Friday, March 31, 2006

Friday Matinee


Random musing that I wasn't going to publish because it seemed like bad karma. But then my poker play last night revealed that I have no premonitory skills whatsoever; so here it goes.

UCLA legend John Wooden was born and raised in Indiana where he had a hall of fame playing career at Purdue before becoming a head coach. There is some talk that the 96 year old Wooden, who doesn't travel much these days, was going to return to his old hometown for the Final Four, which is being played at the RCA dome. I don't know what Wooden opted to do, but if life were a movie, it would play out like this.

In the days before the games, he revisits some of his old gyms and tells the current Bruins about some of the great moments in his life, both as a kid and at UCLA; and how this team now has a chance to make its own great memories. Saturday night, with Wooden in the stands, UCLA beats LSU in a hard fought game, after which, Coach Wooden suddenly falls ill and is hospitalized. The team visits Wooden in the ICU, where he emplores the players to get back to coach Howland to study game film because, "Failure to prepare is preparation to fail." Monday morning, the team learns that John Wooden has died. Then in the Finals, the Bruins are down one point with time running out. Jordan Farmer looks into the stands and sees the spirit of the Wizard of Westwood saying, "Be quick, but don't hurry." Farmar then runs the UCLA cut off the high post and the Bruins win at the buzzer. Farmar looks back to the stands and the apparition disappears just as he's mobbed by his teammates.

Luckily, this isn't a movie; but just to be safe, maybe Wooden should stay in LA this weekend.

Oh, and Touchstone should hire my ass. I've also got some great ideas for Juwanna Man 2...

5 Comments:

At Fri Mar 31, 05:43:00 PM PST , Anonymous Anonymous said...

bad call

 
At Fri Mar 31, 05:50:00 PM PST , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Worse call: Last night I was playing in the $8,000 guarantee tournament at Full Tilt. I was about 15 places out of the money, but only had 8x the big blind left in my stack. I was dealt AJo in the BB. The player under the gun had a similar chip stack to me and went all-in. It was folded around to me.

Normally I'd feel ok about calling in this situation since the UTG player was under pressure to make a move and could play any Ace, KQ, KJ, or maybe even something like QJs or J10s, along with any small pair. But I was actually paying attention this tournament and noticed that this player was especially tight. So in my mind, I knew he/she had to have a legit all-in hand. Nevertheless, I went against better judgement and called anyway. UTG flipped over AK and I was a goner.

 
At Fri Mar 31, 06:04:00 PM PST , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Btw, thanks for commenting. Always nice to have a fellow Bruin on board. For the record, I've met John Wooden on a few occasions and think he's one of the kindest men ever to walk the face of the earth. But when I thought of the Indiana connection to this Final Four, my mind drifted. Besides, ya gotta admit that if you got Paul Newman to play John Wooden, you'd have a tearjerker.

Just so people know, all comments are welcome here, even if it's to call me out for being a moron.

 
At Fri Mar 31, 10:51:00 PM PST , Anonymous Anonymous said...

good luck with the bruins tomorrow. i'd say i'd be rooting for them and the pac-10 (the dawgs somehow beat them twice), but if UCLA loses, I think I win my pool which is like 1000 bucks!

 
At Fri Mar 31, 10:56:00 PM PST , Anonymous Anonymous said...

If Hollins' injury is significant, the Bruins are toast. Hopefully the bruise isn't all that bad.

So, are you hedging with a $400 money line wager on UCLA, or rolling the dice for the big score w/ LSU?

 

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