UH Lady Cougars Open 2011 NCAA Tournament Play

I'm sitting in front of the television watching the NCAA women's tournament action and in addition to checking out how my brackets are holding up, I'm focused on my alma mater.

The Lady Cougars are in the tournament for the first time since 2005 and take on West Virginia in a Dallas Region matchup in Waco.    The winner gets the daunting task of probably facing Brittany Griner and the number one seeded Baylor Lady Bears in the second round on their Ferrell Center home court.

No matter what happens, the UH women ballers have had an excellent season.   They went unbeaten in taking the C-USA regular season title and finished the regular season ranked number 24 in the nation.

The run is starting to pay dividends recruiting wise since the Houston area is a hotbed of basketball talent in the Lone Star state on both the men's and women's side.

Good luck and eat 'em up Lady Cougars!

The Final Four Game That Changed History

March Madness has started its opening weekend of thrilling basketball games to determine the men's and women's NCAA champions for this 2010-11 season.   But 45 years ago today an NCAA championship game was played at Cole Field House on the University of Maryland campus that not only was one of the biggest upsets in NCAA history until a certain 1983 NCAA championship game made me sick to my stomach, it had a seismic impact on the collegiate game and society itself. .

On March 19, 1966, the unheralded and third ranked Texas Western Miners (now UTEP) were facing the number one ranked and heavily favored Adolph Rupp coached Kentucky Wildcats.    At the time teams in the SEC, ACC, and the Texas based SWC didn't recruit African American players for racist and stereotypical reasons.

Texas Western started a lineup with five Black players, David Lattin, Bobby Joe Hill, Orsten Artis, Harry Flournoy and Willie Worsley versus Kentucky's all white lineup that included future NBA coach Pat Riley and Louie Dampier.

It wasn't the first time that black players had started in an NCAA championship game.   Just three years earlier in the NCAA championship game Loyola started four Black players and Cincinnati three as Loyola upset the defending champs to take the 1963 NCAA title.   The Miners were the first team to have five African-American  players not only take the floor of a regular season NCAA game, but the floor of a NCAA title game as well, something we don't even think about now.

Texas Western opened the game with a thunderous dunk by Houstonian David Lattin, took the lead midway through the first half and never relinquished it.  Despite determined runs by 'Rupp's Runts' that shrunk the Texas Western lead to a point, the Miners  eventually won a thrilling 72-66 game to secure their  first NCAA championship.

The kids at Texas Western just wanted the game more.  They were playing not just for an NCAA  championship, but for the dignity of a people.  

The game forever destroyed the 'n----r ball' stereotype about African American players and ended the color line in the SEC, ACC and SWC.   Rupp himself would recruit his first African American player a few years later before he retired..  

Interestingly enough, the NCAA banned dunking from 1967 until 1976 probably due to the success of Texas Western and the imminent arrival of Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) at UCLA

The game would also be depicted in the 2006 movie Glory Road as well.  

There have been plenty of NCAA title games since then, but none with the far reaching social and historic influence of this one.

Conservafools Hatin' On The Prez's March Madness Brackets

One of the things the president has done since entering office is take a few minutes like 'errbody' else in the country does every March including the TransGriot and fill out brackets for the men's and women's NCAA tournament that gets revealed during an ESPN show and one the White House website..

One of the things I wanted to do on the show was, as people are filling out their brackets -- this is obviously a national pastime; we all have a great time, it’s a great diversion.  But I know a lot of people are thinking how can they help the Japanese people during this time of need.  If you go to usaid.gov -- usaid.gov -- that will list all the nonprofits, the charities that are helping out there.  It would be wonderful for people to maybe offer a little help to the Japanese people at this time -- as they’re filling out their brackets.  It’s not going to take a lot of time.  That's usaid.gov.  It could be really helpful.

But you know the conservafools.  The credits hadn't even finished rolling before the usual suspect conservafools attacked.

Newt Gingrich tweeted yesterday that America needs "a commander in chief not a spectator in chief," insisting Obama was "hiding from his job behind NCAA picks."

Faux News piled on along with RNC chair Reince Priebus and Oxycontin Man.

If this man was in a radiation hazmat suit and dumping water on the damaged Fukushima reactors himself or personally leading the anti-Khadafy rebels in Libya, they'd still find a way to hate on him.

Shut Up Fool! Awards-Women's Final Four First Weekend Edition

March Madness is breaking out all over the country.

Our annual orgy of college basketball in the States stared yesterday and won't wind down until the champions are crowned in Houston and Indianapolis during the first week of April.

But this year, I'm making the commitment to focus my March Madness attention and love on the ladies for a change.   Hey, they deserve it, and if we don't appreciate women's sports, who will?

And if you think I'm selling woof tickets on that, here's my women's NCAA tournament bracket to prove it.


Speaking of March Madness, that's a nice segue into our weekly exercise in determining what fool or fools exhibited championship level ignorance this week and earned our Shut Up Fool! Award.

There were some worthy candidates this week such as Rep Virginia Foxx (R-NC) , Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA) , Faux Noise, and former Haley Barbour press secretary Dan Turner 

This week's winner is Florida state representative Kathleen Passidomo.   She made this offensive comment  about the passage of what's been called the 'saggin' pants bill'  in Florida  

"There was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute. And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students."

Give you one guess what party Passsidomo is a member of..   Yep, the same one that worships the elephant.and all things corporate and ignorant in the name of conservatism.

Victim blame much, Kathleen?   Bottom line is that clothing doesn't matter to a rapist.  You could be covered up from head to toe, but if a rapist singles you out for attack, he will.   That ignorant stereotype needs to go the way of the dinosaur.

Rep Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples), shut up fool!

The Quisling Sellin' Out On HB 235

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

It is a not a well kept secret in trans community circles that there is no love lost between myself and NTCE ED Mara Keisling.   Some of it is personal, but a lot of the animus comes from the fact that she has either been an impediment, silent or been on the wrong side of trans civil rights issues.

And I'm not the only voice in the trans community that has no love for her.

It infuriates me because as someone who cares about the well being of the trans community, I am painfully aware that every day we don't have trans civil rights coverage means some transperson faces discrimination, violence, is made homeless, or dies.   The folks that take the brunt of that discrimination don't look like Ms. Keisling.  
 
After weeks of silence, we finally discovered what side she's taking on the contentious Maryland HB 235 trans rights bill that doesn't have public accommodations language in it.

Note the button she's wearing.    She and her organization supports it.

To paraphrase the late Texas trans activist Dee McKellar,  why am I not surprised?