Frantic finishes, well-dressed coaches, and unadulterated passion: Notre Dame’s Bookstore Basketball tournament has all this and more. Since 1972, the world’s largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament has captivated hoops fans across the country, giving thousands of students and faculty a chance to realize their dreams of athletic glory.
Every April, as many as 700 teams take to the courts armed with headbands, knee socks, liquid courage, and all manner of costumes to do battle in all-weather, single-elimination action until a champion is crowned. The prize for wading through eight or nine rounds of games against the best, the worst, and the wackiest that ND has to offer: nothing but bragging rights. So what makes Bookstore Basketball so special? It just might be the most exciting sporting event in America.
After revealing the top 16 seeds, the commissioners present their choices for the 10 best team names. Perhaps here more than anywhere else, Domers display their creativity, coining a vast array of interesting team names. A scroll through the tournament’s team list is a journey through a “who’s who” of cultural references, inside jokes, and sexual innuendo that appeal to even the least immature senses of humor.
ESPN’s Rick Reilly, in his “That Would Make an Excellent Intramural Team Name” piece, referred to the event as “the Mecca of great intramural team names.” A sample of this year’s best: Crouching Tiger Hidden Hydrant, Gilbert Arenas and the Shooting Guards, and H1N1 Mixtape Tour: Off the Sneezy.
Even more colorful are the names that get censored each year. For teams with little chance of winning, making a memorable moniker represents a chance to leave their mark on the tournament. Often the controversy over an inconsistent censorship system exceeds that of the on-court action. In 2009, after the infamous Chris Brown-Rihanna incident, teams like “Unlike Rihanna, We Get our Hands up on Defense” and “The Chris Brown Beat Down” were approved. “Rihanna Deserved It,” however,was unacceptable.
Think referees in college and the pros have it tough? Try playing Bookstore, where everyone’s a ref but most are too scared to call anything. Make a call in favor of your team, and suddenly you haveve become Tim Higgins, or maybe even Tim Donaghy.
As the tournament goes on and costumed spectacles give way to legitimate displays of ballin’, high school referees take on the unenviable role of calling the final rounds, placing themselves at the mercy of some rowdy and devoted fan bases. Though not as well known as March Madness, April Absurdity at the Bookstore is just as exhilarating, albeit without the betting and bracket pools.
With all the anticipation of baseball’s Opening Day, the start of the Bookstore Basketball journey, aside from the Blue-Gold game, is the highlight of the spring for the Notre Dame student body. But for all the hopes and dreams of the thousands of would-be champions, expectations must be tempered with a spoonful of reality. In the NCAA Tournament, win twice and you’re in the Sweet Sixteen. In Bookstore Basketball, two wins get you to the Terrific 256, where one might meet a squad of former high school stars or cheerleaders in Ninja Turtle costumes. That is the beauty of the event: you never know what you are going to get, but you had better be ready for it.
The looming prospect of NCAA Tournament expansion has become the story of college basketball’s offseason. From coast to coast, coaches are calling for a 96-team field. Lost in all the uproar, however, is the true face of expansion. Making it to the Bookstore Sweet Sixteen requires as many as six victories, an achievement worthy of admiration.
Think Mike Brey has a tough job? How about the hordes of unofficial coaches who take their jobs just as seriously, yet have to guide their charges through round after round of nail-biting contests with no recognition? If only college coaches knew how good they have it.
The program’s true greatness lies not in the pomp and circumstance, but in the money it raises for charity. A large portion of registration fees goes to the Jumpball Program, which has offered free basketball clinics to children in Jamaica since 1995. The charity helps keep Jamaican youth away from drugs and gangs. Bookstore Basketball has featured Heisman Trophy Winners and Olympians, bumbling professors and athletically-challenged students. It is one of those rare events in which a team of aging intellectuals can face a team of teenagers with boundless energy– and win.
Bookstore Basketball’s mission can be described simply: good people playing for a good cause. And to Tiger Woods, and other athletes skating on moral thin ice, don’t take it too hard. Even if you slip up, you still might be immortalized in the world’s greatest college sporting event.
Andy Edwards is a senior Psychology and Spanish major. Contact him with questions, advice, or job offers at aedward4@nd.edu.
