Utah beat Carroll College 100-44 on kids’ day, when a caravan of schoolbuses drops off thousands of screaming kids, with the purpose of annoying writers.
The WNBA used to rotate kids’ days around the league, sending every league mascot to the same gym. They perform a brawl scene, and the homer mascot wins. Last time I watched Stanford’s Brooke Smith play, it was with Phoenix at Sacramento on kids’ day around ’08. I think the only adults in the building were players, officials, game staff, and me. Great fun, because you know much I like kids.
In an exhibition blowout, everyone plays, so I saw freshman Alyssa Blanck for the first time. She has a most critical role on the team: Pregame introduction leader.
I sorta remember when the high five started to supercede the low 10, and from there, handshakes turned into shared rituals between two people. Like the 10-step shake Jack Black teaches the keyboard player in “School of Rock”. That’s an elaborate shake, he tells the kid, so practice.
The first player introduced has no one to greet her, so they send the 12th or 13th man out there to greet each starter, and each pair has its own custom shake. I have no bloody idea how Blanck remembers all that.
I thought BYU transfer Blanck could be helpful for the BYU scout, and then I remembered that BYU coach Judkins is on the Utah bench these days. As far as the scout pertains to players’ favorite floor positions and ballhandling tencencies, Utah might be better prepared for BYU than any other team on the schedule. I’m amused at how unfair it seems.
I can’t wait to meet Coach Judkins, tell him how he did in my tabletop simulations. The 1979-80 and 1980-81 Phoenix Suns were among my favorite teams ever, and I played hundreds of Statis-Pro Basketball games from those seasons. The 79-80 Judkins card was really good on a per minute basis, but he was only getting 10 mpg behind Cornbread Maxwell in Boston. I liked the Judkins card, and said ‘screw it’ to the game’s playing time restraints. In my world, 1980 Jeff Judkins was an All-Star.
I did the same thing with the aforementioned Brooke Smith on the 2009 Mercury. She played 7 mpg for the 2009 WNBA champions, but when I got the Statis-Pro card set for the 2009 WNBA season, veteran forwards Le’Coe Willingham and Tangela Smith played behind the Stanford grad. I remember a moment from that simulation season: The Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks went to overtime, and the Mercury had the last possession down by 1. With time running out — that is, with only a few cards remaining to draw in the deck — Brooke made an offensive rebound, and her putback at the buzzer … missed.
I had to shelve that game — in the early ’90s, I had enough free time to replay entire NBA seasons with Statis-Pro, but a dozen years ago, I’d spend two hours on one Statis-Pro game, blowing up plans for whatever I had to do that day.