By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
So, I turned 65 today. In quarantine.
Of all the many things I expected to be doing the day I turned 65, sitting at home unable to go anywhere or do anything – outside of a few limited options – would not have been something I expected.
But we are where we are, with no sports, no live entertainment, no dining out, no socializing, no visits to family and friends, no casual shopping. No nothing, except sitting at home, maybe reading, watching whatever we can on television and just trying to get past this.
I am more fortunate than most. I still get to see one of my kids and two of my grands on a regular basis. My wife and I (mostly my wife, but I do help) provide child-care for our grandsons (age 6 and 4), while Sam and his wife continue to work.
They are in medical-related jobs – not on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus, but close enough – so we travel back and forth each week for two or three days of the week.
Most people don’t even get that.
As a sportswriter, I thought I would miss sports, and I did miss March Madness, the NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament. That’s why I created my mock Tournament bracket, to kind of fill that void.
But, guess what? It really doesn’t hold much interest anymore. It’s been a month since the last college basketball game, and the teams, coaches and fans have moved on to the offseason.
And I have not watched one minute of replays and other sports programming on TV in the weeks since the games were shut down. I just can’t work up the interest, plus it reminds me of what we’ve lost, what we’re missing.
I was interested in watching the replay of the 2006 Saints-Falcons Monday Night Football game that signaled the beginning of a new era of Saints’ football. But I don’t have ESPN anymore, since I cut the cable earlier this year, so the moment passed.
There have been a couple of interesting things to happen in Mississippi sports during this idle time, though.
One was the departure, then return, of Missy Bilderback as the women’s basketball coach at Jones College.
In mid-March, it was announced that Bilderback was leaving JC for the position as head coach at Northwestern State in Louisiana.
This was a logical step up for someone who has been as successful as she has: 127-20 in five seasons, three state titles and four straight trips to the NJCAA National Tournament.
After 16 seasons at Presbyterian Christian – a championship high school program she literally built from scratch – Bilderback went to Jones, and there she’s taken a program that was perennially good and made it great.
NSU has had a solid program in the past, and there appears to be a commitment there to returning its women’s program to a higher level of contention in the Southland Conference. And there is no doubt in anyone’s mind Missy was the right person to do just that.
But last week, she announced that she had changed her mind and would be staying at Jones, which, naturally, welcomed her back with open arms.
For those who don’t know her well, it might seem that she reneged on the Lady Demons and left them hanging.
However, these are perilous times, times of uncertainty, and her family is her highest priority. Her husband Chip has a successful coaching career of his own going, now as the head football coach at Columbia High, and they have a son.
In a statement released by the Jones athletic department, Bilderback said, “I sincerely apologize to the wonderful people at NSU. This was such a hard decision that I never anticipated I would have to make.”
Bilderback cited the pandemic as being a factor in her decision not to leave this area.
“Circumstances are much different than when our family made the decision to accept the job,” she said. “With the uncertainty moving forward, I feel it’s best for my family to step away from the opportunity at NSU and stay at Jones.”
There will be other opportunities at the college level should she decide later to pursue that path and backing out of a major move for her family at a time like this should not be held against her.
However, a person can make themselves a very nice career as a coach at a Mississippi community college, and Missy could do a lot worse than staying at Jones indefinitely.
Meanwhile, down the road at Poplarville, Chris Oney is doing just that at Pearl River. The Wildcats finished as the No. 1 team in the country in the final NJCAA men’s basketball rankings.
PRCC was 28-0 and the top-seeded team in the NJCAA Tournament when the tournament was first postponed, then canceled because of the pandemic.
It’s unfortunate that the Wildcats couldn’t prove their mettle on the court against the nation’s best teams, but that shouldn’t stop PRCC from hoisting a banner at White Coliseum proclaiming their status as the top-ranked team in the country for the 2019-20 season.
By the way, I’d be shocked if Oney hasn’t been getting some calls from four-year programs. He took over the head coaching job in a tough situation, early in the 2015-16 season, and did well enough that year to earn the permanent position.
Like Missy Bilderback at Jones, Oney took a program that was always good and has made it great. PRCC made its first trip to Hutchinson, Kansas, for the national tournament in 2019, and the Wildcats would have been hard to beat in this year’s tournament.
So, what else has been going on as I hit 65? I’ve been listening to a lot of music during this down time, and I’ve been communicating with a lot of music fans on social media sites that I frequent.
Tuesday night, the coronavirus took one of American’s great musicians when John Prine succumbed to the disease at age 73. Prine had some underlying health issues that made him easy prey for the virus, but that doesn’t mean his loss isn’t keenly felt.
I can’t say I was a big fan of his. I never saw him perform, and I’m not very well versed on his more extensive catalogue.
But I find myself mourning him more than I expected, maybe because he’s not that much older than I am and because he was true to his craft.
Prine wrote some truly memorable songs, and I do have one of his records, Sweet Revenge, a 1973 release that includes one of my favorites, Please Don’t Bury Me, which is apt for today.
“Please don’t bury me down in that cold, cold ground,” Prine sings in a remarkably upbeat song for its subject.
“I’d rather have ‘em cut me up and pass me all around. Throw my brain in a hurricane, and the blind can have my eyes, and the deaf can have both of my ears if they don’t mind the size.”
There was nothing remotely artificial about John Prine; he was as real as his Indiana roots and it is gratifying to see the tributes from other great songwriters – Bruce Springsteen, Bob Weir, among many others.
Getting back to sports for a minute, we’ve all been hearing about when will games resume and in what form they’ll take when they do.
Major League Baseball is floating the idea of starting the season late and playing all the games in Arizona in empty stadiums. The NBA and NHL have resigned themselves to no playoffs for 2020 and, hopefully, getting back to normal in the fall.
I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I question whether the authorities are going to have the coronavirus beaten enough to allow thousands of people to congregate to watch live sports any time this year and into the next.
And if the fans can’t be there, it is my opinion that the various sports leagues should just keep them shut down until they can attend. In my view, there are few things more depressing than watching televised games being played in empty arenas.
It reminds me of the old Star Trek episode where the Enterprise crew find themselves on a planet where the Roman Empire never fell. One scene had a televised gladiator fight in a studio, with canned fan noise. It looked and felt fake, which I guess was the idea.
Mr. Spock won his fight, by the way, by using the Vulcan Death Grip.
Finally, let’s wrap up the Caldwell Mock NCAA Tournament, for whatever it’s worth.
The Final Four was scheduled to be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The first game on Saturday had Villanova (28-7), the No.2 seed out of the East Regional, facing San Diego State (34-2), also a 2-seed, from the West Regional.
The Aztecs had a really good team this season, and they played very well in this one. But the Wildcats bring the seasoning of a program that’s been in this position before. Jay Wright is one of the best big-game coaches around, and his team pulls away late to win.
The second game features the tournament’s top-seeded team, Kansas (32-3), the No. 1 seed from the Midwest Regional, against the 2-seed from the South Regional, Florida State (30-5).
There were a lot of people who had FSU winning their mock tournaments, and I’d expect they could give KU a serious run for it. The Seminoles, to me, were a deeper version of Baylor – tough, physical, with good shooters.
But, as was the case in the Elite Eight, there is nobody who can hang with Udoke Azubuike, the big Jayhawk aircraft carrier, to use the very apt term from the late, great Al McGuire. Azubuike scores 32 points and grabs 15 rebounds to lead Kansas back to the championship game.
In the final, Bill Self gets a particularly tough monkey off his back by beating Villanova 74-70. The Wildcats have been a noted nemesis for the Jayhawks the past few years, so getting a win here is sweet for the veteran KU coach.
In my championship game, it’s Marcus Garrett who comes to the fore. His 3-pointer with 55.4 seconds to play puts Kansas ahead for good – it’s the ninth lead change of the game – and KU converts 6 of 6 from the line in the remaining time to seal its fourth national title.
Garrett finishes with a game-high 26 points and Azubuike has another double-double with 19 points and 12 rebounds, earning MVP honors for the Final Four.
What? You thought I’d pick anyone else to win my tournament? Oh, no, no, no. I’m a solid Rock Chalk Jayhawk from way, way back, and if I get to set the rules, then my team gets to win. Simple as that.
After all, it is my birthday.
Stan Caldwell is a 35-year veteran sportswriter in the Hattiesburg area, and most recently served as sports information director at Pearl River Community College in Mississippi.
