[Magdalen] We did it!

[Jay Weigel]

Back in the 90s my son observed during one of our marathon NCAA
tournament-watching weekends, "I always forget just how *white* Big Ten
basketball is!" Which was true at the time, except for Michigan, and is
still true to a great deal, though less so with the addition of Rutgers and
Maryland. Incidentally, on the message boards I frequent, because it is no
longer ten teams, it is increasingly referred to as the B1G.

As mentioned, I am much more a fan of the women's game, owing to a long
residence in Tennessee where the Lady Vols are an object of adulation.
Since I am a pre-Title IX tomboy who was forced to play that dreadful split
court game, and am short to boot, I have great admiration for the girls who
can play like the boys. Since I moved up here I have been somewhat
following the local team, JMU, (James Madison) who just won their
conference and so secured an auto-bid to the women's NCAA. They might well
have gotten an at-large as they are pretty darn good. One of the girls on
the team worked at our local Costco last summer and I got to know her a
little. On the court she is fierce and scary; otherwise she is polite and
soft-spoken and almost a little shy.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2015 at 12:17 AM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
> In a message dated 3/15/2015 11:37:04 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> jay.weigel at gmail.com writes:
>
> Well,  Chad, *I* am pleased that Wisconsin won the Big Ten championship and
> got a  #1 seed. Boy, what a change from my days there, when the basketball
> team  was so bad that when they unexpectedly beat Ohio State during the
> regular  season it caused a major celebration and the wry comment that they
> didn't  have to do anything else for the rest of the  year!>>>>
>
> The long serving basketball coach of the time (I've forgotten his  name)
> was alledged not to like African-Americans on his team.  Nowadays  that
> would never be permitted if it were shown to be true.
>
> I think the makeup overall of the Wisconsin team is about 50-50 White
> and Black, and unusually, the tallest two on the team (6'7" and 7')  are
> both White boys from Illinois.
>
> In any case, they seem to have gotten the basketball thing all  together.
>
> Now if we can just get some cooperation from the Walker guy and the
> conservative dominated State Legislature, and persuade them from  cutting
> $300 million from the UW budget, all will be right in Badgerland once
> again.
>
> Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) some Wisconsin graduate just
> gave the University $100 million.  I can just see the Walker guy  thinking,
> "See.  We can have the whole show financed by the private  sector."
>
>
> David Strang - Not a fan of Gov. Walker.
>
>
>