I think that, societally, we can all agree with one another that we could use some more emojis in our day-to-day lives. What are these intricate, decipherable little images, if not a chance for us to communicate with one another more effectively. Right? Right.
So, with that being said, and with all the excitement of the NBA Playoffs Eastern and Western conference finals engulfing the sports world, we thought it would be a good time to debut some NBA conference final emojis. Here they are with a Rosetta Stone style explanation to help you out with their translation and day-to-day usage. You’re welcome in advance.
Definition: The Cutest
What it is: A picture of Steph Curry’s adorable little daughter that he brought with him to the press conference after the Warriors’ Game 1 win in the Western Conference finals.
How to use it: If there’s something so cute that you really can’t describe it? BOOM. Emoji that piece. Just make sure, whatever you do, that you don’t send it to Brian Windhorst.
Used in a tweenage text-sentence:
Guy: “I totes LY babe.”
Girl: “Our love is like ”
Definition: This was supposed to be easy, but I keep F-ing it up. HELP!!
What it is: An image of Houston Rockets center, Dwight Howard, after he continues to shoot 40% from the Free Throw line.
How to use it: ever have something that’s supposed to be, like, super-easy but for some reason you struggle with it? Like remembering which direction is East when your inside your office building? Or reading a non-digital clock? Get your emoj on.
Used in a tweenage text-sentence:
Dude #1: “Come pick me up. I’m on the East side of the building.”
Dude #2: “Which side is the one on the East? I suck at directions.”
Dude #1: “The place where the Sun rises, idiot. THE EAST.”
Dude #2: “”
Definition: OMGOMGOMG: RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What it is: An image of Kyle Korver running directly out of LeBron’s path with the stupefied look of pure terror that usually only accompanies someone getting stabbed from behind in a Friday the 13th movie while they’re in mid-coitus. Korver, appearing for all the world like a man who knew his time had come, treated Bron-Bron like an Ebola patient having a coughing fit and cleared out of his vicinity with all the haste his legs would allow.
How to use it: Anytime you think that the S is about the hit the F. The end of days is nigh and you need to get out. Here’s the emoji to warn everyone in the most dire of circumstances.
Used in a text-sentence:
Guy: “Hey, baby. I managed to sneak in your window and I’m up in your bed. . .;)”
Girl: “You did?!? My Dad just pulled up in the driveway! ”
Definition: I’m cooking us food.
What it is: James Harden’s celebratory cooking dance.
How to use it: Are you getting ready to make a delicious meal (*Author’s note: and then post the obligatory photo to your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter feeds in an effort to show people that you are both handy in the kitchen and so above eating out.) and you want someone to know? Harden will handle that.
Used in a text-sentence:
Girl: “Hey, girl. I’m hungry. You wanna come get some food?”
Girl #2: “Actually, why don’t you come over here and let’s ?”
Girl #1: “As long as we can post it with my favorite IG filter. I like Valencia when I’m showing the food I’m eating.
Definition: You’re cursed, son!
What it is: The great voodoo shaman, Lil B, curser of NBA players and scorcher of the earth! Bow before his might and wrath! (*Author’s note: Lil B was not consulted in the writing of this article and I would greatly appreciate it if he spared me from one of his legendary curses.)
How to use it: Are you worried that someone is stealing a patented dance move of yours to celebrate hitting a clutch three pointer in the NBA Playoffs? Do you think that someone has disrespected you or has horrendously bad luck? Then this is the emoji for you.
Used in a text-sentence:
Dude #1: “Man, so I just shattered that mirror I keep underneath my ladder when I walked underneath to open this mummy sarcophagus. My black cat won’t get out of the way either. lol.”
Which is fantastic. It certainly appears that the NFL social media guy snuck into Roger Goodell’s malted liquor cabinet and got himself a couple drinks, sat down and decided to light Twitter on fire with an acrostic message. Yup. That’s right. It looks like the passive-aggressive NFL went all 4th grade poetry on us in a tweet meant to underhandedly deride the New England Patriots and their ever-deflating balls.
They’ve got P, S, and I in there. And a Colts player, too. Well done. Since this was funny, I’m sure the NFL will fire this guy while continuing to employ this guy with the Cleveland Browns.
But this wasn’t the only time last night the NFL decided to try to send out a Nic-Cage-in-every-Nic-Cage-Movie-ever coded message last night. Here were 7 other tweets the NFL put out and then quickly deleted.
Garth Brooks is in Omaha, Nebraska right now. If you’re living anywhere near the entire state of Nebraska, there’s a good chance you’ve been touched by the madness or at least know someone who has. He’s doing something like 10 shows in 5 nights or something utterly insane like that and the people around where I live can’t seem to get enough.
I thought this would be the perfect time to dig into my personal writing archives and pull out my old, failed, script: College Musical which is a musical featuring genre-stretching parodies as it follows around a group of college students trying to catch a coke-snorting Dean of Admissions and out his corruption. In short: it’s ridiculous. However, one of the songs has been rattling around in my brain all week: Butterfaces.
In the scene featuring this parody of Garth’s legendary sing-along-song, Friends in Low Places, one of our characters is trying to come to grips with the fact that he has a crippling addiction to butterfaces. After he knocks down a few brews, suddenly his senses dissipate and he’s on the prowl.
Is he the hunter? Or is he being hunted? Is he a but-his-face? Is that even a thing for girls?
Are you one of those disenfranchised, embittered people who doesn’t get out to the polls when it’s time to perform your civic duty? Are you the guy/girl who grumbles angrily about “all the crooks” that we have to deal with when casting a ballot for an elected office? Cut it out. You know why? Because here‘s why:
Boom!
Yes, that’s Tim Miles in a G-Unit man-scarf with his head tilted to the side so you know he means business. Yesterday was election day in Lincoln, Nebraska, the home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. And Tim wanted you to know that it’s time to get off your obesity-epidemic-suffering-ass and go vote for city council, mayor, and last but certainly not least: airport authority.
And lest you think that Tim is going the civic-duty-route all by his lonesome, have a taste of this:
POW! That’s Mike Riley. He’s new to these parts but he still wants you to get your A out of your desk chair and go hang some chads.
I know. I know. I’m sure you’re thinking: “Hey, Chris, this is stupid.” And “Hey, Chris, you are a terrible photoshopper.” And you would be right on both counts. But before you glass-house-living haters throw stones, here’s this little number for you to try on:
That’s the last one. I promise, I’m done. But check out the necklace on Mark Banker (*Author’s note: Banksy? Still trying on crappy nicknames for him, at this point.) as he reminds us that Airport Authority isn’t going to elect itself.
Roger Goodell is one busy dude these days. He’s running a billion dollar league, has a new crop of rookies to rule with an iron fist until the grovel before him begging for forgiveness take under his wing, and millions of his own to Scrooge-McDuck-Backstroke through in his vault.
So how does a guy like Roger Goodell keep himself organized on a crazy day like the NFL draft? By meticulously planning out every free moment of his day with a calendar of course. We were able to obtain a screenshot of what this calendar looks like, only a day ahead of the 2015 NFL Draft. Take a look.
(*Author’s note: as usual, I apologize for the crappy formatting. Just click the image and it will expand for you.)
On November 30th, 2014 a coach named Bo Pelini disappeared for the second time that year. The first time was on November 22nd in Madison, Wisconsin — and well get to more on that later — but this was his second time going missing. And this time it was for good.
Skerial, a new Podcast from NCB, investigates the mysterious circumstances and the conspiracy theories that abound surrounding the former Nebraska Football lightning rod. Episode one sets the scene.
In a video that began circulating the internet on April 22, 2015 I truly believe that YouTube jumped the shark. I know this is a bold statement to make, but it’s one that I feel I can back up with hard video evidence. Here, submitted for your viewing pleasure, is a girl peeing herself while being interviewed about a guy being shot. Take your time and enjoy. Analysis will follow.
I’m usually pretty skeptical about this kind of thing. Many times I’m the first cynic to shout out: “That shit is staged!” But, I have to admit, this video clip certainly seems pretty legit. So let’s break down the different phases of this interview.
Phase 1) Before you even starte the video, note the girls’ stance. It’s classic about-to-open-the-urine-floodgates posture. I thought people doing the news were supposed to be astute observers of the human condition.
Phase 2) The girl first mentions she needs to pee. She’s not subtle. She just tags that part on in mid-interview.
Phase 3) The reporter assumes the dude that got shot had to go pee. “Oh, that’s what he said?” She says, not understanding that her cross-legged homegirl here appears to have been crushing 64-ounce slushies over at the gas station all day. Classic mistake. The reporter has clearly seen Forrest Gump too many times.
Phase 4) “I got to pee. I’m peeing myself.” At this point, the reporter doesn’t back down or even attempt to shut things down. She’s really going for that local Emmy, damnit, and some girl who is now visibly grabbing herself in an effort toHOLD IN HER BODILY FUNCTIONS isn’t going to stop her.
Phase 5) She now whispers the words “I got to pee” to someone off camera. This stage is when you know shit just got real. Think about it. Whenever someone whispers something in a movie, that means it’s more important.
If you whisper something to me when I’m reporting it, it’s getting my attention. Because it’s either a confession, a declaration of some heinous crime you’re planning to commit, or it’s because you’re about to urinate down your leg in HD. The reporter is unphased by this silently mouthed revelation.
Phase 6) “I just peed myself.”
Phase 7) The reporter attempts to show a little human compassion and touch our pants-wetting friend on the shoulder with faux-concern. The girl wobbles as she loses control. Yup. She’s just peed herself on live TV.
Phase 8) The girl’s pants begin to show the end result of her lack of bladder control. And, of course, she’s wearing khakis. Because, if you were going to manage to pee yourself in front of a large TV audience the last pair of pants you’d want to wear would be tight, pee-showing khakis.
Phase 9) Give the girl credit, here. She’s still trying to finish the damn interview. That’s heart. That’s character. She wants to help out the people of Greenville, Mississippi so they know what’s going on. The fact that she’s now being forced to hide her pee-stains isn’t going to deter her from doing her civic duty.
Phase 10) This face:
Phase 11) Only now, after the reporter realizes she’s crossed the threshold of human decency and created an R. Kelly snuff film, does she attempt to end the interview. My favorite part: the guys who uploaded this video to YouTube absolutely lose it here.
Phase 12) Someone get this girl an Emmy. And some clean pants.
As I was doing my super-stereotypical Twitter scrolling this morning, I came across a Tweet that piqued my interest. In fact, it grabbed my interest and pulled it into a nostalgic black hole so gravitationally intense that I was pretty sure I might need the homey Bill Nye to emerge and explain this wormhole rip in my psychic space-time continuum so I could get back to work.
That’s right. Not only do we live in the gilded age of 21-35 year old nostalgic cash-grabs (*Author’s note: see: live action, “grittier” reboots of all our childhood movies and ’90s music making a suddenly ’80s like resurgence.) but we live in a time when Surge is willing to pull back the curtain and show us all where the magic happens.
This is an amazing moment. Let’s drink it in. Along with 42 grams of sugar and yellow 5, yellow 6, and whatever the hell carob bean gum is.
But this immediately got me to wondering: what exactly would it look like if you were to get one of these ethereal green tickets? Where do they even make Surge at these days?
Google Maps was confused by my query. I’m guessing that this random technology company in Australia is not what I was looking for. And, in fact, I found myself comforted by the fact that I didn’t know where Surge was made. (*Author’s note: yeah, smartasses, I know it’s made by Coca Cola. Suck it, the internet.)
Appetite for dumb questions satiated, I proceeded to continue further down my rabbit hole of self-proclaimed deep thought. What would a tour of the Surge factory be like? Let’s work this out. . .
Instead of Willy Wonka, The Factory Is Probably Run By a Coke-bendering Charlie Sheen
Because Surge isn’t about rainbows and lollipops. It’s hardcore, son. It’s insane. It’s a neon green sulfuric acid-wash for your mouth that gets little kids more jacked up than a Mountain Dew and Red Bull beer bong moments before they head to Chuck E. Cheese for a 10th birthday party. So who do we know that can harness that kind of power? Turn something that could destroy so many people, wield it, and emerge unscathed? Chuck Sheen, that’s who. You think those white eyebrows on his slave-labor Oompa Loompa’s is paint or genetic mutation? Nope. That’s straight up rails of blow that got caught in their eyebrows while they’re were banging down rails with Sheen.
At Least One Section of the Factory Will Devoted to Serge Ibaka’s Free Throw Form Being Snottily Critiqued by Serge from Beverly Hills Cop
Because: puns. Also, who wouldn’t want to see more of Serge– the snooty art critic from one of the best ’80s movie franchises — haughtily sniffing each time Serge Ibaka — one of the most fascinating players in one of the weirder 2010s franchises — chucked up a free throw that wasn’t auteur enough for his liking? This part of the tour would be phenomenal. And you know Ibaka’s people have been contemplating the promotional tie-in appeal, spelling be damned.
A Behind the Scenes Look at the Secret Ingredients That Make Surge So Damn Delicious
We know what the FDA says is in Surge. But that’s all bull. There’s no way that something as highly addictive and mind-bendingly toxic as Surge really just had a few simple chemicals mixed together. This tour would hopefully shed some light into what really goes into surge. My best guesses? Lean, Blue from Breaking Bad, and Crunk Juice poured directly from the cup of Surge brewmaster, Lil Jon. Drink up, kids. You need something to keep you up all night. That Nintendo 64 isn’t going to play itself until 4 AM at your friends slumber party.
The Tour Would Culminate in a Sensory Overload Chamber
You may be thinking to yourself: Surge is the ultimate in ’90s. It’s the peak of 1990’s stuff. And that may be so, but why not let the dude in JNCO’s and Airwalk shoes show you around the ’90s lounge where you can watch Power Rangers: The Movie, play NFL Blitz, call yourself from a real-live landline, and send/receive pages about your buddies getting a new AOL Free Trial floppy disk in the mail!
If this isn’t what a tour of the Surge factory looks like, then I’m not sure I even wanna go.
The news broke yesterday that Nebraska basketball player Walter Pitchford was skipping his senior season with the team. It wasn’t to go pro. Or transfer. Walt P for Degree! Yes, Walter Pitchford decided that he wanted to buckle down and pull a reverse-version-of-me and focus on schoolwork, seeking to obtain a business degree and launch a career. Which is truly admirable.
But, in the wake of his leaving the team, Husker fans were left wondering if this was actually what happened. Was Walt really leaving the squad just so he could focus on his academics? He certainly seems like a smart dude, a guy that would be open and honest about his intentions. But, damn it, do I love a conspiracy theory. Here are my theories on the real reasons Walter Pitchford left Nebraska basketball.
1. Walt P for 1D
As I’m sure all of you noticed, and were *totes devastated* by, Zayn from One Direction has left the group. This leaves not only a big hole in one of the world’s most popular groups, and a gaping chasm in my heart, but a job opportunity. Walt seems like an ideal fit for this Tween sensation. He’s cool. He’s got charisma. And he fulfills the groups need for a minority. Check, check, and check. Also, think how much more fun the lyrics would be with Walt added into the mix:
The story of his life, he drives the lane
He shoots the three, makin’ it rain!
Your ankles. . .are bro-oh-oh-oh-ken.
Or something like that. I totally don’t know the words to that song. Really, I swear I don’t.
2. Pursuing An Acting Career
Walt seems versatile. A renaissance man, if you will. So perhaps what he’s looking to do, here, is expand his brand a little bit. I could see him starring in a gritty, brooding, police drama that’s all simmering tension and dark, twisted investigation procedural. Now, if only we knew a wily, strange, philosophical dude that could play opposite the smoldering intensity of Walter Pitchford, True Detective. If only we had someone. . .
3. Working as a Full-Time Manager and Producer for his Boy Band, Terran Terran
I know, I know. Somehow I managed to throw together two idiotic conspiracy theories regarding boy bands in the span of 375 words. Sue me. Actually, don’t. I’ve watched some of the Aaron Hernandez trial and my lawyers wouldn’t have the balls or the bank account to try to make deflategate jokes during the proceedings.
In all seriousness, I think I speak for all Nebraska Basketball fans when we wish Walt the best. He may not be joining 1D or starring in an HBO series next to Tim Miles, but he did give us a magical run in 2014 that is hopefully still slingshotting our program forward with momentum, in spite of this year.
I’ll always remember Walt fondly for his electric shooting as a sophomore and his UFC looking post-move from this year’s crazy upset of Final Four team, Michigan State.
(*Author’s note: it’s that time of year again. One of my favorite sporting events is here once more: the Nebraska High School State Basketball tournament. In what is becoming an annual tradition, I will be reposting my epic-length ode to the Lincoln High School 2003 State Basketball champions. I have left the manuscript relatively untouched from it’s initial publishing from 2013. However, I have attempted to add in some pictures and have combined those 3-posts into one, massive, piece. Let’s all hop into the DeLorean, crank that bad boy up to 88 MPH and get our nostalgia on.)
PART I
The Lincoln High Links won a State Basketball title 10 years ago. The echoes of that victory still reverberate somewhere deep in my fandom. That title, even though it occurred during my sophomore year, attached itself to the narrative of my formative years at Lincoln High, a time period in my life that has truly become more gilded in my recollections the older that I get. It was a three game stretch in the early beginnings of spring, when the prairie pilot light for summer has only just been lit, and the icy fist of winter was loosening into a palm.
Was I on the team? Not a chance. I retired willingly after the boys of the Freshman “B” team took home the city title in 2002 and that was truly the ceiling for my basketball skills. Does it seem slightly ridiculous to still hold such a fond spot in my now semi-adult heart for a high school game from back when “Ignition (Remix)” by R. Kelly was noted as “my jam!”? Say what you will, but these were important times in a burgeoning sports-centric mind.
I knew from an early age that I wanted to go to Lincoln High. My parents had decided that they loved the multicultural aspect of both of their sons attending a high school that had a veritable United Nations of different cultures, races, and ideology. My brother was two years older than I was and he proudly sported the red and black. I would soon follow suit.
From the moment I watched my first Lincoln High basketball game, I was hooked. I had loved basketball from the moment I first started following the NBA in 1996 and, seeing how good the teams were from Lincoln High – their speed, toughness, and a healthy mix of hero worship for the guys who I knew were so cool at the place I wanted to become cool– I quickly became one of their biggest supporters.
I watched in agony as they were bounced from 2002’s state playoffs by their arch-rival Lincoln Southeast. It was a painful display of the rivalry between both schools that I would come to embrace and to love throughout my years of high school.
This out-and-out fanaticism for the basketball team certainly didn’t lessen when I found myself a sophomore at “The High.” If anything, it gained in momentum. I attended home games, cheering wildly until my vocal chords had been Fran Dreschered. I attended road games, jubilantly howling like an injured baboon until my voice sounded like Bobcat Goldthwaite. Any games I could attend that year, I did.
The team had amassed a gigantic following of fellow die-hards like myself. Chanting, swaying, we would jump up and down until the bleachers appeared ready to collapse like a decrepit building on the San Andreas fault. And those were just for regular, middle-of-the-week games. When it became clear that The High was headed to State once more, the stage was set for a massive, recklessly crunk, exodus of near-hooliganism to find its way to the Devaney Center.
You see, at Lincoln High, basketball was a great uniter. It took sectionalized groups and gave them a common interest. It took the marginalized, the outliers, and put them in a crowd of students who, for four quarters, all knew exactly what it was that they similarly desired: a victory. Stereotypes were shed, biases sidelined, and “in crowd” was lost to the gymnasium-filtered air. A mass of black and red, shoulder to shoulder, lungful to lungful of screaming pride.
Lincoln High Basketball, circa 1920 (Photo courtesy of family old photos.com)
Lincoln High was never a bad school, but it suffered from a reputation around town as being a school full of thugs. This feeling of persecution, of misconceived judgment but those with their noses too high in the air to get a good view of the actual place, only served to ratchet up the intensity when the Links found themselves headed to the Bob Devaney Sports Center for State Tournament games. Make no mistake, it was Us V.S. Them (*Author’s note: capital letters intentional.)
There was a great rising motion occurring, the week of the tournament. A soft-malleted crescendo beginning in the hallways and parking lots. Subtle, at first, but gradually building from echo to white noise to simmering hiss. Like prairie thunder in the distance or the electric charge in the air after scuffing your socked feet across a carpet in dry, dry winter months. It was the school. It was preparing to shift. The school that week felt like a carefully laid beartrap being pulled back to lethality. It was cranking, cranking, and delicately positioning. We were anxious to hear the jaws snap viciously forward but first we had to sit through another Spanish class.
I realize, at this point, that this may seem entirely too dramatic; too prosaic. I get that. But you have to understand that, during this time, this was about to be the biggest sports events of my life. I had too much pride, too much passion invested in Lincoln High sports to take this moment lightly. Lincoln High sports represented not only me. It represented us. At least to a certain extent and I wanted desperately for that “us,” that “we” to emerge at the top of the heap. I wanted the band to look good, I wanted our student section to “win” by outcheering and out-taunting the opposition. I wanted the kids who carpooled into school together in rusted out death-on-wheels vehicles to show that this book wouldn’t be judged by its cover, but by its heart and passion, and fight.
All of these complicated, intrinsically Lincoln High feelings were tied to the impending showdown at State. Yes, I knew it was only a game. Yes, I knew that if we lost I would be completely fine. No, I didn’t care about rationalization or logic. It was high school sports at their core and, I would argue, at their best.
First up for the team was playing Central again. The same Central that the Links had beaten in the playoffs the year before, a game in which the Central coach lost all semblance of cool and ended up getting at least one technical foul. The Eagles ended up scoring another “T” at some point in the game and I remember being completely blown away at how cool and collected the Lincoln High bench was.
Emotions may have been running high, but head coach Russ Uhing was unflappable. He was serene. He was Lake Placid on a windless day. Central’s coach was Lake Placid re-runs on the SyFy channel. Uhing was a single candle-flame on the edge of a Spa’s bath, windlessly unflickering. Central’s coach was a dude smoking bath salts. It was a grudge match from the start. It was another proud school, with a storied past and a currently checkered reputation, and the game came right down to the wire.
The Links had to hit free throws in order to send the game into Overtime, where they eventually emerged victorious, winning 68-61. In a change of pace from the previous year, no technicals were handed out. Uhing was as calm in his team’s victory on this day as he always was. Phil Jackson, on his most mellow pipe-ful of Ganj while watching the sun set over his Montana ranch, couldn’t have been more Zen than Russ Uhing.
(Headline image courtesy of Omaha.com) (*Author’s note: I was too cheap to pay $2.95 for the full article.
The team had survived and advanced. They were moving on. We were moving on. I was about to get my parents’ permission to skip class. All was right with the world.
PART II
I’ve already discussed what led us to this point. I’ve covered my borderline absurd love for the Lincoln High Links’ basketball program, from my time spent proudly attempting to be the glue-guy for the Freshman “B” squad to my boyhood hero-worship of the near-missing teams of the early 2000’s. I’ve explained my penchant for hyperbole and the rose-tinted glasses that I have strapped to my face like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 1980’s rec-specs. However, before we go any further I have a confession to make. Right here and right now. I need to get this off my chest before I pick up by describing Lincoln High’s second round tourney game against Omaha Westside.
In the darkened, bleak years of 15-year-old stupidity(*Author’s note: otherwise known as 2003) I wrote a rap song about the Lincoln High basketball team.
There, I said it.
I’m not proud of this fact. Honestly, it’s taken me 10 years to admit as much publicly, and I feel like if I’m going to continually burn on things I need to be as honest as possible. The 2003 version of me had very-loosely held ambitions to break into the rap game. So I sat down one fateful day, put pen to paper, and cranked out what might be the worst rap song since Marky Mark dropped his pants in “Good Vibrations.” I’ll spare most of you the gory details of this Shel Silverstein, paint-by-numbers rap song. Titled, “Game Time at the High” it involved name-dropping our starting five, bragging about the 22” rims on the cars in the school’s parking lot and any number of other atrocities. It was, essentially, a war crime. I was foolishly convinced by some of my classmates that the song wasn’t that bad (*Author’s note: it was.) and submitted it to the school’s poetry magazine at their behest. I don’t openly support book-burning, but I desperately wish that someone would hunt down the copies of this dark, dark chapter in my life and Farenheit 451 the hell out of them. Moving on.
After we had beaten Omaha Central the mood could only be described as crunk. As a mofo. We sprinted through the parking lot, war-whooping like the racist extras in an Indians V.S. John Wayne movie, baying at the night air. We were feverish. Fervent. We were 16-year-olds with wings on our heels and adrenaline pumping through our veins like we’d just gotten Pulp Fiction needled right to the heart. We were beside ourselves. Not knowing what to do to celebrate this enormous victory, we leapt into our one-friend-who-got-a-car-for-his-16th-birthday’s car and peeled out. Directly into traffic.
(Headline image courtesy of Omaha.com) (*Author’s note: I was too cheap to pay $2.95 for the full article.)
Unfazed by the instantaneous gridlock that is Devaney Center parking, we bumped DJ Kool’s “Let Me Clear My Throat” as loud as our speakers and ears could take it. (*Author’s note: I’m not entirely sure how a song from 1996 came to be my own personal anthem for Lincoln High’s miraculous run, but it absolutely was. I mean, it’s no “Game Time at The High”, but it was okay.)
In typical high school fashion, once we got out of the parking lot of the Devaney Center, we were desperately in need of some fast food and a place to hang out. We rolled into Runza, piling gleefully out of the clown-car-packed vehicle and an impromptu dance party took place in the parking lot. At some point we decided that the best way to consecrate such an amazing sporting event was to have one of our group attempt to bong an entire mini-cone full of Mountain Dew from the restaurant. They had given out the cones to help our students cheer, apparently, but I feel relatively certain that we weren’t the only ones misusing them. The Dew-bonger choked and sputtered and generally soaked his Lincoln High shirt in a sticky amalgamation of 47 grams of sugar per serving mixed with all the unholy chemicals that make Mountain Dew so damn Mountain Delicious.
Eventually we had to head home. Hoarse. Exhausted. Way too excited to sleep without first burning off some energy by playing Nintendo 64 for a while to calm my nerves. Finally beginning to unwind to the sweet, sweet goodness of Goldeneye I was able to take a deep, rattling, breath. The next day would be a day game. It would be a parentally sanctioned truancy bonanza. It would be a showdown between the Westside Warriors and the Lincoln High Links.
Having school the day of a state basketball tournament game is pointless. It’s like trying to study in a library while Kiss is having a debauched, insane concert two Dewey Decimal places over from you. My concentration was shot. Our concentration was shot. Even the teachers seemed ready to “come down with something” and split as quickly as they could. The dull, throbbing white noise, like the soft humming of industrial air-conditioning that had been building; that had been continuing to increase incrementally from way off in the distance at stage left? It was getting louder. It was nearly drowning out math and science and English and the droning of teachers clicking through their 4th power point of the day. The school was poised at the precipice. We were looking over the edge, with our parachutes strapped on at 10,000 feet up. We were. Ready. To. Jump.
For the Westside game I had to play with the drumline at halftime. It through my whole pre-game routine out of whack and, initially, left me in a foul mood since I wasn’t able to stand in the student section like I normally would have. However once it was game time, the jackhammering heartbeat, the swaying crowd full of friends and colleagues and casual-acquaintances-turned-high-fiving-best-friends was too much for me. I was swept away. After proudly strutting onto the court to perform with our school’s dance team, replete with Nelly-style Band-Aids under our eyes (*Author’s note: big ups, 2013, on leaving that weird trend behind.) and red and black camouflage bandanas, I was able to set my drum aside and focus purely on the action on the court.
And “action” is perhaps underselling how exciting the game actually was.
It was a back and forth battle. Both teams were scrappy, over-achieving units that had good coaching. They had a rabid student section that truly gave as good as they got. Almost. We shouted. We chanted. We attempted to will our boys to a victory against the invading hordes from Omaha. As the game came down to the wire neither team was able to pull significantly ahead. The Links gamely clung to their opponents, refusing to allow the opposition to pull away. Uhing was Freon. He was pre-Al Gore Ice Caps. The team never flinched. Hovering somewhere above the din, above the tumultuous Molotov Cocktail of our unbridled emotions, was a sense of calm.
The team. The coaches. They were oblivious to the bedlam occurring in the Black and Red mosh pit behind their basket. They were focused and hungry and full of flinty-eyed determination borne of hours spent shooting in stiflingly hot gyms, borne of suicides run from missed free throws (*Author’s note: I’ve seen both of these with my own eyes. I’ve been in the gyms at Lincoln High in the summer time and they’re Devil’s Oven hot and I’ve seen the looks of teammates when you’re responsible for making them run. Frankly? I prefer the heat.) and borne of a stiff, rigid pride that won’t let you turn your head away even if you fear the worst.
With time running down, the Links were down by 1 point. I honestly don’t remember who drove the ball, but I do remember that he missed. I remember that the ball seemed to hang for a crystalline moment, suspended in animation, softly perched upon the wishes and hopes of a bug-eyed student body in mid-air.
10 years ago, Nick Madsen went up and tipped in a shot. At the buzzer. For the win.
10 years ago the students of Lincoln High school volcanically erupted. Exploded into a massive, TNT-roar that ripped through our chests and nearly ruptured our vocal chords. Time had expired and Lincoln High had, again, managed to desperately cling to another victory. They had survived. We had survived.
Our student section was a joyous prison riot. I grabbed the closest student to me and shook him like I was a dirty cop, trying to force a confession. Screaming, leaping, jumping. The band wasn’t playing. The students weren’t worried about who they were suddenly grabbing. Parking lot beefs were suddenly turned to full-on bearhugs and some people merely stood in a stunned silence. Simply put, the moment escapes even my most desperate, breathless, re-tellings.
(*Author’s note: after I posted this, my brother was able to track down a YouTube video from Jarod Gilmore of the fourth quarter. Say what you want about the quality of video, in 2003 this was as close as you got to HD, but if you just listen to the noise you’ll understand how exciting this game was.)
We rocket-boosted out into the parking lot. Pouring out. Holding banners and flags and wearing red, black, and cowsuits (*Author’s note: yes. A group of students all got together and coordinated the wearing of cowsuits to the game. They held a banner that read, “Udderly Unbeatable” which I still find to be a stroke of genius even at age 26. You can never have too many fans in cowsuits, in my opinion, and they set the standard for bovine-crowd interactions. Eat your heart out, Chik-Fil-A.) we flooded out onto the concrete landings of the stadium sprinting at Usain Boltian speeds.
(Headline image courtesy of Omaha.com) (*Author’s note: I was too cheap to pay $2.95 for the full article.)
I still had track practice that day, and ran with red-dye in my hair and flecks of paint dripping down my face. If we would’ve had a meet that day, based solely on the adrenaline tsunami, I feel certain we could’ve shattered some school records.
We were in the championship game. After two spinal-spasming-ly close contests we had somehow come out with only one game standing in our way. We were to play Lincoln Southeast for the state championship. We would be coming face to face, head to head, crowd to crowd with our biggest rivals. It would be Montagues and Capulets with jerseys and a ball. It was to be Sharks and Jets without all that sissy dancing. We had one team to beat. We had the team to beat. We went home that night, joyful rabble-rousers, and prepared ourselves for the biggest game of 2003.
PART III
(*Author’s note: And here, after way too many words, is the final chapter. If you’ve read this far, you’re truly an endurance athlete.)
The weekend games are always the most fun in the state basketball tournament. Sure, it’s awesome skipping 2/3 of your classes for the day to paint up like a strange combo of Darth Maul and the least sneaky special ops soldier ever, but having nearly a full day to work yourself into a Seismically active, frothing at the mouth maniac? That’s what makes Saturday at the State Basketball Tournament better.
You have to understand the rivalry between Lincoln High and Lincoln Southeast at this point in time in order to better understand the intensity between the two teams and fanbases. In the early-mid 2000’s Southeast was a sports powerhouse. They were cranking out division I talent in football, basketball, and baseball. They were routinely among the top teams in the state in basketball, having lost in the previous year’s finals after offing the Links in a brutally tough game in the semi-finals.
When Southeast and Lincoln High’s basketball teams met on the court, the intensity level would catapult off the radar. Students would camp out for games the moment school got out. Fights would break out, Principals would wade shoulder deep into student sections in an effort to keep the peace, and fire marshal’s would stop people from getting in at the door due to gyms being over capacity.
It was an old-school, bitter, rivalry that broke bonds and divided friendships. I knew several kids who were at Southeast. I thought they were great. Until it was game time. Then I would launch into a rapid fire shit-talking attempt to verbally incinerate them and they would immediately fire back. We would inevitably find ourselves on opposite sides of the court and I believed I was honor-bound to out-shout, out-taunt, and out-cheer whomever stood in opposition to the Red and Black freight train.
The games were always contentious. They were emotional slugfests that left your scalp tingling, your throat desperately calling for hot liquid, and your adrenal glands ready to go on strike. By halftime.
I honestly can’t remember if we beat Southeast that year. I vaguely recall losing to them, but I truly can’t be sure. (*Author’s note: I know, I know. I just spent 200 words talking up the games as completely unforgettable. What can I say? I’m old. I’m broken down. Maybe someone can refresh my memory, when this post comes out. In the meantime I’ll be crushing up Ginseng and snorting lines of it off my mirror in an effort to stave off my on-rushing senility.)
The bottom line is, when your whole rivalry is predicated on white-hot, liquid-magma, hatred for the opponent revenge isn’t really necessary for motivation. Ever game against Southeast, whether we won or lost, felt like it was a Quentin Tarantino revenge film reaching its gory climax. Dlinks Unchained, if you will. (*Author’s note: I apologize. That’s a little corny, even by my standards.)
As we mad-dashed our way into the student section for the game our rising action was becoming fully complete. Our deus ex machina was firmly in place. The slow simmer from part one that I had mentioned, that flickering spark? It was a boiling, raging, forest fire.
The distant timpani-roll that had been building sonorously since Thursday of that week was now a full on spastic, flaming drum solo so loud it resounded in your lungs. The tension wasn’t so thick you could cut it with a knife, it was so thick that you would need a logging crew to chainsaw their way through after using TNT to explode open fissure-like crack.
I was 16 and on fire with school pride; radiating with hope that my school, our school, could somehow continue their Nantucket Sleighride towards victory. I was fully prepared to howl with all my wolfen fury until my lungs exploded like a too-full party balloon that has landed underneath a stiletto heel. I looked left. I looked right. We were a pack. A rabid, heaving, viscerally charged mass of desperate, pitched longing. When the band struck up their notes we yowled with unrepentant fervor.
When the team was introduced I screamed like a Bieber-groupie getting backstage passes, hitting pitches and octaves that, even at 16, would have astounded auditory scientists. Fortunately, I was one voice among many, many, cheers and my own voice was swallowed up by the ever-increasing decibel detonation coming from the student section. It was death metal concert loud. It was shuttle launch loud. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the Devaney center as fiery before a game has even tipped before or since.
Once the game began our manic chants and hoarsely defiant screams filled the air. We wanted to pay back Southeast for the previous year. We wanted to assert ourselves as the basketball power in the city; in the state. We wanted vengeance.
Immediately things started going wrong for the Links. Shots weren’t falling. The offense wasn’t flowing. The team battled, to be sure, determined to outwork their slow start. Southeast started scoring. They were hitting buckets. They were rebounding. They had all the answers on defense. An icy finger of doubt slid down my spine; a creeping, uncomfortable caress.
Southeast seemingly had the answer for everything. There was a subtle riptide pulling at our ankles, tugging us out and away from our steel-mill-hot passion. We fought it. We kicked and screamed and tried to head against the current. Southeast just kept pulling ahead. As the first quarter was drawing to a close the Links still hadn’t hit a basket. Or a free throw.
I had completely depleted my repertoire of swear words at this point.
Desperately I searched for anyone who might be bi-lingual to bail me out with new cuss words but, upon Southeast scoring yet again I broke the search off and went to my tried and true, old school American curses. I was driven to inventing brand new f-bomb combos, stringing together obscenities like a foreign cabbie in rush hour who didn’t quite have a handle on the English language yet. The quarter ended with Southeast up 13-0. The Links had inexplicably been shut out.
Coach Uhing was liquid nitrogen. He was a human Polar Bear Plunge. The team fed off this calm.
(Image courtesy of Journalstar.com)
We did not.
Eyes bulging. Sweating like I had just gotten done playing in the game myself. Mind reeling. I was a meth-lab of emotions. I hadn’t given up. Oh, no. But I was drastically, stringently worried. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had never seen our team get blanked in the first quarter of a game. With Southeast up by 13 the lead certainly wasn’t insurmountable but it was sizeable.
The Southeast fans were on a rampage. There was blood in the water and they were hungry. They were Shark Week in HD, swarming viciously with their teeth out and their hands high in the air, high-fiving hard enough to amputate. I don’t blame them. They were thunderously pleased with their team’s performance, holding their distraction-balloons high into the air in the shape of zeros. They were the bellows pumping onto the hot, bitter coals of our would-be vengeance. They scored again at the start of the second half.
We found ourselves firmly strapped in on the front car of a cocaine roller coaster.
They had 15. We had nothing.
They had 15. We had each other.
We had our team. We had the immutable, foolhardy hope of die-hard believers, even though the light was flickering and the clock was ticking.
Our intensity rose. Combustion engine firing on anger and pride and that all-too-familiar feeling of our shoulder blades meeting the wall with nowhere further to retreat to.
Suddenly we scored our first basket. Then we scored another. We redoubled our fanaticism. Cajoling. Pleading. Fighter-plane loud as our boys engaged in evasive maneuvers in the on court dogfight. Basket by basket. Inch by inch. The Lincoln High Links were pulling themselves out of the freshly dug grave of a scoreless first quarter, zombies coming back once more. No longer was this a bloody stomping. This was Rocky in the 12th round, toe to toe.
To be honest, the rest of the game blurs a little to me from here. It’s like an epic watercolor that sort of ran together into a beautiful palette of colors and images. A big shot here. A big stop there. The team’s bench imploring the fans to keep the intensity level high. Uhing clapping calmly, as if he was at a mediocre theater production.
By the time we took the lead, we were in a state of delirium. The cadaver of the first quarter had somehow been Frankenstein-ed back to life. Stitched together, an amalgam of pieces playing their part, and lightning bolted to accelerating life. I’ve never heard the Devaney Center louder before or since. Lincoln High Alum, some of the proudest I’ve known, responded to our energy. Parents and students and players alike leaping to their feet.
We ended up winning the game, that day 10 years ago, by 5 points. Scoring 43 points in the final three quarters we were able to outlast the Southeast Knights. Though I never would have admitted it at the time, they fought valiantly. (*Author’s note: I can only clearly assess our rival school now, 10 years in the future, if that’s any indication of how heated our rivalry was.)
As the final horn sounded, anointing a new king in the State of Nebraska, we detonated. Mt. Vesuvius met Pompeii and our student section spontaneously combusted into madness. People were falling, crying, jumping wildly into the air. Insecure young men were hugging passionately and everyone, everyone, felt like we had just conquered the world.
It was 10 years ago. I was 16. And it still gives me goosebumps to recount the scene.
Our team, ever conscious of their rowdy and reckless fans, their hooligans, stood in front of the student section and let us buffet them with a joyful typhoon. Holding their jerseys up for all in the stadium to see. Lincoln High, they said. “Lincoln High” we screamed. Our pride was radiant.
Coach Uhing smiled.
The team climbed ladders and cut down nets. They were given medals and a trophy and an assembly where the entire school attended, cheering like lunatics for the guys that had finally brought home a state basketball title. They had blazed through collective, beating-as-one hearts, and etched their names in neon across the remainder of the school year.
They had done it. They had successfully climbed the mountaintop. They were Sir Edmund Hilary. And we fancied ourselves their Tenzing Norgays.
They had won for themselves. They had one for each other. They had won for black and for red and for the coaches who believed in them all along.
They had won for Lincoln High.
Whether or not they knew it that day, they had won for us.
(*Author’s note: the best part of writing this absurdly long, self-indulgent memoir has been all the people who have shared what their experiences at these games were like. Whether it was former players, former students, or anyone lucky enough to have been cheering for the Links that year, everyone was — and still is– moved by the victories.
If you made it through this rambling piece, feel free to offer your own testimony in the comments section. I was blown away by how many of us still care so deeply about this team and that time in our lives. I would love to know where you were when the horn sounded or what you were thinking when the clock hit zero. Thanks for reading. Go Links.)
(Headline image courtesy of Omaha.com) (*Author’s note: I was too cheap to pay $2.95 for the full article.)
(Headline image courtesy of Omaha.com) (*Author’s note: I was too cheap to pay $2.95 for the full article.)
(Headline image courtesy of Omaha.com) (*Author’s note: I was too cheap to pay $2.95 for the full article.)
Burnpoetry 