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Out of
superlatives
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No. 1 Illini pillage Spartanville 81-68
By Jeff
Mayfield
[FEB. 2, 2005]
For basically my whole life people have tried
to convince me that I use too many superlatives. My junior high
teachers, my parents, my college profs and even the Ph.D.s who dealt
with me on the way to an M.B.A. told me so. They were right. I am
guilty as charged.
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Even as a child I never bought the theory that you are one of
two types of people -- you either see the glass as half full or half
empty. Even then I would hold a glass up to the light and tilt it
and proclaim that if you hold it just right, it looks like it's
two-thirds full to me. OK, I'm psychotic… It helps when you choose
to live north of the Sun Belt during the winter.
And hate me if you want to, but I feel the use of superlatives is
fun. It makes every story come alive. It makes you feel a part of
it, and even if you're not, you're glad you're making the effort.
Why do you wanna shoot me? I'm just the messenger.
OK, so you may have noticed that I use a few superlatives in my
work at LCC, at the LDN or wherever. Is that a felony? I've even
been known to use a few of them in my accounts and descriptions of
Illini basketball games.
But I have a confession to make. I've run dry. Everything I have
ever learned about basketball told me that Illinois should struggle
and come up short trying to beat the Badgers at Wisconsin and snap a
38-game home-court winning streak. And if that wasn't enough, I see
on the schedule that the following Tuesday they have to go into the
Breslin Center and try to reduplicate the feat once again.
Again, through all the hoops training I've been through, I
realize that this time they're tackling their nemesis, the Michigan
State Spartans. MSU has only gone something like 94-6 in that arena
since it opened, I think in 1998. They have a senior-laden ballclub
that is 10-0 in the building this season. And people are telling me
how Illinois is going to march in and that beating MSU will be no
problem.
[to top of second column in
this article] |
 WHAT? Are you kidding me? Do you know that this team is coached
by perhaps the best coach in the game? Do you know that these are
players that were hand-picked to succeed the MSU teams that went to
Final Fours and won there? Do you realize that this is the ONLY time
these two will meet in the regular season, making it essential that
MSU wins? And you're going to sit there and tell me that the Illini
will waltz in and waltz out with their winning streak intact and
their place secure atop the leader board in the Big Ten?
I should have believed you. That's what I get for becoming a
"doubting Thomas." However, you can now just color me stunned. And
it's barely February. This team has so much more to accomplish, but
I'm worried about how much I have left to give. In the words of one
of my son's favorites, Buzz Lightyear, I need to get to a refueling
station and load up. If not, with my superlatives gone, I'm gonna
implode.
That brings up this question I want to pose to our loyal LDN
readers: "Is this fun or what?" I just don't want it to end,
implosion or not!
[Jeff Mayfield]
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