a lesson in history, and much more, thanks to bball

I did it! I really haven’t been this excited about something in awhile!! For those of you who missed my previous post, I decided to fill out March Madness brackets, solely on the basis of which mascot could beat up the other mascot. I think the coolest part about this whole process was actually finding out the nicknames of the teams, and then, with the weird ones, finding out what the names actually mean. How many of us have wondered, but never actually asked: What the heck is a Tar Heel?

First, I consulted this Web site which was very helpful in identifying which nickname/mascot belonged where. Just perusing the listing itself is a fun adventure. Lots of Bulldogs, Eagles, and Tigers, but the best college nicknames include the Banana Slugs, Dirtbags, Koalas, Missionaries, and Poets… with the Banana Slugs being my personal favorite.

Now, a few lessons in U.S. history, courtesy our NCAA college basketball system:

• What exactly is a Tar Heel (UNC)? Well! From what I understand, it has something to do with the Civil War, and Virginia and North Carolina were fighting side by side, then the Virginians got scaredy-cat and left the battle field. Then, evidently there was some heated conversation where a Virginian asked a North Carolinian if there was any tar left in the state, and the NC guy said something to the effect of "No, we sold it all to Jefferson Davis so he could put it on your heels so you'd stick around in a fight." So basically, if you have tar on your heels, you fight it out until the bitter end.
• A Sooner (Oklahoma) is a settler, claiming land in the South. I guess Sooners stake out their land very quickly and aggressively? Sooner rather than later? The mascot for OU is the "Sooner Schooner" which is a covered wagon.
• A Volunteer (Tennessee) is kind of what I expected, someone who was brave enough to volunteer for the Revolutionary War.

Some other things you probably didn’t know:

• A razorback (University of Arkansas) is a feral pig. I thought it was a snapping turtle or a snake or something, but I was wrong.
• The vast number of schools that have “fancy names” where you can’t really tell what it is, are actually bears. The Cornell Big Red and the UCLA Bruins are good examples.
• Hoosier is a resident of Indiana. I guess they didn’t like Indiana-ian? Indiana-er?
• The mascot for the Davidson College Wildcats, a la Cosmo the Cougar at BYU, is named “Mr. Cat,” which I think is really funny.
• Stanford is a Cardinal – the color, not the bird. The mascot is a tree. How weird is that?
• Western Kentucky University are the Hilltoppers. What’s that? You’d think maybe it’s another name for a mountaineer or a fierce Alps-dwelling St. Bernard, but no. Turns out the University itself was once a gathering of buildings, and then they decided to move the university to the top of a hill where a new gathering of buildings was constructed. Hence, all WKU students are Hilltoppers. The funniest part, however, is that whoever authored the WKU Wikipedia article humorously refers to the mascot as an "amorphous red blob," which didn’t really mean anything until I saw this…

Hahahahaha!

Now, onto more serious matters.

Some of the difficult decisions in the course of my picks include:

• Interestingly enough, two of the matchups were the exact same. The UCLA Bruins against the Mississippi Valley State Devils, and the Belmont Bruins against the Duke Blue Devils. I’m sure one could argue that the two “devils” On the Road to San Antonio could possibly wreak the most havoc. Of course, the “Devil” himself is a bad guy and there’s no arguing there. But, I guess, for this purpose, I imagined a “devil” as an obnoxious little kid dressed up on Halloween just poking me in the rear with a pitchfork and laughing. You can see why I’d have the Bruins win both times.
• A Hoya (Georgetown) and a Retreiver (UMBC) are both dogs... so I feel a bit like Michael Vick trying to make a decision here. Plus, whichever I choose, goes on to face a Bulldog (Gonzaga, beating the aforementioned Davidson Wildcats), so there is still more dogfighting and I'm still Michael Vick. This made me start to feel a little uneasy.
• To solve this conundrum, the rational thing would be to check out which team was ranked higher, and pick that team. But not me! I found their athletics logos and decided which one looked tougher. Take Baylor’s Bears vs. Belmont’s Bruins, for example. No contest, the Belmont bear would totally win that battle.

So, what were my final choices, you ask? My final four are the Cougars (WSU), Tigers (Clemson), Hurricanes (Miami), and Bruins (UCLA). WSU and Miami advance, and Miami takes all. I guess the truth is, a UCLA Bruin or a WSU Cougar could weather the hurricane and live to tell the tale, but they certainly won’t be doing much during the fight. Hence, the hurricane is victorious.

I’ve always been a little intrigued by natural disasters. I think they are terrific mascots that strike fear in the hearts of the competition. In fact, before 2006, I was a big fan of the word “tsunami,” and thought that would be such a great mascot! Unfortunately, there was a pretty serious and awful tsunami, and I’d feel guilty buying a Little League team and calling them the Tsunamis. But, luckily (or unluckily?), Miami is a hurricane and, as we all know so well, not much can stack up against a hurricane. They’re taking it all, baby!

Go Miami!