What’s your favorite championship?
Newspaper raises $3,000 after plea for help
The Front Page
Evening update
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
By Ken Tingley
I grew up a fanatic of all things sports and over the years I have been lucky enough to to experience some great sports events. I have been to a bunch of big horse races - Travers, Belmont, Breeders’ Cup - a couple of Calder Cup finals (the Red Wings won both) and a lot of state basketball tournaments.
I also attended Game 2 of the 2009 World Series at Yankee Stadium, the deciding game of the 1981 National League playoffs between the Expos and Dodgers (damn you, Rick Monday), the 2001 NFC championship game at Giants Stadium, the 1997 PGA championship at Winged Foot, the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the 2000 Goodwill Games in Lake Placid and two NCAA Tournament championship games.
Those were the best.
The newspaper meeting I was attending in New Orleans in 2003, happily overlapped with the national championship game between Kansas and Syracuse at the Superdome where a I found a man at the hotel willing to sell me two tickets.
That was the game where Gerry McNamara went wild in the first half and Hakeem Warrick made a last-second block (0.7 seconds) to give Syracuse its only national title. I wasn’t even a Syracuse fan at the time.
But the best championship game of all time was in 1986 when Villanova pulled the upset of the century at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky. I managed to get a ticket in the fourth row to see Villanova upset the Patrick Ewing-led Georgetown, 66-64.
There was never more than 2 or 3 points separating both teams in the game.
I have never been to a Super Bowl, but I can’t imagine any national sporting event being more thrilling than a national championship college basketball game. So what’s your favorite championship?
Little paper gets help
I wrote a short piece last week about how the Northeast News in Kansas City left its front page blank to give readers a taste of what it might look like if the weekly newspaper went out of business.
The newspaper not only printed a blank page, it didn’t post any news online or even answer the office phone for 24 hours. According to the American Press Institute, Managing Editor Abby Hoover asked readers to provide support, otherwise, the weekly had two months left to live.
The community pledged $3,000 to help save the paper. I’m guessing that will not last too long.
Gonzaga vs. Hemingway
Between the NCAA title game and Ken Burns’ documentary on Hemingway and my wife needing to watch “The Voice,” it took a little planning to see or record everything Monday night.
We taped the NCAA title game and “The Voice” while watching the Hemingway documentary live since it didn’t not have any commercials.
Part 1 was vintage Ken Burns and I can’t wait for Part 2 Tuesday night.
Considering how the Gonzaga game turned out Monday night, I thought I would give you another example of the shot from the semifinals Saturday. That’s how I will remember this Gonzaga team.
