Jimmy Chitwood’s Last Dance

 Even if you don’t agree that Hoosiers is one of the greatest films of all time, aren’t a Gene Hackman or Dennis Hopper fan or just plain didn’t care for Ollie’s underhanded free throw stroke, the film embodies everything that we value in this fine Nation of ours and in the world of sports.  I think today is a pretty special day as March Madness as we know it has saved the best for last in tonight’s version of Hickory High vs South Bend Central.

The real 1954 Indiana State High School Basketball Championship team was indeed a small town in the most passionate basketball state in the World, but the school was actually Milan High School.  Their mascot was the Indians, not the Huskers. The team they beat in that miraculous state title run that is maybe the greatest David versus Goliath story ever told was actually the Muncie Central Bearcats. There is no real town of Hickory, IN, and Jimmy Chitwood was actually based on a player named Bobby Plump, but none of this really matters. In life perception is reality.  I perceive this to be the greatest NCAA Tournament I’ve seen in my lifetime in the final year before they mutilate this sports institution by expanding the field to a ghastly 96 teams in 2011.  Riddled with upsets, #1 seeds dropping like flies, the perennial overwhelming tourney favorite losing in the second round, it has been the most magical, enthralling form of chaos: Madness indeed.  I am ready for this last Shining Moment like a kid on Christmas Eve.  Just like with the Hickory Huskers, what matters is the metaphor this seismic pinnacle moment represents.

America was founded by a bunch of rebels, underdogs that grew weary of tyranny and sought liberation and freedom in a new land.  Eventually, those people got bored and found a way to amuse themselves and make money called “sports.”  Unfortunately, the New World the NCAA is leading us into is just another testament to corporate greed and the desecration of cultural institutions in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

The sad thing, the light that seems so lucid to me but is hard for the NCAA to see with dollar bills taped to their faces like eye patches, is that in preserving and nurturing our institutions instead of defiling them for short-term gain you actually make a ton more money in the end anyways.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?  Not to this kid, hoopster, coach, father, business owner, author, headhunter and social media evangelist.  That’s the point of its simplistic purity and beauty.  These are agnostic principles that govern everything we believe in as sports fans and Americans.

It’s about Jimmy hitting the last second shot and me bawling as an 18-year-old with the rest of my high school basketball team in Albuquerque, NM before taking the court for our state championship game.  It’s about another Jimmy, Jimmy Valvano, running around to find someone to hug in a wild explosion of triumph in that same city and building, The Pit, 12 years previous when his N.C. State team stunned the goliath of Houston’s Phi Slamma Jamma.  It’s the same reason I’ll be cheering for Butler tonight, why I picked them in my bracket to make the Final Four this year (although Baylor, Kansas and Kentucky helped me to finish close to the bottom of my pool), and it’s why I root loud for the flag and the troops and anything else that represents the holistic values we share as citizens and sports enthusiasts in this country.

It’s important to read this now, because after the game people will forget the point of the story, especially if Duke wins.  Butler wins either way, and it’s just the fact that they had the same opportunity to win 6 games and be called champion not because of their conference, their color, their uniform or their religious beliefs that makes it one of the most significant nights of sports in my lifetime.  Because they competed and were the best team and won on the floor, not with a suit and a checkbook in a boardroom.  That’s why we play the game in the first place, the desire to win.  My high school team lost that state championship game at the Albuquerque Academy in 1995 in New Mexico and it was devastating but it was also a vehicle for future success and was a major accomplishment in and of itself because I believed that it was.  In finishing 2nd we had a better year than every team in the state but one, who happened to be the Hickory High of our state that year, the Artesia Bulldogs.  What is Butler’s mascot?  The Butler Bulldogs.

On this glorious eve, a team from the very same university whose arena housed that magical 1954 title game, Butler University’s Hinkle Field House, takes the floor against the current prototype and embodiment of NCAA Basketball at its finest: Coach K and Duke University.  Oh yeah, the game tonight, happens to be in 2010’s version of Hinkle Field House, the massive RCA Dome in the very same state of Indiana.   It’s the movie Hoosiers, but way more important because it’s real life not Hollywood.  The reason it’s important is the same, and it’s why I’m busting out my old yellow and red Hickory Husker jersey at 8:36p Central this evening.

Let’s win one, one last time.  Let’s cut down the nets for Jimmy. After all, Bobby Plump is a Butler alum.

Mateo Marquez
President
iMMpact Talent Partners