Monday, April 5, 2010

Guru of Go

I hope you had a chance to watch the ESPN 30 for 30 on Loyola Marymount and their 1990 tournament team called Guru of Go.  It aired on ABC a couple hours before the tip off of the Butler game.  Paul Westhead was the orchestrator of the fastest offense in the history of college basketball.  His teams at Marymount averaged 122 points a game at their best.  I will always remember Hank Gathers, Bo Kimble, Per Stumer, Jeff Fryer, and Tom Peabody as the most entertaining team I had ever seen.
The 86 Red Sox are my favorite team.  The '85-'86 Celtics are my second favorite.  My third is the 89'-90' Marymount team.  I remember staying up until 11pm just to watch a half of one of their games.  I stared at their box scores for hours trying to imagine what went on during those 40 minutes and how it was possible to score 140 points in a game. 
I remember the morning my dad woke me up and told me that Hank Gathers had died during a game.  My dad would usually give me a sports highlight from the night before as he was trying to get me out of bed.  I was completely stunned and saddened and I think I started crying.  Its weird to look back on that team I liked so much; I can't figure out why I did other thant he fact that even back then all I wanted to do in baseketball was jack up 3's.  There had to be other kids like me that were broken up by this.  Kids that disected these box scores for a team that was on the other side of the planet that only came on once a month at 11pm at night. 
At one point int he documentary they show 5 second clips of all these peoples reactions to an interview question about Hank Gathers' death.  A question asked about something that happened 20 years ago yeilded answers of silence and watery eyes.  Its pretty amazing. 
I think everyone knows the story by now, but if you don't it's a great one and you should try to check it out.  If you do know the story, its still pretty amazing to look back and remember how amazing it was.  There will never be another team like that LMU team.  Even without Hank Gathers you had a 30 ppg guy in Bo Kimble, two dead on three point shooters in Per Stumer and Jeff Fryer, and Tom Peabody who dove for every ball like it was a baby falling out of a third story window. 
To this day there has not been a better "one shining moment" then that one from 1990.  Here it is.


I have a VHS tape of a couple of their games, but I don't know exactly where it is.  Last time I had it was at Dan Schnur's house.  It might still be in his basement.

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