Over the next week, I’ll have two columns that will combine the two hopeful holiday aspects — a Christmas list and new year’s resolutions — into the college basketball world. This week, Christmas, of course. And forgive me if I go off-color/off-sport with a few of my ambitious yearnings. I follow sports in nearly every regard; college basketball’s fire burns hotter than any other for me.
I wish Brett Favre to retire.
I wish the 2010 Olympic Games to be spectacular. I fall in the minority: I prefer the Winter games to the Summer ones. I know; I’m a weirdo.
I wish John Calipari’s recruiting class is 100 percent clean.
I wish you wouldn’t laugh at me for typing that.
I wish Jim Boeheim would come out of his shell and find a radio show or television program to share his thoughts on.
I wish Bill Raftery and Gus Johnson can find their way in this crazy world and become the most excitable, hysterical broadcasting team the world of sports has ever known.
I wish Brett Favre to retire.
I wish Gary Parrish would update his profile picture on CBSSports.com. You’re not fooling anyone, Parrish!
I wish ESPN could leave things the hell alone and stop trying to unintentionally crumble an amazing American tradition. If there’s one thing I’ll forever remain stubborn on, it’s this: the NCAA Tournament doesn’t need expansion. As ESPN flirts with the NCAA, CBS becomes jealous and nobody but those who don’t care about college basketball’s regular season will be satisfied by a bloated bracket.
I wish the Cubs would win a World Series. I just have to force myself to type that.
I wish more people knew about the Banana Slugs.
I wish Brett Favre to retire.
I wish we could get a double-digit seed to the Elite Eight in the NCAA tournament. How great is it when we see The Little Guy get beyond the first weekend? I don’t care if the ratings are bad, I know what I like, and I like 11-seeds playing for the chance to spoil the Final Four party.
I wish college’s shotclock could get bumped up to 30 seconds. It would most certainly make a difference.
I wish Dick Enberg wasn’t going to be the play-by-play man for the San Diego Padres, leaving his college basketball and NFL gigs behind. Oh, no!
In March, I wish to get a moment like this.
Or like this.
Or this. PLEASE.
I wish we’d get another undefeated team in college basketball before I die. I really, really, really want to see this happen. I think it will happen, too.
I wish you’d choose to follow me on Twitter.
I wish Jay Cutler would make the position change and start playing quarterback for the Bears.
I wish Kansas would remove the tacky, Missouri-sized (burn) logo at Phog Allen. What an eyesore.
I wish my brothers (I’ve got three younger ones) could just cop to the fact that I CAN STILL OWN THEM WHENVER I WANT TO ON THE COURT.
I wish ESPN could go back to putting WCC basketball on Monday nights at midnight.
I wish ESPN promos could be what they once were. Here’s two Goulet specials:
Oh, how I pine for old-school Big Monday.
I wish you’d tell your friends about this site!
I wish to become employed, full-time, as a college basketball writer in the next 12 months. (Could this be something I resolve to do as well?)
I wish we could get at least six mid-majors with at-large berths this year.
I wish Dick Vitale could focus on talking about college basketball and only college basketball during telecasts.
I wish NBA fans and college fans didn’t have to always be at odds. Yeah, college basketball doesn’t have the athletes the NBA does, and the NBA doesn’t have the passion or abundant storylines that college basketball does. But both are entertaining forms of basketball. Unless we’re talking Big Ten, of course.
I wish the planners and organizers of postseason tournaments of all varieties could learn to be accepting of devoted, passionate college basketball writers like myself and a few other hard-working guys behind some worthwhile Web sites and start credentialing us with consistency.
I wish professional sports would finally have its first active gay athlete go public. It’s going to be 2010. The story would dominate for a week, be monumental and we’d have a modern-day Jackie Robinson. Think that’s hyperbole? The amount of homophobia in locker rooms today — and some of the language that goes with it — seems to rival (but not quite touch) the racism that permeated the athletic arena during Robinson’s time.
I wish to regain the ability to dunk a basketball.
I wish to believe the sentence above to be genuine.
I wish the sentence below to be the same.
I wish to try and make you think, make you angry and make you laugh with my writing on this site.
I wish Jimmy V Week could turn into Jimmy V Month.
I wish Brett Favre to retire.
I wish the Internet to continue to birth thousands of readers of sports writing. Sports has grown not just because of television, but because the Web has educated and activated a sports community that only buzzed about in local circles. For some of the ugliness and pointlessness it can bring out, it’s also spawned some pretty creative writing.
I wish you all a happy holiday season and a new year that’s better than the last.
