March a mad, orange blur of basketballs

Close your eyes and listen. Do you hear it? The pounding of the ball off the hardwood floor echoes. Constantly. Can you hear it?

Open your eyes. Do you see the colors? Thousands of colors. The uniforms. And the faces. Can you see them?

They float in the mind. A jump shot here. A fast-break pass there. There is so much it becomes ingrained. Smiles. Tears.

March is truly madness. The constant color is orange. The orange of the ball. It zips by, flying from hand to hand. It is yo-yoed, shot, rolled, tricky dribbled, fought over, rebounded, jammed, stuffed, slammed, tomahawked, reversed, kicked out to the wing, alley-ooped, laid off the glass, and sometimes kicked into the stands by an irate coach or player.

It all happens in milliseconds, but time is irrelevant. Only the scoreboard clock counts. And it is ticking down on a team every second.

We care because it is true sport. It’s almost honest. Sure, there are the problem children – those who would bend the rules as close to the breaking point as possible. And there are those who would simply break them. Everyone has his own personal villain. We love to cheer, but hissing can be just as much fun.

And we see them, warts and all. We can see both sides of Bobby Knight and choose which side we prefer. Jerry Tarkanian was a love-him-or-hate-him type. Sure, you know he cheated. But with him in his 70s now, it’s easy to forgive and forget.

How about Jim Boeheim? Hate his whine? Sure. Others see him differently. They named the floor at the Carrier Dome after him.

They all have made the annual trip through March enjoyable. This year’s trip has been no different.

There is something honest about this tournament. Something almost wholesome. The players are still youngsters. Everything they’ve done in their lives has pointed to these brief moments in time. It is not too hokey to say legends are born during these days in March because 20 years from now people will talk about what happened this month.

Do we not still talk, almost 30 years later, of the amazing 1973 championship game when Bill Walton led UCLA to the title by shooting 21 of 22 from the floor to beat Memphis State?

How about Michael Jordan’s shot as a freshman at North Carolina? Christian Laettner’s basket to beat Kentucky? Fred Brown’s errant pass to North Carolina’s James Worthy? Danny Manning putting his Kansas team on his back and carrying it to a title. Seton Hall’s Tate George and his shot to beat Duke. Danny Ainge’s end-to-end burst to beat Notre Dame. Eddie Pinckney and Villanova? And we will, no doubt, take away memories from this one.

The first weekend of the tournament is the best. Thursday through Sunday there are more games than Carter has pills. Flying from site to site. Hundreds of players. Players we’ve heard of but haven’t seen, or in some cases haven’t seen nearly enough of.

How about the passing and shooting of Luke Ridnour of Oregon, the leadership shown by Pittsburgh’s Brandin Knight, Luke Walton of Arizona’s passing, T.J. Ford of Texas’ end-to-end runs, and Juan Dixon of Maryland’s fearless shooting.

There are more. Plenty of them. Tom Coverdale on a bad ankle shutting down Kent State’s Trevor Huffman. Dan Dickau and Gonzaga gone from the tournament before we really got a chance to know them. And Jason Williams, a junior and an All-American who will likely turn pro. I hope his lasting memory of his time at Duke will not be that of his last shot, a missed free throw that would have tied the game against Indiana in the Sweet 16.

And there will be more. Someone in the final three games will provide us with the moment that defines the tournament. The one that will stand out in this monthlong swirl of colors and faces.

Everyone can’t be heroes, Will Rogers once said. Some of us have to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.

Personally, I’m too old for heroes, but the games undoubtedly will produce a few for some people. I’m content to sit here. I’ll take the moments, the colors, the memories, and I hope I’m around in 30 years to talk about them. I’d like to be able to tell some youngsters about my view from the curb.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, (800) 310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.