Over the years, I’ve been very involved covering and consuming the NCAA Tournament. But it wasn’t always that way — just because you have a decade’s worth of “Super Awesome Bracket Cups” at your apartment and newspapers from the previous decade charting the big dance, doesn’t mean you’re obsessive in any way, right?
I mean, I wrote lyrics to the “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Magnum P.I.” theme songs as well … but I digress.
The first time I remember being dialed into the NCAA Tournament was a pivotal year — 1981 was the final March that NBC had the contract before CBS would be taking over (sadly, the melody that sparked my “CBS College Basketball” lyrics wouldn’t debut until 1993).
My dad had a connection with DePaul (which entered the tournament ranked No. 1), because he was an airline pilot, and the Blue Demons were on one of his flights (sadly, I’ve lost the media guide he passed along to me).
Everyone was ready for the Blue Demons to make a deep tournament run with Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings. However, they lost to St. Joe’s 49-48 as my dad cursed at the TV (he may have had money on the game; I’ll never know).
Later in the day, NBC then switched us from Arkansas’ U.S. Reed’s half-court shot to beat defending champ Louisville to Rolando Blackman’s buzzer-beating winner against the West region’s No. 1 seed, Oregon State.
With satellite technology, a collection of eight subregional and four regional brackets became national in the 1980s. And there wasn’t anything that was going to stop my enjoyment of the Big Dance.
I was watching “The Guiding Light” on the day of the NCAA Championship Game — Indiana was going to play North Carolina — and as is the case on most Mondays, GL had ridden a cliffhanger through the weekend.
It involved a murder trial, the revelation of a character’s parentage, and a miscarriage in court. Only the show was interrupted due to a CBS Newsbreak: John Hinckley had fired six shots at President Ronald Reagan, and we knew that he hit three people at the scene, while the president was being rushed in a limousine to the hospital.
That meant my 83-year old Aunt Sade didn’t know what was going on with her “stories” until Tuesday. But the shooting of a 70-year old president did NOT prevent the NCAA from playing basketball.
Not only would Indiana beat North Carolina 63-50 to win the championship, but the NCAA would also hold its “National Third Place Game” between Virginia and LSU. Hold on — a consolation game took precedent over a shot President?
As we know, Reagan would pull through, the tournament would take off on CBS, and Alan Spaulding was Amanda Wexler’s father (Aunt Sade would want you to know).
March Memories looks back to 1981 when the dance wasn’t that big, but still played a consolation game after the President was shot.
