Not That Sane. V Lakshman. Every Wednesday.

Cursed by the Praise (Apr 22, '98)

In this year's NCAA basketball final, Utah (the underdog) was leading by a hefty margin at half-time. As the teams were leaving the court, a TV announcer pontificated, "Well, no team has ever come back from a x-point deficit to win the NCAA championship." Of course, North Carolina came back to win the championship. There was no way Utah could have held on to its lead after such an authoritative statement. No way, whatsover, atleast in my mind.

In such things, I am superstitious. When in our winter racquetball league, tenth-seeded yours truly took out the top three seeds in a tournament, my exploits were greeted by this comment in the fortnightly league newsletter:

[L.] had an incredible period being the first player ever seeded less than 4 to defeat all top 3 seeds during the same period and advance to #1! Although seeded #10 during Period 12, [L.] pulled off tournament wins (which counted toward ladder play as well) against #3 Skaggs (2-0); #2 Hondl (2-0) and #1 Grosshans (2-0) to go undefeated in match play, 6-0 in all games played, and advance 9 spots to the top of the ladder. Lak will play Gregg Grosshans today (Tuesday) for the Championship of the March Tournament. Congratulations [L.]!

And after that, there was no way I could win. I lost the match 1-2. Maybe if that newsletter had come out a day later ...


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