In 16 years as a sportswriter, I covered all sorts of interesting events, from high school football to the Super Bowl, from youth baseball to the World Series.
But I have to agree with the people who say the best two days a year to be a sportswriter are the ones that make up the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Ordinarily at least in non-Covid years, the first two days of the tournament involve four games a day at each of eight different sites. In the days before commercials lengthened the games past two hours, starting times were usually 12, 2, 7 and 9.
I covered parts of numerous tournaments, but there were only two years — 1986 and 1990 — that I got the chance to do the four games in one day.
Ironically, both times were in the same state.
Even more ironically, that state was Utah, in 1986 at Weber State University in Ogden and in 1990 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
The first time, I was covering the University of Missouri for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Among others, the sub-regional included North Carolina and eventual national champion Louisville.
Four years later, I was working at the Reno Gazette-Journal and doing occasional assignments for Jerry Langdon at Gannett News Service. Among other things, I had covered Andre Ware the day he won the Heisman Trophy and had seen my byline in USA Today.
For some reason, Gannett needed someone to cover Ball State in Utah. It was wonderful, a sub-regional that included Louisville and the team that went on to win the tournament, Nevada-Las Vegas.
Ball State made an amazing run. The 12th-seeded Cardinals, upset No. 5 seed Oregon State in the first round and then stunned No. 4 seed Louisville in the second round to advance to the West Regional in Oakland, California.
The West was the fascinating one that year, not only because of UNLV, but because of the story of Loyola Marymount. Hank Gathers, one of the two stars of the highest scoring team in the country, had collapsed and died on the court in one of LMU’s last games before the tournament.
The Lions were 11th seeded, and they upset New Mexico, Michigan and Alabama to reach the regional final.
No one thought Ball State had a chance against UNLV, but the game went to the wire with the Runnin’ Rebs winning, 69-67. Considering that UNLV won both the regional final and the national championship game by 30 points, Ball State could walk away proud.
Those days were so much fun.
I’m glad I got to experience them.