Basketball Fever in North Carolina! and Coach K

Apparently, every year during March in North Carolina, or at least in the region that I live in (Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Durham) basketball fever rules! Yeah Baby! With University of North Carolina, Duke, NC State and other ACC schools in my backyard, a boy from Nashville, Tennessee would think that Mardi Gras was in full swing (without the beads). Everybody except me is talking about basketball - even the cultured here take Abe Lemons to heart: "There are really only two plays: "Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket."

I'm a big NFL football fan (Cowboys and Titans), and I don't care for baseball at all which is nothing but five minutes of action crammed into two hours - and golf... well, I'm not old enough to play yet. But I'm starting to catch the college basketball culture a bit, rooting for the UNC TarHeels - albeit cautiously - I don't want to get addicted to a sport that consumes my time - for the same reason why I don't watch college football - too many teams plus giving up my Saturdays? NO WAY! With NetFlix, woodworking, reading, projects, work and now blogging, can I possibly work all those games into my twenty hour daily lifestyle? A friend at work countered with the fact that college basketball season is actually a short season. I didn't buy it.

Woody Allen in Annie Hall quipped, "What is so fascinating about sitting around watching a bunch of pituitary cases stuff a ball through a hoop?" On the other hand, James Naismith says, "The invention of basketball was not an accident. It was developed to meet a need. Those boys simply would not play "Drop the Handkerchief."

OK - enough said - I don't want to get shunned at work!

On a serious note about basketball - Duke style, here is AN EXAMPLE OF LEADERSHIP.

(CBS) If you passed him on the street, you might think he was an accountant. But this mild-mannered fellow is one of the most inspiring men in America -- the master of motivation.

His name is Mike Krzyzewski, and he's the head basketball coach at Charlie Rose's alma mater, Duke University in North Carolina. "Coach K," as he's known, has put his teams near the top of the NCAA basketball tournament nine times in the last 16 years -- three times as champion. And he's done it with a style unlike anything you would expect.

He doesn't talk like a typical coach, or act like one. Though he can be tough, and temperamental, Krzyzewski is hardly a tyrant. He hugs, he listens, he supports. He wants every player at every game to feel he has something at stake...."
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