Was It Just Basketball?
If it had been a movie, Butler’s Gordon Hayward’s last shot would have gone in. But it wasn’t a movie, it was real life. It was the NCAA Championship game and real life spoiled things for an amazing Butler team, for about 60,000 (out of the 70,000) people in the arena, and for millions of people the country who were rooting for the little school that almost could. The score was close the whole game, and Duke’s winning 52-50 probably made the defeat all the more painful for Butler.
If it had been a movie, Butler’s Gordon Hayward’s last shot would have gone in. But it wasn’t a movie, it was real life. It was the NCAA Championship game and real life spoiled things for an amazing Butler team, for about 60,000 (out of the 70,000) people in the arena, and for millions of people the country who were rooting for the little school that almost could. The score was close the whole game, and Duke’s winning 52-50 probably made the defeat all the more painful for Butler.
It was an excitingly emotional game. Up and down, tied, up and down some more. It was the kind of game you didn’t want to end. Butler University, a school only a few miles from the arena, a school with about 4,000 students, was considered the underdog this season no matter whom they played and no matter how high their ranking soared in the national polls. People love an underdog. In sports and in life. We get much more excited to hear a success story about someone who started with nothing rather than one about a kid who was born rich and then succeeded.
The non-sports fans always seem to ask why people who are seemingly mature in other ways will get so involved in a game. They don’t understand that getting so involved in sports, getting so wrapped up in watching a game, is a great break from the realities of life. In those last few minutes of the Championship game, I guarantee you nobody there was thinking about the economy, foreign policy, or whether their kid had married the right person. They were either rooting for a team they had cheered on for years or for a team they felt symbolized the optimistic mantra of “Anything’s possible.” And maybe then they felt that anything’s possible for them. Maybe they can solve those problems in the “real world,” maybe they can get a job or a promotion, maybe they can get that person at work to smile at them.
It was fitting that Butler’s Hayward took that final half-court shot. Butler has often been compared to the school in the movie “Hoosiers.” If so, then Gordon Hayward was “Jimmy,” the kid who could do almost anything with the basketball, a kid who looked so very Middle American in this sport that had its origin in Middle America.
After the game, I felt a little depressed as reality was slowly creeping into my mind. “I have to pack, would I make my plane connections tomorrow? (I didn’t), I have a lot of work to do when I get home,” etc.
Reality can be an annoying thing. It disturbs our dreams. It often spoils our good times. But for reality to join fantasy — like during an “unreal” basketball game — is a wonderful gift for those who are lucky enough to be present for it.
I was at that championship game in Indianapolis, and sitting behind me was a very tall man who looked like he had definitely played basketball. He turned out to be the Olathe, Kansas girls high school basketball coach (and science teacher) Joel Branstrom. A couple of months before this game, he had been in the news because of something that happened at a pep rally at his school. Some kids blindfolded him, then told him that if he could make a half-court shot, he’d win tickets to the Final Four. Branstrom, a former basketball walk-on for the University of Kansas, made the half-court shot blindfolded. The kids were shocked, and then admitted that they didn’t have any tickets for him. It was just a prank. There was that annoying reality again.
But somehow, the NCAA got wind of this whole thing and sent Branstrom tickets for the championship weekend. So there he was, sitting behind me with his family, a big smile on his face, watching one of the most exciting games in history. For him, reality had joined fantasy.
If it worked for him, if one of his dreams could come true, maybe it can work for the rest of us once in a while. Let’s face it: making a half-court shot blindfolded sounds impossible. It is impossible in the world of reality, but not in the world of sports.
By the way, when Gordon Hayward missed that long shot at the buzzer, I wonder if Branstrom was thinking, “How could he have missed that? He wasn’t even blindfolded.
Lloyd Garver has written for many television shows, ranging from “Sesame Street” to “Family Ties” to “Home Improvement” to “Frasier.” He has also read many books, some of them in hardcover. He can be reached at lloydgarver@gmail.com. Check out his website at lloydgarver.com and his podcasts on iTunes.
The Kora, A Unique Musical Instrument Growing In Popularity
The kora is a wonderful and vibrant sounding musical instrument originating in West Africa. It is growing in popularity in the U.S. and throughout the world. Still, many people are unfamiliar with the kora and will be surprised regarding its long-time history, associated culture and application in the African community.
The kora is a wonderful and vibrant sounding musical instrument originating in West Africa. It is growing in popularity in the U.S. and throughout the world. Still, many people are unfamiliar with the kora and will be surprised regarding its long-time history, associated culture and application in the African community.
The kora traditionally is an ancient African 21-stringed, bridge-harped musical instrument (although one may have 25 or 32 strings) usually made from a bottle-shaped gourd called calabash. The gourd is cut in half, the long way, and is then covered with [calf] skin to create a resonating sound. The strings used to be made of animal skins, e.g., antelope, but today nylon strings are often used.
The kora may be considered to be a cross or combination of a harp and lute, with a more harp-like sound and was often played at royal courts.
The oral tradition of the Mandinka, one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa, tells us that the kora originated after the founding of Kaabu sometime in the 16th Century. The instrument is played in Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso and The Gambia and is making its way around the world. The instrument may vary in size, shape and materials, from one nation to another.
Many kora players traditionally have come from griot [jali, or bard] families and also from the Mandinka tribes. Generally, 11 of the strings are played using the left hand, while 10 are played with the right. By moving leather rings up and down the neck of the kora, may retune the instrument into 1 of 4 seven-note scales, resembling Western major, minor and Lydian modes. Today, more koras have modern metal guitar machine heads rather than the leather rings.
The kora may sometimes resemble the shape of a sitar, an instrument played mostly in India and Pakistan, like those made by master kora-maker Alieu Suso of the Gambia, which may differ from those made in other regions of Western Africa and other areas of the world.
It takes time to learn how to master the kora and may take just as long to learn how to tune it. The player uses only the thumb and index finger of both hands to pluck the strings in polyrhythmic patterns, using the remaining fingers to secure the instrument by holding the hand posts on either side of the strings.
It would be good for more people to learn more about the kora, to view some photographs, gain some historical and cultural knowledge, as it is growing in popularity A good site to learn more about the kora, listen to its sound and even to order one is at:
<http://www.kora-music.com/e/frame.htm>
The kora has grown in popularity in the west and has been used in many styles of music, including blues and jazz, as with notable jazz musician Herbie Hancock.
The kora is not merely a musical instrument, but also is a part of West African culture that is being shared with and assimilated in the Western World.
Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood, Texas.
