Forgive me if this column makes no sense. Forgive me if I am a babbling fool all week (not that me being a babbling fool would be that unusual). It's just that something incredible is going on in my life right now.
The Stanford men's basketball team is in the Final Four.
This is something I did not really expect to happen in my lifetime. I mean, Stanford -- my alma mater -- has not been to the Final Four since 1942. Fifty-six freaking years ago!
I have been an avid Stanford basketball fan since I was a freshman there a little over four years ago. Back then, the team was so-so, at best. But my sophomore year, the team made the NCAA Tournament, and has every year since. Last year, when I graduated, they made the Sweet 16. As a part of the team's Sixth Man Club, I watched the team go undefeated at home last year.
On Sunday, when the team came back and scored 14 points in less than a minute to beat Rhode Island and make the Final Four, I was going nuts. Alone in my apartment, I was yelling, screaming, and madly gesturing at the television with passion that would have sent Jackie Collins' pen aflutter. When Stanford won the game, I jumped up and down like I had a trampoline in my pants.
(NOTE TO MY DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBORS: I really apologize for the jumping up and down. And I promise to lose a few pounds, so that if it ever happens again, the shaking won't be quite so bad. Thank you.)
Even in Stanford's very first tournament game this year, I was twitterpated. The game happened to be on during work hours, and so I watched it from the newsroom. By the game's final minutes -- I was on a tirade that John McEnroe would have envied -- much of the Tribune's employees had gathered around to not watch the game, but watch me. Siskel and Ebert gave me two thumbs up, I am glad to report.
On one level, my "enthusiasm" makes sense. I mean, Stanford has only 6,500 undergraduates, so these players were a part of a small community that I was a part of. Arguably, Stanford's best player -- forward Mark Madsen -- is a good friend of mine, and another of Stanford's top players, center Tim Young, is my best friend's roommate. I know many of these guys.
On another level, I am a bit worried I've gone a wee bit overboard. Had Stanford lost to Rhode Island, I would have been upset and probably would have single-handedly launched an attack on the state of Rhode Island just because they deserved it. Well, maybe not, but the point is I would have been really despondent, and my copy would have been decidedly bitter, filled with anger, grumpiness and half-truths. Kind of like a Cal Thomas column.
However, a lot of mild-mannered, emotionally-stable people get whacked out when it comes to sports. If you have ever seen a sporting contest involving children, you know what I'm talking about.
Parents -- kind and loving people, I am sure -- go on profanity-laced rampages that would make Hell's Angel blush. Umpires, opposing players, and coaches get told when, where, and specifically how to stick it (especially their own children's coaches if their child is not playing, say, every second of the game) by parents, because sports makes them legally insane.
Larger communities can go nuts, too. Last year, when Nevada's men's hoop team made the National Invitation Tournament, much of the Truckee Meadows went berserk. And this was over making a consolation-prize of a tournament which has all the drama and importance of a thumb-wrestling match. The media treated the tournament like it was sent straight from God, and fans quickly sold out over 11,000 seats at Lawlor Events Center. All to determine which team is 65th in the country.
The only explanation I have for all this is that sports, somehow, let people feel like they are part of a winning -- or losing -- community. If Stanford wins, then I feel like a winner. If an umpire makes a called strike three on little Bobby, then that umpire is insulting the entire family, at least to Bobby's mild-mannered mom. If Nevada makes the NIT, it gives the community a taste of big-time college athletics.
Then again, there's another possible explanation.
Maybe we're all just psychotic.
Jimmy Boegle, a fifth-generation Nevadan, is currently seeking a good, cheap therapist. He can be e-mailed at jiboegle@alumni.stanford.org. His column appears here Tuesdays.