Nothing But Iron: Orange Hush April 24, 2005 by Steven R. Lagman, M.D., C.A.S.W. If you’re in the market for stale sportswriting, you’ve come to the right place. The good news, despite the mold, is that the price is right. If you want up to the minute, edge cutting, CNNesque (pronounced cienenesk) coverage, it’s gonna cost you big, or at least a few unblockable pop-up ads for stuff you would never buy in a million years like supposed privacy software that actually puts spyware on your computer. So let me know if you want me to tighten up the deadlines. In case you wonder where I have been, I will tell you that its none of your damn business that I am a gardener, or as my smart-ass brother, Bruce puts it, a male gardener. Yeah, I can hear the snickering and the jokes about pastel aprons and floral gloves, but I am proud of my agrarian existence. Besides, as a grower of consumable crops I realize the following advantages: 1) I have ready access to food that is so good that most of you would not even think to dream about it. 2) If the next Great Depression hits, you’ll be begging to come to my soup kitchen. Bruce, you’ll starve. 3) It’s good exercise. 4) It relieves the stress of being a sportswriter. 5) One flower = 100 husband points, redeemable for all sorts of good stuff. 6) It’s a lot easier, speaking of snickering, than learning tennis. 7) It relieves the stress of learning tennis. Most of all, as a scientist by academic upbringing, I garden for the science. Gardening is little more than a collection of informal scientific experiments. And now, an outdated, but low-priced word about basketball season . . . It’s funny how your archest of arch rivals become your buddies when an enemy of the next order arises. When you’re five, you think the Magic Taffies Elite Soccer Club is the personification of evil. Then you’re seven, you like the YMCA Blue Team way less than steamed Brussel sprouts because Blue beat you both times that year. At 12 the enemy is called Queen of the Blessed Sacrament or Thoreau Middle School. Then, at seventeen, it is Verona High or Madison West or Milwaukee Pius. Suddenly, having breached the threshold of adulthood, you despise the Fighting Illini and the Spartans, not because you personally play against them, but because the team to which you pledge your allegiance does. Then someone comes along and pokes fun at the Big Ten Conference, and before you can say trick-or-treat, Michigan State fans don orange, and Illinois fans break out their St. Patty’s Day best. One such follower, Wally Dewey, who is actually a legitimate redophilic (just to clarify, that’s psuedo-Latin for red loving) Wisconsin fan, but also a supportive husband of his wife Londa, who is a Wisconsin fan of indelible Illini heritage, wore orange under a classic bile green Spartans sweatshirt, that he later described as "that Michigan State crap." He said he did not know what to do with his used Michigan State crap. I suggested that he wear it when he unplugs the toilet. For that matter, he could use it to unplug the toilet. Alternatively, especially if his household plumbing works well, he could save the shirt for next year, when shortsighted pundits again malign our conference–yeah, they were good for awhile, but an ACC team took down three Big Tens in succession. Let’s hope that multiple Big Ten teams go deep into the tournament again, prompting prideful Big Ten fans to share colors and allegiances once more. Of course, if that doesn’t happen, there’s always St. Patty’s Day. For the record, I stuck to traditional red on the nights of the semifinal and championship games, as I had during most nights during March Madness, not to mention most nights of the regular season and most nights of the off season before that. For the record, we all, including North Carolina fans and ever-unpopular Coach Roy and annoying self-proclaimed sports experts, have contempt for Osama bin Laden, Iraqi insurgents and other earth scum. At least until laser-toting aliens arrive from the planet Nebulon to threaten us all. It was only slightly surprising that the NCAA semi-finals lacked the suspense of the prior weekend or of the tourney in general. Even fantasy-reality television would have had a hard time sustaining the kind of drama we saw in the first four rounds. I was more disappointed that Michigan State’s loss–I know this is sick–failed to bring me the satisfaction to which I have become accustomed. Yes, even I was entangled in conference loyalty, regardless of the specific representative. The Spartans, like the Badgers before them and the Illini after them, had their chances against UNC, but the Heels were just too good. They had a little help from the Spartans and from the Illini, who could have played better or smarter. Of the Big Ten’s Elite Eighters only Wisconsin played close to its potential against the Tar Heels. Credit Illinois for fighting back to make the championship game worthy of its billing. Credit the Tar Heels for fighting back the surge. It took a lot of poise to avoid Arizona’s fate. As predicted by many, there was no answer for Sean May, who, by the way, is absolutely stark-raving-living-in-la-la-land nuts for not going to the NBA or the NFL this very minute. He is ready. He as the strength, the shooting touch, and the court sense to earn ridiculously large amounts of money. But I know, it’s not all about the money. It’s about a commitment to his team. It’s about a new mission to win back-to-back championships. It’s about getting a degree in case the savings from his $50,000,000 pro salary are exhausted after 175 years or so. In short, it’s about blah blah blah. May has a chance to earn eight figures for playing basketball–something a lesser-abled athletes do for free. May will do it for room, board and tuition all the while risking career- and bank-account-ending injury? Do I say this because I really care about the welfare of Sean May, or because I want him to go to the next level where he can pick on kids his own size? Well, what do you think? Speaking of the NBA, Illinois’s Deron Williams looks to be a foregone conclusion. Good decision, and I say that again with no ulterior motive in mind. He had a great and ultimately profitable tournament. With a little luck, and, say, five or six more defections, the Illini could spend next year talking about how they were just a five or six players away from winning it all. I see no good reason that the whole Illini starting five should not consider making the jump. James "Hacker" Augustine could use the extra foul. On that note, what poor examples of self restraint on his third and fourth fouls. I will save those video clips in my Crappy Defense teaching file. Tell James my kids appreciate the material. I know I am being critical, and I really shouldn’t be, because Illinois, including Augustine, put together one of the most impressive seasons of any Big Ten team in history. As a basketball fan, I do respect that. _____________ Nothing But Iron is an amateur sports column. The author, a jokester, but enthusiastic hater of spyware, promises to never put malicious software on your computer. As if he would know how. ©2005. DrTM Enterprises. All rights reserved, including the right to spend more time in the back yard than in front of the computer keyboard.