NCAA and War

Posted March 21st, 2003 by Sean Williams

Sorry. I was in Florida and then, y’know, the war.

I can’t talk about the war. Plenty of other people can and are, but it turns out that my reaction to it is sort of unreasonable. I was actually up vomiting all night Wednesday.

So, two things. I discovered, during my stay in Florida, that my unreasonable fear of flying is actually a loss of anonymity. We were on Space Mountain at Disneyland, and for a moment I was really scared. I somehow explained to myself that these rides do sometimes break, and it might break with me on it. This was Space Mountain, for chrissakes, it wasn’t even a scary ride. In the same vein, I know that planes don’t crash, I don’t even think I am scared of crashing. I am just suddenly afraid that the one time something terrible will happen will be the plane I am on, a logic I scoffed at up until… well, it turns out, up until September 11, 2001.

So apparently, I’m not quite the tough guy I have been thinking I was.

The other thing, can Duke please go ahead and lose the games they are supposed to lose? I mean, there is a reason that Colorado State is a 14 seed, they were badly coached and the choked so bad. But if they had done one or two things differently, they would have won, and I wish they had.

Also, that last blocking foul in the Mizzou game was the worst call I have seen in post season play. EVER. Kije has entered the pool for the fourth time in as many years, the second time since he died, and although he guessed the same number of opening night games as me, he lost three of his sweet 16 and one of his elite 8. Of course, he is a dead dog, so he’s doing pretty well. Jordana, Kije and I all have Kansas in the final, and they damn near lost last night.

Anyway, I really can’t think about the people dying and the people who want to kill me because of the war. My sister thinks New York is more dangerous than other places, but the Channel 1 local news is convincing me otherwise. In LA when I was a kid, I used to think the helicopters that constantly flew over head were ironically funny, now I feel so good every time I see them fly the East River pattern in front of my window.