The Dookie Is Correct

TigerBlog was right. It only took a few minutes of the first NFL game of the year for TB to miss the announcers from the World Cup.

And this was even more true when TB listed to Kevin Harlan shriek on every play on the radio. Who can listen to that guy for more than one or two plays and not change the station?

Yes, back in June, TB said it would come to this. Watching the World Cup and listening to the announcers - mostly English - pointed out exactly what was wrong with most American broadcasters, and TB knew that this would be most obvious when the NFL season began.

Sadly, it only took a few minutes of the Saints-Vikings game to prove TB correct.

As an aside, TB never used to mind the Vikings, going back to their days playing outdoor games in December at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, where the Mall of America now stands, and he sort of liked Brett Favre, at least a little bit. This year, as with last, the Vikings are TB's least favorite team, and it's because of Favre. It's amazing, isn't it, how one player can destroy his legacy?

Anyway, going back to the World Cup, the American team was of course coached by a Princeton alum, Bob Bradley.

There has also been a Princeton alum coaching the at the basketball World Championships, currently nearing their conclusion in Turkey. In the quarterfinal round yesterday, the U.S. team defeated Russia 89-79; extra credit is given if you can identify without looking the other three teams in the FIBA final four (TB will let you think about it; quitters can click here).

As most should know by now, the Russians are coached by Dave Blatt, who was the captain of the 1981 Princeton team that won the Ivy League championship while going 13-1.

Blatt came from Framingham, Mass., to play for Pete Carril, and he was a steady contributor if not huge scorer for three varsity seasons. Princeton went 7-7 in the league in his sophomore year, and that included two one-point losses to Penn in the year that the Quakers reached the NCAA Final Four.

As a junior, Blatt was part of a Princeton team that tied Penn for the league title and then lost by one in the playoff for the NCAA spot in a game played at Lafayette.

Princeton also played in the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii that year and went 0-3, and Carril vowed never to play in Hawaii again. True to his word, Carril never took his team back to the 50th state, and it wasn't until the 1998-99 season, when Bill Carmody was head coach, that Princeton again played in the Rainbow Classic, defeating Florida State, Texas and UNC Charlotte to win the title as TB earned a free trip to Hawaii in what was clearly win-win.

Meanwhile, back at Blatt, he was the captain along with Randy Melville in 1980-81, when Princeton won the outright title before losing to BYU in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Blatt, who has dual citizenship with the U.S. and Israel, played in Israel for 10 years after graduating before embarking on a hugely successful coaching career that has taken him throughout Europe. Ultimately, he became the head coach of the Russian team and then won the 2007 European championship.

For these World Championships, he made his biggest impact with his claim that the Soviet Union rightfully was awarded the gold medal in basketball in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, though he also said that he cried at the time when the U.S. team didn't win.

This resulted in a back-and-forth with the U.S. coach, whose name escapes TB at the moment, who said this about the comments:
"He's Russian. He coaches the Russian team. So he probably has that viewpoint. His eyes are clearer now because there are no tears in them."

TigerBlog doesn't ordinarily side with a Dookie against a Princetonian, but in this case, the Dookie is correct. There is no objective way to say that the Soviets deserved to win that game.

For those who don't know much about the 1972 Olympics, there were all kinds of problems, including the murder of 11 members of the Israeli delegation by Arab terrorists and the subsequent decision to resume the Games after one day of mourning.

As far as the competition went, nothing topped the men's basketball final. The U.S. team was 63-0 all-time in Olympic basketball prior to the 1972 final against the Soviet Union, and if you're under 40 or so, you don't really have a feel for what any sporting event between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was all about back then anyway.

The Soviets led 49-48 when Doug Collins, now the Sixers coach, was fouled with three seconds to play. Collins made both foul shots (one of the more amazing pressure performances in sporting history by the way), and that left the Soviets three seconds to go the length of the floor.

The rest is pretty involved, but the bottom line is that the Soviets were given three different opportunities to inbound the ball. The first two resulted in an American win; the third resulted in a Soviet layup (after what was a clear offensive foul) that was allowed to stand.

The final thus became 50-49 in favor of the Soviets, who gleefully took their gold medals. The 12 members of the American team refused to accept the silver medals, and to this day, not one of them has one.

In the history of American sport, there has never been another time when a team has been so wronged out of such an important win. Nothing, actually, comes close.

It had to be that big for TB to agree with the Dookie. In this case, though, he's right.