By STEVE SPRINGER @racercard
Being a teacher, exhibiting the characteristics of a lifelong-learner is essential. Yes, students should learn from the teacher. That’s Captain Obvious stuff. Not many outside the educational arena know that teachers are trained to be lifelong-learners. Meaning a teacher is sometimes learning from the students as much as they are learning the content. Learning new ways to adapt a lesson. Learning how to adapt a lesson to students’ level or needs. Learning ways to make the lesson better next time. Learning new trends in education. The list goes on.
The month of March is quite the instructor, especially for lifelong University of Louisville basketball fans. We have learned many things about our favorite red and black institution’s extracurriculars and as much about ourselves on the journey.
One of my first lessons in Month Three, is just how important and exciting the framed March 24th, 1980 picture of a scoreboard from Indianapolis on my childhood home supposedly was. As a five-year-old, it was a fixture on my Fern Creek abode, but not really appreciated until I got my first few tastes of March Madness for myself the following few years. I learned that that scoreboard was important for some reason.
Those tastes start with hazy flashbacks of sitting in the nosebleeds of The Superdome and trying to watch UofL players try to keep up with Georgetown freshman phenom center Patrick Ewing. Even though it was my first in-person Final Four, I recall it being much easier to follow the players on the Jumbotron than squint at little red and black and gray ants on the court down below. I learned that the Final Four was important if I was a Card fan.
Being a fixture at Freedom Hall from November to February were lots of little lessons, like those building up to the test at the end of the year. The 1986 Final Four in Dallas was the culminating final. I remember that family was important. Important enough to visit with while the Cards played LSU and my parents went to Reunion Arena. That game must’ve been a big one. I learned that two days later, the game was important enough for The Observer to find a third ticket for me to attend the championship versus the Blue Devils. Teachers learn quickly that a lesson with an emotional hook is the best to get the students’ attention and keep it. I learned that my favorite team was the best in the land, and my emotions were hooked.
Collectively, UofL fans have learned many lessons along the way. Where in the top ten of basketball lineage UofL falls exactly can be debated, but arguments turn to trolling if postured otherwise. Most will say top six to eight, objectively. We’ve learned the Cards are college basketball royalty.
Innumerable times, I’d find myself deep in prayer at halftime of a postseason game praying that the Cards would hold on to their lead or dig out of their halftime hole. I learned that sometimes God doesn’t answer prayers, as unimportant in the grand scheme of things those prayers were.
For so much of our fandom experience, the blessings of March could be taken for granted. Not only was a tournament appearance the floor, anything less than a Final Four was a disappointment. For the majority of Coach Crum’s tenure, the Cards were a fixture deep into March. The twilight years, not so much.
We’ve learned that When one HOF’er hangs it up, there rightfully should be another waiting to take the reigns. Enter HOF 2.0 Rick Pitino. Coach Pitino rejuvenated a fading program back to limelight immediately, and then back to the Final Four not long after, to show the Cards were just taking a break from the upper echelon to let other teams eat. But back to the table.
When Rick got the Cards back to the tournament in 2003, it didn’t take long to venture back to the promised land, reaching the Final Four in 2005 behind Francisco Garcia and Taquan Dean. Two more Elite Eights later, Pitino had us back in the 2012 semifinals with Peyton Siva, Russ Smith and company, and then back again to the rightful place atop College Basketball Mountain the following season. Just like Trey Burke’s body bumped Peyton Siva out of the way, the Cards had bumped the naysayers down a notch. We learned that March giveth. Again.
The final years of the Pitino-era were anything but ideal, the reasons as to why can be debated in another forum. But what can’t be debated is how far from the top the Cards have fallen over the last decade. Hey, they can’t be in the mix every decade. Thourgh the drama, we’ve learned just how apathetical towards March one can be.
Put it this way, I’m in charge of the ncaa bracket pool at my school, and when Louisville doesn’t do well, I don’t do well. In fact, I would go into a bracket-induced sports-depression in late March and early April, with basketball being a tertiary, tangential interest. March, with help from malicious sources and a questionably-corrupt basketball governing body, March taketh away.
And taketh away it did, thanks to the black holes that aligned to bring us to Coach Kenny Payne in the first chair for Louisville Basketball. It’s too painful and sports-traumatic to rehash in this column. Not this time of year. Not this year. We’ve learned what the bottom is like.
Enter The ReviVille.
Coach Pat Kelsy has rejuvenated the fan base and the collective enthusiasm for the ultimate spectacle in sports from the city most known for their interest in it. Ratings will reflectively fact-check this positively. We’ve learned just how much the City of Louisville cares about basketball and it’s Cardinals.
We’ll learn a lot more the next few weeks, as Coach navigates the ACC Tournament and beyond. A quick exit last season was still refreshing. It stung, but just being back was refreshing. The expectations are growing back, and so Kelsey’s extension into the postseasons need to grow, as well. He’s got the rebuilding part down, he needs to grow his tournament wings. He’s learning what it means to succeed here, now he needs to execute. We’re learning how to come back form the bottom.
Lots of lessons to be learned. The next few weeks will teach us even more.