Released on = January 20, 2007, 5:26 pm

Press Release Author = Ed Anderson

Industry = Internet & Online

Press Release Summary = Resurgence of the Indiana Hoosiers\' basektball program

Press Release Body = (Bloomington, Ind). I'm just here for entertainment-yours and
mine. If I can get you to laugh and you can do the same for me, then we\'re
one-third of the way to what Jim Valvano, his body succumbing to cancer, called a
\"full day.\" Jimmy V said a full day should be one in which you laugh, cry and
think.

Jimmy V was a great guy. Some of you younger folks might not have too good of a
recollection of him, if one at all, but he was a tremendously funny New Yorker who
wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was also a great basketball coach. Competing
against his bigger brothers on Tobacco Road, his teams held their own in the ACC
and, of course, his 1983 Wolfpack squad won a national championship.

What\'s my point? Life\'s short, you guys. It really looks like a blur when you look
back. So, lighten up and have some fun and always give as good as you get. And,
while that\'s all I\'m trying to do here, there\'s more to follow, but it gets a little
tricky so stick with me.

My feet first hit ground at Bloomington Hospital the day my father was awarded a
degree in education from Indiana University so I\'m nothing if not a Hoosier. My
dad, in a feat not often seen, earned his degree with a wife, two kids, another (me)
on the way and two part-time jobs. He was 6\'5\" and, at that time, probably weighed
about 180-190 pounds. He lettered in 4 sports (basketball, baseball, football and
track) in high school and, before coming to IU, served in the Air Force during the
Korean War.

When my dad first got to IU, the family sans me lived in one of the old Quonset huts
that lined the field along 17th Street. The huts were government surplus and IU
acquired them to handle the expected influx of veterans following World War II.
While living there and taking the requisite recreational courses at the old
Fieldhouse, which many of you are more accustomed to calling Wildermuth or the HPER,
Branch McCracken spotted him and asked if he wanted to try out for the team. Of
course he did! But he couldn\'t. There just weren't enough hours in the day for him
to fit basketball (or much of anything else) into his life at that point.

So, here\'s where I\'m going. There\'s just one degree of separation between Branch
McCracken and me and only two to Everett Dean. I know, I know, a lot of you can
make the same claim or, even better, one-up it. And that's' great, isn't it? Does
it floor you as much as it does me to have such close ties to two of the principal
architects who laid the foundation for Indiana\'s basketball legacy? So, lets have
some fun and enjoy our elite basketball heritage while we can.

I hope my idea of fun and your idea of fun stem from the same chemcial synapses. I
also hope you share my view of giving as good as you get. You know why? It\'s time
for both and you know what's fun for me right now? I'm having fun laughing at
Illinois, Michigan State and everybody else who laughed at us these past several
years. If you're like me, you heard a lot of laughter from a lot of places. It's
our turn now and I want us to laugh as loud at them as they laughed at us.

I\'m particularly laughing at the way the Illini are shooting arrows at Chief Big
Geko. Their intra-tribal warfare tickles me because they laughed heartily when the
Hoosiers had their own intra-family squabble. One of the more amusing things is the
disjointed thinking borne from "Illini agony" as they slide down the Big 10 totem
pole towards the gophers and other critters at the bottom.

Take, for instance, this bit of insightfulness, grammatically uncorrected here,
about Illinois from CWorld27, who said, \"this team is very similar to 03-04 illini
who went through huge growing pains before winning the big ten and going to the
elite 8. Not saying they are going to do that, we don\'t have the same talent, but I
expect them to be very tough by the end of the year.\"

Huh? Talk about talking out of your headdress! Where are you going with that
thought, CWorld? Drawing a parallel between this year\'s Illini team and the team
that won the Big Ten title and made it to the Elite Eight in '04 by characterizing
them as \"very similar\" only to then turn around and warn everyone not to expect the
same accomplishments because the talent level is different leaves only two things
those teams have in common: Building a gaudy pre-conference record by dragging
teams with directional names (East this, West that) to Champaign and beating the
snot out of them and then losing in the Big 10. That\'s where the similarities end
because that's all the Illini have done this year.

That's not all. After navigating through this phalanx of fallacy, CWorld brings us
full circle to his ultimate conclusion that the Illini will be \"very tough\" by
year\'s end. Given that twisting, turning reasoning, CWorld, even if you can laugh
through all the tears you'll be shedding this season over the Illini, I think even
Jimmy V would say you're still only two-thirds of the way towards a full day.

--Ed Anderson 1/10/7



Web Site = http://www.HoosierHoopsta.com

Contact Details = Ed Anderson
9003 Emerald Court
Nashville, IN 47448
(812) 837-9290
Voodoostew@aim.com