Rutgers Had a Cinderella Run?

What I’m about to say should be inherently obvious, but disclaimers must always be made for the mental defective fucktards that will miss the fact that the focus of this post is not Don Imus.

<Disclaimer> Don Imus is a haggard, disgusting piece of trash that ought to be beaten to death with bamboo sticks and set aflame. Should he be fired? Definitely, but that’s a pipe dream. His employers and the media in general have spent years turning a blind eye to his racist, misogynistic, and homophobic behavior while firing others for far less and only now they feel the outrage? Bollocks. The worst that will happen here – beyond a paid vacation until this blows over – is that Imus dips into rehab just to remind everyone that he’s really, really, REALLY sorry.</Disclaimer>

So I was watching "The Today Show" this morning while Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira were interviewing C. Vivian Stringer, head coach of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, and one of the players. Beneath them was an obnoxiously large caption that asked, "Will the Rutgers team forgive Imus?"

For a while, it went as you would expect — they lobbed obvious questions and Stringer spoke about racism, sexism, and the tragedy of her team not having the opportunity to enjoy their success because of a cantankerous old fool. Stringer then touched on moral decay, society’s willingness to look the other way, etc. I was with her on all of that. Huzzah for awareness and calls for proactive change. But then she faded back to the Rutgers story of triumph and harped for so long that I forgot about the real issue and instead focused on the fact that women’s basketball is just bloody dreadful. 

According to C. Vivian, Don Imus caused the entire nation to miss out on the greatest sports story of the year. His racist, sexist attempt at humor prevented us from reveling in the Rutgers story.. one of inspiration, faith, and hard work…

Related question: If Don Imus wasn’t a contemptible person, would you have remembered who Tennessee stomped to death in the National Championship game? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Kind of sad but somewhat ironic considering one of Stringer’s base complaints.

… Because of Don Imus, little girls with dreams won’t be regaled with heroic tales of the Scarlet Knights, the veritable little engine that could.. they won’t channel the fighting spirit of the five-feet nothin, one hundred and nothin, hardly a speck of athletic ability David that took on the Goliath women’s college hoops and.. uh, well, got beat the fuck down. Wait, what? 

I acknowledge that as a team of inexperienced underclassmen, Rutgers had no business in the National Championship game but this wasn’t Hickory verses South Bend Central. I didn’t catch Norman Dale on those sidelines, did you? Rutgers is an established program that is perennially ranked in the national polls, contending for BIG EAST championships, and appearing in the Big Dance. Just last year, they posted a 27-5 overall record and a perfect 16-0 slate in BIG EAST play to win two regular season titles in a row. And this year, they managed to knock out a 22-8 record and a 4 seed in the NCAA tournament… pretty nice for a supposed upstart.

"Oh but we didn’t have any seniors when we ran through the field!" Yeah? Well, two thumbs up for ya but you aren’t some hard luck Cinderella coming out of nowhere to beat the odds. You play women’s basketball – a sport where a good draw will give a young but talented team an 8 lane highway to the Final Four. Why? Because the sport boasts three elite teams, a few good ones, and another 800 that can’t field a team where every member of the starting five can walk and chew gum at the same time. So while reaching the final game is an incredible achievement – especially for a school whose never had the honor – it wasn’t that improbable. Don’t get it twisted, Coach Stringer.