The Last Shining Moment

Conference tournaments are in full swing, and March Madness is right around the corner. Of course, tragedy gets in the way, and today we receive the sad news that Doug Towey has died.

Who is Doug Towey, you ask? Well, he was the creative director at CBS that chose to create a montage of the NCAA Tournament during the closing credits of the final game. And the song he chose to soundtrack the clips? Everyone together......"One Shining Moment."

Now, my love (obsession) for this yearly tradition has been well documented on this site. So it's no surprise that I'm taking this news rather harshly (almost as bad as I'm taking this news).

And so, to honor Towey, I've taken the liberty of jotting down some highlights from his very 1st montage in 1987 (the clips begin around 1:50).

• First, I love that even in its first year, they chose a literal approach to the clip organization (show a ball being tipped when he sings "the ball is tipped"!). It was a precursor to all of those literal music videos we're seeing on youtube today.
• Is that Kevin Durant at the 2:20 mark? Did Doug Towey create LOST? Is Kevin Durant a time-traveling smoke monster?
• What school is APSU?
• Don't miss the Santa Clara "almost kiss" at 2:53
• Boeheim gets a Gatorade shower! I thought the Celtics were the first to do that on a basketball court. I need to go change that wikipedia entry.
• I love the juxtaposition of how Bob Knight gets pissed and Dean Smith gets pissy at 3:05

I'm sure this won't be the last you hear from me on this topic, so I'll end with an interesting tidbit regarding the song's writer, David Barrett.....he wrote, trying to explain to a girl how awesome Larry Bird is. That sounds about right.

No One Touch the March. The March Has Gone Mad!

The following blog entry will reflect my love of:

a) college basketball
b) college basketball montages
c) Full House
d) the internet's curbing of my own boredom

Now, last March, I wrote about not just my love of tournament time, but more specifically, my adoration for the traditional montage of tourney clips set to the sweet sounds of "One Shining Moment" (if the montage doesn't already cause you to tear up, get this: rumor has it that this song was the last recorded by Luther Vandross pre-stroke. Yeah, grab a tissue).

Well, this year, they've upped the ante. You can design your very own montage!

Here's what I came up with. The following clip will reflect my:

a) idolization of AJ Graves and Pete Campbell
b) short attention span (they have hundreds of clips I wasn't willling to click through)
c) overt inspiration from this art project



Did you follow all those non sequiturs?

One Shining Moment

As Final Four week approaches, my thoughts always turn to the many memories of watching the games with friends and family. As a sophomore in high school, the Final Four fell on spring break, and was in Indianapolis. My friends and I took the Metro downtown, and were greeted by hummers filled with Mountain Dew (they were unveiling their wide-mouth can), the new Reebok DMX running shoe (you could take a pair for a trial run, literally), and our radio debut, giving shout-outs on Hoosier Hot 96! As high schoolers, there's nothing better than walking through the streets of downtown Indy, and yelling "Minnesotaaaaaaaa" or "UK sucks" just to hear the random reaction of cheers and boos from others walking around. I remember watching IU beat Oklahoma in 2002, and then listening to my friend Bill call Aaron McGhee's dorm room (Oklahoma has a ridiculously simple student directory on their website,or at least they did in 2002) precisely as the buzzer sounded to leave a rude comment or five. I also think about my annual phone call to Arizona, where my friend Ben is undoubtedly watching CBS' tear jerking montage set to "One Shining Moment." Ben's Final Four highlight came in 2000 when he sent conciliatory emails to Billy Donovan and Mike Miller. He got no response. He also sent Mateen Cleaves an email, suggesting that me might want to consider pressing charges for what Miller did to his ankle. He got no response.

My original intention was to research, collect, and comment on the montages from years past, but fortunately, someone else did all the work for me! And so I give you the last 10 years of "One Shining Moment," brought to you by The Morning After.

I'll give you one montage, to whet your whistle. It's from 2005, and the highlights include, but are not limited to:

- the Nevada Wolf Pack mascot getting rejected as he tries to console the Nevada player on the bench (when will people realize that mascots aren't simply clowns for our amusement. they can offer emotional support as well, if we just let them!).

- the Fairleigh player "flexing" his "bicep"

- the Lachey, Judd, Murray celebrity mini-montage

- the greatest jersey name pop in history (no one does it better than Bucknell, and everyone knows that 2005 was the year of the jersey pop)




See the other 9 years of moments here.