Fantastic!
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Bryan Rosenbaum
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Holiday decorations just don't make sense in Arizona. Maybe they do in Flagstaff, but I doubt there are many people sitting around a warm fire and an Evergreen tree down here in Tucson. The only way to identify what season it is by the calendar, and seeing the magic words "college football season" and "college basketball season" overlap each other.
The No. 8 Arizona football team is 10-1, just over a week away from the season-ending showdown with ASU, while the No. 12 basketball team made our heart skip a beat in their first victory over Tennessee.
Does life get much better? This Saturday, the big rivalry games of UCLA-USC (Go Bruins), Michigan-Ohio State and Florida-Florida State take center stage. By Wednesday night, Arizona vs. Texas at McKale Center will bring in Thanksgiving break, and two days later, there's the Big One UA vs. ASU, duh).
Now I find myself hanging on the edge of my seat for an Arizona-Tennessee basketball game Friday night, then an Arizona-California football game the next night.
Spike Lee may say eighth-grade girls basketball is "fantastic," but to me, this NBA lockout thing is "fantastic!"
People gripe about overpaid athletes all the time, so why doesn't everybody watch them play for the love of the game in college before they start holding out for multimillion dollar contracts? Plus, college sports give you something pro sports cannot - enthusiasm.
The NBA, fantastic as it may be, is incredibly boring to watch because there is no excitement generated by the crowd. The fans in the front rows are the ones who paid a ton of money. That doesn't happen in college basketball. Well, except at the University of Arizona...
The NFL plays on Sundays, and let's face it, Sundays are no Saturdays. There's something about a college football Satur-day that beats an NFL Sunday. Maybe it's because you don't have a midterm the next day.
This is a great time of year because dreams that were shot down during football season are reborn for basketball season. Fortunately for us and a handful of other schools, we're still dreaming of a bowl game on New Year's Day and a basket-ball season that lasts until the last weekend in March.
It's exciting enough to watch, as is, but when Arizona is in it, it is even more special. Don't tell me it isn't fun speculating over what bowl game to attend and who to root for - college foot-ball is doing every-thing it wants to do, which is making it fun. This time of the year anything is possible.
Happy Holidays.
Bryan Rosenbaum is a sophomore majoring in journalism. He can be reached via e-mail at Bryan.Rosenbaum@wildcat.arizona.edu.
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