Mondays inherently inspire grumbling and frowns, and deservedly so.
The next Monday on the calendar brings us that, as well as great joy and anticipation. It’s like Monday and Friday in one.
All day, people will talk about what happened Saturday night and what they think will happen Monday night.
But then around 10 p.m. or so on Monday, when the real version of “One Shining Moment” comes to its goose-bump conclusion and we all near the end of our postgame analysis ... the sports year, for many, becomes a little depressing.
As the final notes of the song drift to the end, so concludes this nearly perfect event. And, man, that wooshing sound is the air speeding out of the balloon.
If you’re not much into the first 30 percent of the baseball season or the Masters -- and figures show that more aren’t than are -- or the NBA’s lengthy conclusion, the clock starts ticking to another great time of the year: pennant races heat up and football practice starts.
But goodness, that gap can be painful. Throw in an angry Mother Nature and the heat competing with the humidity, and it’s painful.
Take Saturday. Sun, flowers blooming all over the place, the smell of cut grass (in some places) and the NCAA tournament semifinals.
Man, you wish your house had a retractable roof for just such a blessing.
My NCAA debut was back in 1985, while based in Louisiana.
Women’s hoops was in a special era, with Louisiana Tech as a national power but getting a run from its rival 35 miles to the east, Northeast Louisiana.
Back then, you had opening rounds in Ruston, La. -- picture Forsyth with a college -- and Monroe, La., and it was some pretty good basketball.
Those two teams played three times that season, to no less than 8,000 fans each time, including a regional final in Ruston with some of the best women’s players of that time.
The clincher came four years later, quite a year for the state, which put four teams -- Southern, McNeese State, Louisiana Tech and LSU -- into the NCAA tournament. And God bless them, those in charge sent a writer with every team.
My draw was McNeese State, which lost to Illinois in Indianapolis in the first round. The hotel was renovated train cars within walking distance of the then-Hoosier Dome.
Walk into a huge venue like that for the first time under those circumstances, and you’ll get hooked, line and sinker. One doesn’t need a team to get amped at a tournament weekend.
My Atlanta debut came a year or two later, and the memory is of St. John’s head coach Lou Carnesecca swearing so hard, cops were blushing.
And then following Georgia Tech to St. Louis and finally San Antonio in 2004 was about as fun as it gets.
It has grown to almost bond the nation’s sports fans, and conversations begin, “Man, how about (fill in the blank)?” for nearly a month.
Every year, we’re riveted, whether it’s the new kids on the block, the evil empires, the cheaters or the old-timer who is finally getting some attention.
I’m trying to figure out if it would be better this weekend to be in Houston, Richmond, Indianapolis, Hartford or Lexington.
OK, not Lexington. Too much blue Kool-Aid.
To be in either the city of the event or the home of a participating team is to be surrounded by electricity. It’s just enthralling.
Of course, almost anywhere is a good place to watch the Final Four, or most any Thursday-Sunday span during the tournament. It gives us joy and memories every single year.
As for this one, it’s pretty simple: good (as far as we know) against evil. You wonder if the NCAA has investigators sitting on the Kentucky and Connecticut benches and if Brad Stevens and Shaka Smart have to pull out ID to prove they are who they say they are.
Yes, good can hang with evil, or good wouldn’t have gotten this far. Here’s hoping there are 40 more magical minutes in those bodies.
It’ll make Black Tuesday more acceptable.
Contact Michael A. Lough at 744-4626 or mlough@macon.com
