Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Luck of the Irish
Sunday
March 18, 2007
Yesterday afternoon I sent a text message over to my friend Pouncey to see if anything was going on for St. Patrick's Day. He called me back a few minutes later, and we made plans to go out for the night.
He'd moved since the last time we hung out, up to Hoover (where the MTV show Two-A-Days was filmed), though I was able to find his apartment easily enough. It was a whiskey drinking night for me, Crown Royal style. Pouncey ended up driving; we literally flipped a coin to see who would drive, and I won the flip, so I was able to drink without worry.
We were on our way to Five Points, and as we went down University Blvd., a speeding car flew through the intersection and T-Boned the car in front of us. Another five seconds and the incoming car would have slammed right into where I was sitting.
Pouncey stopped as soon as he saw the wreck happening, and what we witnessed next was a jump from "wow that was a close call" to "what the hell is going on?"
The speeding guy (who I have dubbed "T-Bone" for storytelling purposes) jumped out of the car and tried to run, as a cop was right on his tail chasing from the side street. Apparently T-Bone was running from the police.
T-Bone tried to scale a fence just up the block, but the idiot fell off the fence and was quickly apprehended. Much to their credit, the police were very fast to respond with backup, and it was one of those totally surreal things that did not seem real at all even as it was happening. Pounce had to maneuver around the wreckage to make it on down the road. It was bizarre, for sure.
The night only got stranger from there (this is my life, after all.) We went to Bell Bottoms, which has been the scene of some fun and some unsavory moments during my time in Birmingham. We went to the upstairs bar, and Pouncey tried to open a tab at the bar (I paid his cover since he didn't have cash on him, and he said he'd pay for a couple of drinks for me.) The bartender chick looked at him, asked his name, then said, "One of your friends slapped me the last time you were here. If you want to open a tab, you'll have to do it somewhere else."
Suddenly a story that I thought would never be answered had a resolution. The last time we there there (the "we" being Pouncey, Pounce's friend Kimberly, and I), Pounce got thrown out for reasons that I couldn't figure out at the time. So what happened? Kimberly apparently slapped the bartender (why, I don't know), the bartender knew she was with Pouncey, and he took the fall getting thrown out. I had to scour the club to pull Kimberly off some guy on the dance floor, and then in a caveman moment Pouncey first drug Kimberly, then picked her up and carried her, as we made it back to the car in the pouring rain.
Back to last night, Pounce felt 100% sure that the bartender chick would tell the bouncers to throw him out, so we left and went to another club called 1160. At least I think that was the club's name; the whiskey was beginning to kick in, which in turn lead to some of those infamous "Scene Missing" moments that happen when I hit the Crown Royal.
My attire was my über-classy "Check Out My Caulk" shirt (chosen because of the green text on it) and a bunch of green beads in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Beads are a great gimmick to have as icebreakers at clubs. It works like this: girl sees beads, girl wants beads, girl approaches, conversation ensues. In my younger days I'd insist that girls flash for them, but I've found that it's more effective to use it as a conversation starter. Plus, approaching the shadow of my 30th birthday, that would move me toward Creepy Territory. But that approach worked pretty well when I was 23, moreso than I ever would have expected.
|  | Barry Goheen will forever be linked to Vanderbilt's 1988 tournament run.
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The downside of last night's fun was a bad hangover today. I crashed out on Pouncey's couch, then drove home this mid-morning and then immediately dealt with a hangover that lasted well into the evening. Not good times. In my drinking prime I could handle this sort of thing, but anymore I drink seldom enough that where I go crazy, hangovers kill me. As Travis Tritt once sang, "The whiskey ain't workin' anymore." Well, it works, but the flip side is a bitch.
I wrote a little bit on my MySpace Blog yesterday about Vanderbilt's men's basketball team making it back to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1988, which was also the first year that I started watching college basketball with any real idea of what was going on. When Vanderbilt made a miracle comeback against Pitt (a strong team with future NBA player Jerome Lane) behind Barry Goheen's three point magic, my interest in the sport was galvanized permanently.
Here's the story of what happened in the 1988 Tournament, by way of vanderbilt.scout.com. There's more to the story on there, but this excerpt is too good to not pass along here.
In Goheen's junior season, Vandy broke a 14-year drought and made the NCAA Tournament. After beating a good Utah State team in Lincoln, Neb., the Commodores advanced to the second round against heavily favored Pittsburgh. Pitt's inside power reminded many of the Michigan team that beat Vanderbilt in the 1965 tournament.
Vanderbilt opened ice-cold from the field, and Pitt's Jerome Lane controlled the boards. Twelve minutes into the game it looked as though Vandy's season would come to an end, as the Panthers had taken a 25-12 lead. CBS-TV broke away to show vignettes of other games going on simultaneously; but during the cutaway, the "Bomb Squad" began warming up. Barry Booker and Charles Mayes hit a couple of 3's, and the Commodores stormed back to take their first lead just before the break. Pitt tied the game at 34-34 as the first-half buzzer sounded.
The second half saw the lead change hands numerous times, with neither team leading by more than five. Pitt led 67-63 after guard Jason Matthews hit two foul shots with just 0:12 to go. Vandy inbounded the ball quickly, with Goheen racing down the floor. Knowing Pitt would not foul, he drove to the left side of the top of the key and fired for three. The shot was on the mark to cut the lead to 67-66.
Pitt then quickly in-bounded the ball, and Perdue picked up his fifth foul. Smith hit both shots to give Pitt a three-point lead with just 0:06 left. Once again, Goheen took a quick inbound pass and drove down the floor. Pitt sent two men after him to try to foul him before he could get to the top of the key. This time, Goheen pulled up a good six feet in back of the key and fired a 25-footer. The clock expired just after he released the desperation heave. It hit nothing but net, and regulation ended at 69-69.
Even with Perdue out of the game Vandy dominated the overtime over a deflated Pitt team. Goheen scored a game-high 22, as Vandy won 80-74.
The Kansas/Oklahoma national title game that year sealed it for me, and I was hooked for life.
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