shakes wrote:
Between 1985 and 1999ish I don't think there was anyone in the USA who followed CBB closer than me other than people getting paid to do it.
My friends and I were intense college hoops fans from about '78 to the late 80s. I can remember how excited I was when the
Street & Smith came out.
Here's a good college hoops related story. I may have told it here before, but I think maybe it was in a PM to Hawkeye Vince.
In the late 80s a friend and I worked as the "road crew" for Stu Hirsh, a guy whose orchestra plays a lot of North Shore events and weddings at the high end downtown hotels. Hell, you may have even danced to him before. As an aside, Stu is a great guy with a filthy sense of humor. Sometimes before anyone was in a place he would warm up with this tune he wrote called "She's Sick Again" that had these lyrics:
I could tell by the stench
There was blood in the trench
I could tell from the smell
She wasn't feeling so well
One time I showed up at a golf club in Lake Forest to breakdown and pack up the shit. It was after 2:00 in the morning and the band was still going. All these WASPy motherfuckers were loaded and the old patrician blonde ladies without their shoes and their fat husbands were on the dance floor. Stu was playing "Smoke On The Water". Awesome.
Anyway, sorry to get off track there. One night Stu and the boys were playing a wedding at a downtown hotel, I don't remember which one. I wasn't working it but my buddy who was as big a college hoops fan as I was was. He got done packing up the stuff, it's about one in the morning, and he's driving back through the Loop to get on the expressway and a young 6'8" black dude jumps out in front of his car and he's crying like a baby. It's the middle of winter and the guy has no coat. My buddy rolls down the window and asks the kid what's wrong. The kid is sobbing so hard he can barely speak, but he mumbles something about Coach Billy Tubbs.
The story comes out that he was on the Oklahoma team and somehow he got lost, the team had left for O'Hare without him and Coach Billy Tubbs was going to have his ass, he had no money, and this was the first time he had been in Chicago and he was terrified. My friend was very suspicious and he asked the guy his name. He said it was Anthony Martin. My friend said, "That's a lie. I've watched a lot of Sooners games and I've never seen you." The guy starts blubbering all over and says, "I don't play much. Coach Billy Tubbs says I'm gonna play more next year." So my buddy says, "Okay, how did your team lose in the Tournament last year?" And the kid starts crying really hard and says, "That bald dude from Iowa hit the shot from the top of the key." My friend figured he was telling the truth so he let him get in the car. He wasn't sure what to do with him so he drove him to the
Sun-Times building and took him up to the sports department. The guy on the night desk said he would help him.
The guy on the night desk back then was Dan Cahill.
He has some stories about what an insufferable pud Telander was to work with.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
