DHL Dan - LXXVII - The Game

Shank makes another trip to the post office to mail shit in:

At about 9:30 Saturday morning in front of Gate D on Jersey Street, I saw a man and a woman both dressed in full-length raccoon coats, wearing Harvard scarfs.

Boola Boola comes to Fenway.

There's that dumb catchphrase again - don't they teach you at journalism school not to be repetitive?

Three and a half weeks ago, we had Dodgers vs. Red Sox in Game 2 of the World Series at our ancient Back Bay cathedral. Saturday it was the 135th playing of the Harvard-Yale game with Harvard winning, 45-27, in front of 34,675, including Thurston Howell III and Lovey.

Talk about seriously dating yourself with the Gilligan's Island reference - that show ended when I was two and a half years old.

Read on if you want to read about other non-baseball events at Fenway Park and more Harvard / Yale Ivy League snob bullshit.

The Game

Shank took in the Harvard - Yale football game yesterday. In an otherwise decent column, Shank mounts his Shetland pony high horse a couple of times.

It’s not as pure as it was when players hailed from New England, wore leather helmets, and folks in raccoon coats exhorted them to “fight fiercely,” and “demonstrate your skill.’’ These are no longer the days of Ted Kennedy catching a touchdown pass and George W. Bush carrying a megaphone. But Harvard-Yale is still a nice break from the hideous big-time money machine that masquerades as college athletics, blighting and corrupting our sports landscape.

When you’re talking Harvard-Yale football (as opposed to Florida State football or Kentucky basketball, for example), most of the cash lives in the stands rather than in the closets and kitchens of the “student-athletes.”

Typical of a number of his columns, Shank gets one major fact wrong, further proof that he lacks an editor and the Globe just doesn't care about it:

That was no problem for Harvard senior quarterback Conner Hempel, who connected with Andrew Fischer on a 35-yard touchdown pass with 55 seconds left on the clock.

“Honestly, this game makes my career,’’ said Hempel.

That’s the way it is for just about every player in The Game. There is no tournament. No BCS. No wait for the polls. There is no NFL on the horizon. There is no proverbial “next level.’’

Forget about the fact that he mentioned Ryan Fitzpatrick, Harvard's most notable NFL player in recent memory, earlier in his column. When his name is mentioned on ESPN, Chris Berman falls all over himself to remind viewers of his alma mater. This Google search took approximately thirty seconds, and this one took about ten more seconds. Fifty-four is a larger number than zero, is it not? Why let facts get in the way of a melodramatic end to a column?

Harvard Homerism - III (Fin)

Harvard's run in the NCAA Championship ended with a 80 - 73 Saturday night loss to Michigan State, and should also result in Shank's run of consecutive Harvard related columns. He continues to speculate on Harvard coach Tommy Amaker's future, conveniently summarized in this paragraph:

Obviously there’s a lot of work to be done at Boston College and Donahue was unable to bring the Ivy Magic that got him to the Sweet 16 at Cornell . . . but BC is still in the Atlantic Coast Conference and can get NBA players (remember Sean Williams?) Harvard would not touch. A 48-year-old coach with ACC roots (Amaker went to Duke) who can take over at BC without having to move his family is going to be tempted.

Former University of Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun is also interested in the job, but it doesn't appear to be a mutual interest. Maybe Shank gets this one right?

Harvard Homerism

With a 61 - 57 win over the Cincinnati Bearcats, Shank whips it out and shows us his Harvard hard-on.

SPOKANE, Wash. — Let’s start by dismissing the notion that Harvard’s 61-57 victory over Cincinnati Thursday was any kind of an upset.

Sure thing - #12 seeds beat #5 seeds all the time!

Sure, this was a No. 12 seed beating a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and Cincinnati is among the 25 winningest college hoop programs in NCAA history. The Bearcats produced Oscar Robertson, won two national championships, and filled NBA rosters with rugged rebounders in the days when bag man Bob Huggins put the program on probation because of a “loss of institutional control.’’

Harvard has no such hoop history. Until 1981, the Johnnies played their games on the fourth floor of the Indoor Athletic Building (the gym was above the pool, and Princeton players complained that the Harvard players smelled like chlorine). In its first 111 years of organized basketball, Harvard appeared in only one NCAA Tournament, losing to Ohio State and NYU in 1946.

From there, you get the standard Shank wrapup - a description of the rest of the game and a few quotes from players. It might have been interesting for Shank to offer a reason or two for Harvard's recent tournament success (yesterday's column didn't discuss it either), but that would require additional work for Shank, so...

Faking It, By Dan Shaughnessy

Last week, Shank unconvincingly pretended to care for the New England Patriots. This week, he pretends to care about college basketball (with a local angle, naturally).

SPOKANE, Wash. — This is a big bowl of awkward.

Tommy Amaker is set to coach No. 12 seed Harvard against No. 5 seed Cincinnati in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday, and when the Crimson lose their next game, Amaker is gone. He’s Jacoby Ellsbury gone. Harvard’s loss will be Boston College’s gain.

This is not official, mind you. Maybe Amaker can push the Crimson all the way to the Sweet Sixteen this year. Folks at Mr. Bartley’s are hoping Amaker will still be at Harvard next year, and the year after, and the year after that. Maybe he’ll be there long enough to get his own statue in the Yard, alongside John Harvard.

But I’m betting he’s gone as soon as the Crimson lose their next game. The Boston College job opened up Tuesday when BC fired Steve Donahue, and Amaker is the odds-on favorite to be taking his talents to Chestnut Hill.

If Shank feels like stepping up his weekly column output past the single column mark, and he writes a few more columns about college basketball and the NCAA tournament, look for him to turn his firehose towards Kentucky coach John Calipari (who Shank despises) and Louisville coach Rick 'Minuteman' Pitino, who destroyed the Celtics in the 1990's.