06.13.07
crowd of a different color
As I’ve been watching the NBA Finals this past week I’ve noticed that something’s been missing. Other than a cavs win, scoring, and general excitement, the one major difference between this series and every other series during this month and a half marathon called the playoffs is the fact that the crowd is not uniformly dressed. For Cleveland it was the all red “Beat Detroit!” shirts, Utah had those hideous baby blues, and in Golden State- All Yellow “We Believe” shirts that powered them past the best underachieving team in the league… the Mavs. In the NBA this trend was started last year by the Miami Heat. They had their crowd wear eerily creepy all white shirts at every single game. It was ghastly and terrifying and it worked. I’ve been having trouble deciding whether or not i like the idea of every member in the crowd wearing the same shirt and I’ve finally come to the conclusion that its a pretty cool fad even if thats all that it is. There’s something pretty interesting about seeing a multimillion dollar actress and a family of four, who had to take out a second mortgage just to attend the game, wearing the same outfit. I thought to myself that it was pretty impressive that a organization could pull off a stunt involving the entire crowd but then I started to think about the origin of this trend: College athletics.
Nearly every major college stadium, regardless of sport, is unicolored for games. Ohio State has a sea of red, Nebraska and Alabama have the same altho ‘Bame calls theirs a sea or crimson (so picky) , Clemson has their orange crush, Texas A&M has their maroon clad 12th Man, Duke has their always blue and white Camron Crazies and the list goes on. Each and every game these fans come completely decked out in their colleges colors to support their beloved athletes and each time it’s equally as impressive. Perhaps the most impressive was Penn State’s “White Out” a couple years back which ended up costing the Buckeyes a shot at another national title. 110,000 screaming fans wearing nothing but white. Pretty impressive. I believe that this game was the inpsiration for the NBA teams and until now it’s been quite successful. Cleveland didn’t have a promotion like this last year against Detroit and they lost in 7, this year we had “Beat Detroit” and “Rise up!” and we did. Now in the finals even those annoying Rise Up shirts have been abandoned. (Maybe fans think if they dress up with some class they’ll have a shot at Eva Longoria… ) It’s too late to create new shirts for game 4 but I fully believe if the entire crowd comes clad in Rise up shirts that we will take this series back to San Antonio. What the Hell I say everyone in the crowd wears their Beat Detroit! shirts again. If nothing else perhaps it’ll cause confusion in Duncan and Co. and we can steal a game… Hey at this point I’ll try anything.
thats all for now…
“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” -Truman Capote