Idle chatter while waiting for a mass meltdown so these poor high school kids can get outside and play …
As a Northeastern graduate, I learned very early in the game that if there was one school in Boston to hate, it was Boston University.
It didn’t matter that the Terriers were miles ahead of us in hockey. In every other sport, the schools were competitive with each other.
Forget Boston College. By the end of the 1960s, BC had committed to separating itself from the rest of the Boston pack in football and basketball, making parity impossible. And even though the Eagles have not have an easy decade in either sports, they are still miles ahead of what’s left of the BU/NU axis. Harvard is in this mix too, but it’s hard to work up a good hatred for the Crimson. They were always the team we’d root for in the Beanpot when they were paying either BC or BU.
This year, Northeastern was fortunate enough to make the NCAAs in hockey and lost right away Saturday to Michigan. Providence fell to Notre Dame.
This means that this Husky devotee had to root for BU Sunday so that the Eastern U.S. could rescue a shred of dignity to this year’s Frozen Four.
Alas, it was not to be. The Wolverines won, 6-3, meaning the Frozen Four will be a Midwest-West showdown.
I make no bones about my love for all things Notre Dame, so guess who I’m pulling for in two weeks?
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Sister Jean (real name Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt) has inspired the Loyola-Chicago college basketball team to make the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four.
Anyone from Lynn who attended Sacred Heart School in the 1960s and 70s, or who attended religious education classes, will certainly remember Sister Odilla (also known as Sister Mary Beatrice).
As a child in Revere, Sister Odilla grew up as the only girl in a house full of boys. She learned early how to deal with rough-and-tumble elementary-school boys, and consequently, developed a reputation as the sixth-grade teacher at Sacred Heart of giving boys more of a break, let’s say, than many other nuns might.
I read about Sister Jean and automatically see Sister Odilla. I can see her in the huddle with all these basketball players, giving them what-for when they make mistakes.
I’m sure other Catholic school graduates, from other parishes and communities, have come across nuns who seemed to have a tomboy streak in them.
I’d imagine that all of us, unless there’s a compelling reason to root for another of the Final Four teams, will be pulling for the Ramblers Saturday against Michigan.
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And while we’re on the subject of the NCAAs, the haughty superiority of the Atlantic Coast Conference in college basketball has always rivaled, to me, the similar attitude of the Southeastern Conference in football.
And while I’ve grown disenchanted with the cesspool that is college basketball (all college sports, really), and have not greeted this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament with as much enthusiasm as I have in recent years, I’ve snuck a peek. It’s difficult to avoid this thing entirely.
And it is very refreshing to me to see a Final Four that doesn’t contain an ACC team. Thanks to both Michigan and Kansas for making that happen.
The final score stands with one Big Ten team (Michigan) one Big East (Villanova), one Big 12 (Kansas) and one Missouri Valley Conference (Loyola).
One of these years, a mid-major is going to win this thing. Maybe Sister Jean can make that happen.
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As we make the rounds of high school coaches for preseason previews, the sentiment has been raised, more than once, that maybe the MIAA could push the start of spring sports up a week so that there would be a better chance to let things warm up and the snow melt.
It sounds good in theory. But I’m not sure it would really work well. These seasons are slotted (some might even say jammed) very tightly with a myriad of considerations factored in. And in the spring, those considerations include proms and graduations. It’s tough enough to plan tournament games around proms, senior outings, and graduations. It would be commensurately worse to try and do that if more teams were still playing.
I’ve always thought, by the way, that the toughest of the three seasons for coaching is the spring. And you have a senior-heavy team in the spring, it’s even tougher because — quite rightly — seniors have other things on their minds besides sports. They have to be really locked in to what they’re doing, because it’s a real balancing act.