team in the men’s Division I with a score of 77 to 74. Ironically another Villanova team had won the national title way back in 1985 in another stunning upset over then ten point favorite, Georgetown University. It was not their first time to be a spoiler.

I suppose that if you live in the eastern part of the United States you might have known about Villanova before this year’s tournament but most of us had to turn to Google to get an idea of where the school is located. It ends up that it is a private Catholic university in a suburb of Philadelphia founded in the mid nineteenth century by members of the order of St. Augustine. It is a rather exclusive college unlike the team that it defeated last night or the one that it humiliated on Saturday. I suspect that there is a great deal of handwringing this morning and mumblings of “what if” in North Carolina.  Second guesses are part and parcel of sporting events but few games create more of them than basketball. The margin between victory and devastating loss is so often measured in milliseconds. There are not many other sporting events that move so quickly and take our breaths away in such a stunning manner. No score is carved in stone until we hear the obnoxious sound of that buzzer alerting us that our favorite team has either won the day or lost in a heart wrenching last play.

In all honesty I was not particularly excited or even interested in this year’s Final Four games other than the fact that they were being hosted right here in Houston. It was a beautiful weekend with Chamber of Commerce perfect weather so I suspect that our city charmed a few people who came to watch the events. I know that ours is a friendly place filled with some of the best food in the country so hopefully our guests had a good time. As for the games, the teams that I was supporting fell short quite early in the tournament. Ultimately I chose to cheer on Syracuse only because one of my most favorite former students had graduated from there and Mike and I had been treated very hospitably when we attended her commencement. Besides, Purdue and the University of Houston which would have been my favorites were nowhere to be found in the pack. When Syracuse lost to Villanova on Saturday I didn’t take the defeat too personally. I wasn’t schooled enough to understand that their rivalry is one that goes way back in time. I was mostly disappointed that Oklahoma had gone down so horribly to North Carolina, a state with another university that once broke my heart in the very same tournament. As is the case year after year when the cold winds of March bring the annual fete of basketball madness my mind always goes back to 1983 when the University of Houston with its Phi Slama Jama team played North Carolina State for the championship.

I was taking classes at UH at the time and I often saw the Cougars’ star players Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler walking, or should I say gliding, across campus. The team under the coaching direction of Guy Lewis was known for its slam dunking fast breaking plays which gave them their nickname, “Texas’s Tallest Fraternity.” Aside from being incredible athletes the players were known as real gentlemen and when I ended up in a class with Clyde Drexler I found that reputation to be one hundred percent true.

Those were exciting times at the University of Houston when we were still part of the old Southwest Conference and our school was a dominating force in football, golf, track and basketball. Our athletes were putting our college on the map as were our Schools of Education, Architecture, Political Science and Psychology. Still some of the long standing members of our conference saw us as inferior and even a bit coarse and unrefined. It was quite wonderful to have the young men of Phi Slama Jama representing all of us so grandly. When they made it all the way to the championship game it was one of the most wonderful moments in the history of the school. All eyes were on our gifted athletes and they maintained their composure, doing what they did so well all the way to the last seconds of the final game. From out of nowhere a North Carolina State player threw an airball that was recovered by a more senior player who easily dunked it into the hoop to take a two point lead with no time left for our guys to retaliate. That sickening, stomach punch moment has been replayed over and over and over again in my mind and on sports programs as one of the most shocking upsets of all time. I suspect that last night’s buzzer win by Villanova may become the new example of heartbreaking defeat perhaps leaving the University of Houston’s dark moment to more distant memory. 

I still feel the pain of that loss even thirty odd years later. I remember standing slack jawed in the den of my old house with the wind sucked out of me. The whole thing happened before I even realized how it was going to turn out. That disappointment stayed with me until the day when Hakeem and Clyde joined forces on the Houston Rockets to finally win a title together. There was poetic justice in that victory. It was as though they had exorcised the nightmare that they had experienced in college and for those of us who were Cougars there was a special joy in knowing that they had finally brought a championship to our city.

I am someone who has a very difficult time sitting still for long. I suppose that is why I enjoy basketball more than any other sport. It’s fast and with that speed can come instant heartbreak or unbridled ecstasy. There are few games that are more exciting which is probably why March Madness is so popular. For a few weeks each year it truly is an opportunity for any team to come from seemingly nowhere to exalt in glory. It is a game that allows even small universities to compete with those that invest millions of dollars each year into their athletic programs. It is a game that levels the playing field and showcases the talents of young men who sometimes polished their skills in city parks when they were only boys. In some ways it is the most democratic of our sports. All anyone needs to play is a hoop and a ball and a will to learn. The game of basketball has the capacity to propel someone like Clyde Drexler from the streets and parks of southeast Houston to the halls of fame. It is a sport where dreams can come true.