It won’t surprise anyone to know a co-editor of this sports journal wanted to go to a big school where major college sports played a big part of the campus culture. The only true answer I have to the question is from the moment I opened my acceptance letter there was something calling me to the cozy college town of Corvallis. Not too many other places as I’ve already pointed out (re: fuck you, University of Minnesota), but I had a few options that all would have been easier. I didn’t have any connections to the school, I was not an athletic recruit, and I didn’t know a soul in the whole state. There’s not exactly a pipeline of students from the Midwest finding their way to the Willamette Valley. I’m often asked how I ended up at Oregon State University. No March Madness moments have ever felt like they belonged to me. I loved all of these incredible moments of March Madnesses past, but outside of the annual 2-minutes-and-58-second-log video, they’ve never felt like they belonged to me. Do you remember Dunk City? Or the first legendary chapter of Steph Curry? Bryce Drew? Mario Chalmers? Do you remember Khalid El Amin? Or The Michigan State Flintstones? Christian Laettner’s perfect game? Dwyane Wade walking on water? Do you remember the Villanova flute player playing her final notes through tears after the Wildcats were upset by NC State? It felt like the only moment I was granted permission to share in the absolute wild emotions, the euphoria and the heartbreak, of those who had a more emotional stake in the tournament. The ‘One Shining Moment’ video has always been my favorite part of March Madness because, until recently, it was the only moment of the tournament where my emotions moved me somewhere beyond a casual fan cheering for their bracket picks to pan out. It may be cheesy as hell, but it’s been making grownups cry since 1987 so don’t second guess its power. But do any other songs in the history of music capture the unity of sports and storytelling quite like ‘One Shining Moment’? I don’t think so. I especially loved the final moment of the presentation, the moment CBS cut to Greg Gumbel in the studio to present ‘One Shining Moment.’Īre there better songs than ‘One Shining Moment’ in the history of music? Yes, there are. I loved watching them climb the ladder one at a time to cut down their piece of the net to hold onto forever. I loved watching the players crying and hugging each other in a sea of school-colored confetti. My biggest thrill of each college basketball season came in the moments a new champion was crowned. I enjoyed them and wanted them to succeed, but no one in my immediate family went to school there, it always felt like they were playing second fiddle to the professional sports teams I fell in love with in my hometown, and when it came time for me to go to college, it turned out I was not exactly Golden Gopher material (Fuck you, U of M admissions!!!). I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and never really latched onto the hometown Gophers when it came to college sports. I didn’t know this truth about me until now. I have also never experienced March Madness the way it was meant to be experienced. It’s a ridiculous approach to the process, but it does have some truth to it, and I can say as a writer, if I am never not writing, then I am also never not listening to ‘One Shining Moment.’ This idea that a writer is never not writing even when they are not writing because everything is part of writing. I mean this in a similar way to how we often talk about the writing process. I don’t have a Spotify playlist setup to play the official March Madness anthem on repeat for all hours of the day. I am never not listening to ‘One Shining Moment.’ I’m talking about the Luther Vandross version, of course.
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