THE Rivalry

        Each college and university has its rivals. Arch enemies to the end. Bitterness and acrimony to the hilt.
Alumni in a froth. Students besides themselves. Television agog over the ratings.

        So many rivals. In-state. Inter-state. Intra-city. Public schools versus public schools. Private schools versus private schools. Catholic schools versus Catholic schools. Public versus private. Public versus Catholic. Private versus Catholic.

        Some are sport specific. Football. Basketball. Women's Basketball. A number of schools have multiple rivalries.

        There are trophies involved. There are mascots taken. There are symbols marred or destroyed. There is storming the field or court after a victory. Riots occur, win or lose.

        I can recite so many. Alabama-Auburn. Army-Navy. Georgia-Florida. Oregon-Oregon State. Stanford-California. UCLA-USC. Harvard-Yale. UConn-Tennessee in Women's Basketball. Smaller schools are no exception, i.e. Amherst-Williams and Hampden-Sydney versus Randolph-Macon come to mind.

       They have their names. The Civil War. The Red River Rivalry. The Bedlam Brawl. The Holy War. Every one has its own unique level of intensity.

       However, thee is one rivalry, at least for me, which captivates me season after season. It is sport-specific. Both teams get a home game out of it and sometimes end up playing each other in a post-season tournament. Television makes a spectacle out of it--a big leap from its formative days when the game was only shown regionally. And the teams are normally, year in and year out, at the top of the sport.

       That rivalry is Duke University playing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Men's Basketball. Or simply-Duke-Carolina. Located only 10.5 miles apart. Duke is a  private, elite academic institution. UNC is a top flight public research university. Students who attend each college differ greatly in their diversity and aspirations.

       To me, there is simply no rivalry which matches the fervor of its games. Packed houses always at the 9, 000 seat barn called Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham and first at Carmichael Arena and now at the gleaming nearly 22,000 seat Dean E. Smith Center, a monument to what the game of basketball means to the UNC faithful and to its legendary coach.

       Media names are big, too. Billy Packer, the long-time network analyst. Dick Vitale, he of the North Jersey bombast. Jay Bilas, a Dukie who actually played in the series, as did Hubert Davis who had a stint at ESPN, the current televisor of the games. Former Duke coach Bucky Waters. Mike Gminski, another Duke player. Their analysis made the event even more colorful. And the play-by-play announcers are legendary--Dick Enberg, Dave O'Brien, Dick Stockton, Tim Brando and my favorite, Jim Thacker who worked for the great C. D. Chesley and Jefferson Pilot Sports.

       Those coaches who have been involved since the start of the intensification of the games in the 1950's are among the giants of the sport. Carolina first had Frank McGuire and his New York pipeline of players, succeeded by Kansan Dean Smith, once the winningest coach at the highest level of play, followed by his longtime assistant Bill Guthridge and then eventually procuring another aide, Roy Williams, a national championship coach at the University of Kansas, itself an epic locale in college basketball . At Duke, Vic Bubas and then Mike Krzyzewski, now the winningest coach who has won Olympic Gold and who is either revered or hated.

        Then the players themselves were of the highest caliber. Michael Jordan. Christian Laettner, Kyrie Irving. Charlie Scott. Phil Ford. James Worthy. Art Heyman. Len Chappell. J.J. Redick. Grant Hill. Charlie Scott, Bobby Hurley. Royalty. Epic players on a big stage.

        Tonight at 9:00 another chapter in the long-storied battles waged by the two very different champions of NCAA Basketball begins. Although it is merely a regular season Atlantic Coast Conference clash, don't tell that to those animated, agitated and seated in the blue of the Smith Center with the millions watching. I will be enjoying it all, now in High-Definition TV, a far cry from Thacker-Packer intonations  in black and white back in my childhood home of Highland Park.

       You can say your rivalry for your school is the best. I cannot disagree. For me, it is Duke-Carolina with rapt attention. Hands down.

     

                                                    The GOLDEN Super Bowl

         The game is in the record books. Denver, behind a stout defense and just enough offense, throttled the vaunted Carolina Panthers and MVP Cam Newton. Peyton Manning won his second Super Bowl. We can stop questioning how good he is given all of his achievements in the pantheon of  NFl quarterbacks.

         Of course the experts dissected the outcome and its myriad of reasons why things turned out the way they did. Thee are as many divergent theories as to why Carolina lost the game as Denver won the game. Then again, we have wildly speculative ideas of alien life on Earth, who should be the 2016 G.O.P. Presidential candidate and who shot JFK.

         The National Football League will tell you that it is all about the game. Yes, it is a championship for the league title, and in this instance, the two top teams in their respective conferences faced each other. So the NFL got that right.

         What the NFL continues to get right is the command that they have over the American conscience through the continued efforts to market a football game into a part of Americana. Let's face it--the Super Bowl is marketing bonanza; pretty unique in that it is simply a football game.

         Last time I looked, despite their ties to the United Way charity and community charitable events, the NFL is a big time money-making conglomerate with tax-exempt status. The Super Bowl is their ultimate merchandising/marketing spectacle, for which nearly half the TV sets in this country are tuned into.

         From a simple game there became extravagant halftime shows lasting now 30 minutes and starring the greatest names in current musical entertainment. No wonder more sets were on the show than the game, even if it was a mere one percentage point more. Each airing network ties new or unique events after the game to rope in more viewers and therefore higher advertising revenues. Considering the rights packages they negotiated with the NFL requires them to make back every last cent and then some while still enriching the League's coffers. Equitable distribution at its finest.

         Speaking of advertising revenue, the Super Bowl is the greatest single money maker for a network for a one day event. Advertisers pay exorbitant fees to market their products, using niches and gags to captivate the audience who hungers for the ad spots more than the game itself. Sorry PuppyMonkeyBaby.

         This parade of commercials is tied to nearly 6 hours of pre-game hype and hysteria leading up to the actual start of the game.  The 30 second airings during the game are even more costly in the hopes that they are memorable enough to sell the desired product.

         We, the American people, susceptible to the NFL's clamor for us to focus on this extravaganza, have mad this event a party date akin to New Year' Eve. The money spent on parties is enormous and has a surreal impact on the local economies.

          Let us not lose sight of who reaps the largest benefits of the game itself first and foremost--the NFL. The players are handsomely compensated to begin with--do I see any tears really shed for Cam Newton despite his subpar performance and post-game childish behavior?  Then there is the licensing aspect--the NFL licenses EVERYTHING. Apparel. Cars, Drinks. The League's haul is gigantic.

          So who loses out here? The hosting municipalities are losers because, in order to get the game, they cede almost all their rights and not adequately repaired for the honor of being the venue. In this instance Santa Clara, California might lose a lot of money in time spent dealing with this spectacle, but the NFL even opted to market this as the San Francisco Bay Area Super Bowl, headquartering much of its weeklong festivities in San Francisco, which is good distance away from Levi's Stadium. Take that Santa Clara.

         But most of all, it is the fan who loses the most concerning a Super Bowl. The cost of a ticket is stratospheric. Add in the cost of a hotel, plane flight, car, food, etc. and the savings of many people can be shredded.  The NFL gets richer while you get poorer. I wonder how Bernie Sanders feels about that?

         Did I not watch the game? Of course not. Did I go to a party? Nope. Nor did I rush out today and buy a car, eat a Snickers or want to get fuzzy with a marmot. I sat in my cozy den with my wife and took it all in, starting at the late hour of 5:45 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.  Satisfied that I did not submit to lure of the NFL any more than I had to, notwithstanding that I pay a goodly sum annually for New York Jets tickets and have little to show in the way of a return for my investment in terms of Super Bowl appearances let alone victories..

         For the record, I have seen better games. The halftime show was bad. Only a few commercials were noteworthy. Colbert was not worth staying up for. Peyton can have his Budweisers (another bit of self-promotion by the master player sales person) for we do live on the same planet yet not in the same realm.

         Now all I have to get through is the New Hampshire primaries tomorrow night. Cynically I wonder what is at stake there for the NFL and the networks...