Tarnished by the Touch
With all the money that
D-I men’s sports generates and the corruption that comes with it, the NCAA must
be giddy over the Loyola-Miami basketball game, a 64-62 thriller decided by a
deep—and I do mean deep—three-pointer by Loyola’s Donte Ingram with .3 seconds
left in the game. Too bad the media
covered it.
Loyola may have to wait
another 33 years to make its next NCAA tournament appearance. Coach Porter Moser could be eyeing a
big-school job like Louisville or UConn (as one sports-section cynic
speculated). Or Loyola could go the way
of DePaul and lose sight of what makes its program special (hint:
overachieving, well-coached athletes who look like they may have actually spent
some time in class). A thousand
calamities could befall Loyola the way they did Northwestern, last year’s
Cinderella not invited to this year’s dance.
You can only hope they enjoy the moment even as media coverage goes ever
so by-the-numbers.
Gosh, live remotes from
local bars to get fan reaction. That’s
pure 2015 Blackhawks, 2016 Cubs, 2017 Northwestern. Why not find some Loyola graduates serving in
Afghanistan, unless they’re too busy trying to stay alive to comment? Failing that, how about somebody in the local
media who happens to be a Loyola alum?
What, there aren’t any? In which
case, doesn’t that say something about how jobs get filled in this town.
The one, easy yet
unique story angle concerns Loyola’s chaplain, who happens to be a 98-year old
nun. Sports’ telecasts love showing nuns
for reasons I don’t quite understand; maybe it has something to do with the
habit some nuns wear to cover their heads.
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt wears one, and she sounds very sincere while
talking on-camera. It’s all about cute,
though I doubt anyone is paying attention to how sharp this nonagenarian
sounds. She emails scouting reports to
the players and reminds them to stay within their game.
That’s not cute. That’s someone being a role model for those
of us who hope to live to be Sister Jean’s age someday.
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