In fifth grade, all the boys I knew decided they were skaters.
They threw away Pogs, stashed Barkley’s in the closet and
told mom they needed bigger pants.
At first, it didn’t bother me. That was, until skating
hijacked my recess. Suddenly, all my soccer buddies were
hangin’ out on the concrete. Not cool.
That’s when having an opinionated older sister came in
handy.
“Your friends are such posers!” she’d say.
Although I pretended to be offended, I secretly adopted my
new favorite insult. Posers. They were all posers.
As the years went on, the boys made their way back.
Unfortunately, they only returned masquerading as basketball fans.
More specifically, they posed as Bulls fans. Fast forward a few
more years and they were Laker fans. Most of us lost touch after
junior high, but I’m fairly confident they’re now Cavs
fans.
Before I start sounding like Paris Hilton at a bus stop, let
me first clarify that I don’t consider myself an elite or
“true” fan of any team. I call myself a Suns fan mostly
because I was born and raised in Phoenix, can rattle off some
random facts about guys like A.C. Green and Oliver Miller and just
so happen to have a giant poster of Steve Nash in my bedroom (which
makes me feel really creepy whenever I see him in person).
More than anything, I’m just a basketball fan. And
it’s for that very reason that I’ve been getting sick
of basketball.
In a world of highlights, 140 character messages and 100
million dollar endorsement deals, the little guy is getting the
shaft. Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate the freaks of nature
that are LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, but it bothers me that they
don’t just play the game… they are the game.
Talk to fans that bought tickets to the Cavs/Bucks game
earlier this month, only to discover that James wouldn’t be
playing that night. Fans of both teams cried “foul”.
The media hype machine exists to create celebrities,
stars… and therefore, money. If the merchants of cool can
associate a game with a name, they’ve got the people right
where they want them.
I didn’t yet realize that I was a guilty member when I
covered the Paradise Jam Tournament in November. Tennessee and
Purdue were the favorites. The championship game featured Tyler
Smith and Robbie Hummel.
Right on cue, I had a sit down interview with Tyler to talk
about the NBA, video games and his life in Knoxville. Give the
people what they want, right?
Unfortunately, things didn’t work out for Tyler. He
was dismissed from the team a few months later after an arrest for
misdemeanor drug and gun charges.
It appeared the machine had propped him up, only to remove
the chair when he wasn’t sittin’ well.
A poignant text from an NBA scout the next day said it all.
“Tyler Smith’s NBA career just went
bye-bye.”
Obviously, I didn’t have the foresight to ask Tyler
what he’d do if worse case scenario became reality, but
that’s not what upsets me the most about my work that week.
Maybe they just blended in with the white sandy beaches and
purple flowers, but I didn’t see much of the Northern Iowa
Panthers that week in St. Thomas.
Mostly, that’s because I wasn’t paying
attention. Guys like Tyler Smith were there, after all.
In the name of fairness, we tried to squeeze in a
thirty-minute time slot to walk around downtown with UNI head coach
Ben Jacobson and center Jordan Eglseder. We talked about life in
Cedar Falls and what it was like playin’ the “big
boys”. The feature was taped for use during the tournament
broadcast.
There were stars playing that weekend, however, and there
just wasn’t enough time to get it in.
Which brings me to today, as I scramble to find the old
footage of my interviews with the guys from UNI… the ones we
never aired.
Even back in November, it was obvious that Coach Jacobson
had a quality team. Unfortunately, that’s where we left it.
No stars, no attention.
Then March showed up and UNI forced us to take a closer
look. The machine is frantically trying to find a star. After his
bold pull-up three that sealed the victory against top seeded
Kansas, Ali Farokhmanesh garnered the star treatment.
The problem is, Farokhmanesh really isn’t a star. He
averages 9.7 points, 1.1 assists, and1.5 rebounds per game.
And that’s what makes it perfect.
March Madness reminds me why I love basketball like Andy
Griffith reminds me why I love people. There’s something pure
about it.
We may try and conjure up some stars to feed the beast that
is our Kobe and LeBron culture, but real basketball fans
won’t bite.
Without many of the stargazers who think basketball is just
about big names, ratings are slightly down this March. As far as
I’m concerned, that’s alright.
We simply weeded out the posers.
Other Articles from Samantha Steele:
First Round Pick
Success is a Choice
Dancing without the Stars
