I don't know how hitters connect on a moving baseball. The type of reflex action it takes, I just don't understand how it is done. It's superhuman. In the same way, I don't know how good writers find ways to articulate my thoughts and feelings in a way I never could. How do they know me the reader? How do they know me better than me?
I have had a couple of brief email conversations with Johnny from RBUAS. This week, he ported a tremendous article on the hoops team over to MGoBlog, where it will get its proper due. His writing deserves that audience. Johnny, based on my stalker-like research, is pretty young. Young as in, well...Johnny was a zygote (ok maybe a toddler) when the Fab 5 changed basketball. He wasn't there. But somehow he can relate an appreciation for the time. I feel like he was more present in that era than I ever was, and I was a teenager...
And so you can pull the banners down; burn them in an open field while orphans sing hymns around the flame. It happened. Something was there and it sort of isn’t anymore but mostly it is, like getting a tattoo of her name removed after she left you and then really left you. Bubbly, mangled flesh where a life once was. It’s gone except that you never forget the times you opened the door and she was there, just standing there, looking at you, waiting for you to let her in.
Just, well, just read it.
In the same breath, Chantel Jennings of the Michigan Daily captures that final moment oh so well. As that ball clanked off the iron, the air was sucked out of Ann Arbor for a moment. Silence. There was no talking. Nothing to be said. After a while, the heartbreak turned to appreciation for what they had accomplished. A pat on the back with a wink and a smile, letting them know that the minimum requirement for the following year is to make it further than this.
And then there was the silence of the arena after the game, as Morris reemerged from the locker room and walked onto the court where his season had ended less than an hour before.
A handful of reporters and maintenance workers fell quiet. He looked at no one and walked across mid-court towards the basket that may haunt him until next season. With an invisible ball, he reattempted that shot.
His right hand, with perfect form, glided through the empty space. His headphones jiggled around his neck. He jumped off his right foot and landed again.
Chills man, chills.
Anyway, that ends that. I'd be remiss if I didn't recognize my absolutely abysmal coverage of the UMTailgate.com Tournament Challenge, and my lack of posting in general. I mean, spring practice has started, I spent an evening with Hoke and Brandon, the hockey team is in the Frozen Four, and I have a chance to win the pool for the first time ever even though I lost my champion on day 1 at 2pm. Lots to cover...but so little time. I hope to catch up at some point. Thanks for your patience.
