The Glory Years

This will be another quickie, as it is late I am tired from a long day at the track down at Wake Forest. Which is by the way a very nice track facility. Is there anything that makes you feel more helpless than when you are stuck in a van with no headphones and intolerable music blaring on the radio? Welcome to the Friday night edition of "the stache." Where my bracket currently is sitting at 24-4, with only one substantial loss, thanks West Virginia, the lock of the first round my butt.

On the way back from today's race, I was under the extreme misfortune to have to listen to about 30 minutes worth of country music. How miserable is that. My Ipod mysteriously quit working about 2 months ago so I had nothing to save me from this insanity. I mean there was no rhythm or anything good about the music we were listening to. It sounded like nails on the chalkboard, I mean it was that bad. There is some country I can stand, but that extends to about half a dozen songs, but what were listening to was just pure misery. It was awful. There that clears that up for ya. You do not realize how powerful headphones can be until you are without them on a 2 hour bus ride.

One thing good did come out of this trip back to school. Once Rip Van Winkle woke up, a.k.a Luke Anton, we had a nice chat about old school NBA from the 90's. It was fun recalling some of our favorite teams, the late 90's Indiana Pacers with Rick Smits, Chris Mullen, Mark Jackson, and Reggie Miller to name a few. I could name some other key contributors but that would probably bore you to death. A lot of lefties, a lot of white guys and a lot of clutch guys. They were coached by the great Larry Bird. Some other teams of note, the Seattle Supersonics, Gary Payton, Hersey Hawkins, Detlef Schrempf, and Shawn Kemp, led by the great George Karl. Kemp was a powerful player back in the day before he got fat and slow. Also reminiscing about some of the players on the late 90's Atlanta Hawks, back when they were good before they sucked for a decade until reemerging the last 2 seasons. Players such as Mookie Blaylock, Steve Smith, Dikembe Mutumbo, Christian Laettner, to name a few. We even had the great Rasheed Wallace for one game in the earlier part of this decade before shipping him off to Detroit in a three way deal with the Celtics, that gave the Hawks Bob Sura the incomparable Zeljko Rebraca and Chris Mills. Other teams of note, the Milwaukee Bucks, with Ray Allen (Jesus Shuttlesworth), Glenn "Big Dog" Robinson, and Sam Cassell. The Detroit Pistons with the teal uniforms and Grant Hill, Joe Dumars, Theo Ratliff and Co. Those were the days I began to watch the NBA and begin my fascination over the memorization of rosters. One of the first NBA Finals I remember was the 1995 Finals that pitted Shaquille O'Neal vs. one of my favorite players of all time Hakeem "the dream" Olajuwon. Those were just a few of the names and teams from this era of great NBA basketball. I would be remiss if I did not mention Stockton to Malone the New York Knicks of Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Charles Oakley, and Charlie Ward. Also the NBA on NBC with Bob Costas and Co., with the all time best theme music to go along with it. If you watched basketball in this era you know what I am talking about.

I hope you enjoyed the latest edition of "the stache." I know I did because it brought back memories of my childhood where innocence rained supreme in my mind and body. Take care and keep it real out there. Stay classy San Diego.

Mb