E-Mail From Bob

[I'm having trouble keeping up. Between blogging, e-mail, compiling and tracking my NCAA basketball tourney bracket, jotting a few notes in my quintennial journal that I'm keeping this year . . . I'm falling behind. So I'm going to try to kill two birds with one stone here--copy and paste parts of an e-mail exchange between me and my buddy Bob. We're both following closely the NCAA basketball tournament which included our favorite teams (at least at the beginning, since my Michigan Wolverines won their first game but lost their second). His favorite team is the Michigan State Spartans. Other than that though, he's an okay guy.]

BOB: Well the Spartans have made it to the Sweet Sixteen. Kansas awaits. How are your brackets holding up? Like most years, upsets or not, the Brackets tend to get back to the favorites by the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.

So who holds the bragging rights in the family pool as of the first two rounds?

Hope you will be rooting the Spartans to the Final Four.

Since you brought up college sports nicknames recently--don't you think we should have a college with the nickname sandbaggers? Nevada State Sandbaggers or the University of New Mexico Sandbaggers or some such thing. Of course, it works too in those flood plain areas--The Fighting Sandbaggers from Iowa State.

And come on, why hasn't Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti taken on the Emu as a mascot. That's perfect. It's a natural. Then again in a recent Harris poll, 8 out of 10 Emus said they'd be offended by the association. If Akron can be the Zips, why can't Eastern be the Yps? And with CMU you'd have the Zips, the Chips, and the Yps. Check the relative GPAs at the MAC schools and rename the lowest team the Dips. Find the team with the most gang members and change their name to the Crips--they flash gang signs anymore. Dam, gotta stop those three martini lunches!

They have a high school here in Fluvanna County whose mascot is the Flyin' Fluco. Using verbal ingenuity like that, we don't need to disparage any more Indian tribes.

DAVE: Paste and string. That's all that's holding my bracket together today. Louisville has to win out for me to have a chance. I don't think I picked any 8 vs. 9 match-up correctly. I lost three of my sweet 16 and one of my elite eight. So I'm third out of seven in my family bracket and about seven out of nineteen in my nephew's money bracket. My brother Gary (the Enforcer) is leading in both right now.

I'll try to cheer for MSU from here on out, but it's hard for me to garner any enthusiasm for it. It's kinda like cheering on your nephew's little league team. That's a pretty good comparison, I guess. Your heart just isn't into it.

Besides, my supervisor here will be doing enough MSU cheering for both of us. I was able to have some fun last week here at work. For Christmas, one of my presents came in a University of Michigan gift bag that plays "Hail to the Victors" when opened. I saved that bag and carried my lunch to work in it twice last week, once after U of M made the NCAA tourney and again after they won. When I opened my 'lunch bag', Hail to the Victors! I'm sure my supervisor sitting next door loved it. It was loud too.

Today when I came in to work (I had yesterday off), I noticed my supervisor sitting near the aisle, wearing a big smile, with his hand cupped to his ear as if he were listening for something. Smart aleck. Hea, at least we proved wrong the naysayers who said Michigan didn't even belong in the tournament.

We have a high school team over here called the dreadnaughts. You know, those old battleships from World War I. I'm thinking, weaponry has become much more terrifying since then. Why haven't team names kept pace? Imagine if the Toledo Rockets were called the Toledo Doom-rockets. Wouldn't that inspire more fear in opponents? Why isn't there a high school or college team with the name Warheads. How about A-Bombers. I think there is a roller derby team called the bombers.

I think the same could be same of animal team names. Lions, tigers and bear are so yesterday. The Snakeheads? It's got my vote. Can you imagine what the mascot would look like? Or how about the Piranha. Better yet, the Packing Piranhas. That works on so many levels.