Start of basketball season means Saturdays are gone

Today is the most wonderful, stupendous, remarkable and all around great day of the year.

No, it’s not Christmas, Thanksgiving Day or even the first day of school. Today is the day the University of Kansas men’s basketball team opens its season! There would be thousands of additional exclamation points after that last sentence if my editors would allow it.

You have to be insane, or a delusional University of Missouri-Columbia fan, to not be bursting with joy over the fact we get to six beautiful months watching the Jayhawks slam, shoot and defend their way to yet another Big 12 Conference title. By the way, did I mention the ‘Hawks are the top-ranked team in the nation? If I didn’t say it, you should note the Jayhawks are the top-ranked men’s college basketball team in our 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Marshall Islands. 

Seriously, yours truly has built his personal schedule around Jayhawks games and the Coach Bill Self highlight show on Sunday nights. Meanwhile, the World’s Greatest Second Grader will have to read her books while ignoring Daddy’s over-the-top cheers, and Sunflower will find herself sitting through many a Saturday afternoon Jayhawks experience. Sure, this behavior constitutes questionable parenting and will probably mean I get to watch games all by my lonesome, but that’s the price one pays to enjoy the best basketball to be found.

Before you break out the long opinion of judgment, you’ll be doing the same thing – if you’re not engaged in such activities already.

Some of you will travel to Columbia to cheer for the (insert choking and gagging sounds here) Missouri Tigers. Others of you will watch a tele-evangelist or skip church all together to tailgate before another Kansas City Chiefs’ loss at Arrowhead Stadium. At best, many of you will grab a cold beverage and some trans-fat heavy foods, plop yourself on a couch and watch your favorite sport unfettered. The best of you will enjoy some University of Kansas basketball and football.

At this point you’re wondering where the local viewpoint in this diatribe rests. Try this:

Thank goodness for sports. They galvanize us as a community and provide a welcome diversion from an increasingly dark world.

The fine residents of Jackson County have ponied up funds to improve Kauffman Stadium and Arrowhead despite the understanding that the primary tenants of those edifices are currently are bad and worse, respectively. Why? Because we love sports and the light they bring to our lives.

Meanwhile, Eastern Jackson County school districts have spent thousands on new sports facilities in recent years not because they raise property values, but because they provide a healthy outlet for our youth.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my celebration to begin.