Make it 5 in a row...
Raise your hand if you picked even 1 of the NCAA Final Four teams. LIAR!!! Raise your hand if you knew that George Mason was a university in Fairfax, Virginia. LIAR!!! While picking an NCAA champion is getting as hard to predict as what team will win the world series, one of the Final Four teams has been there before, 15 times before. Its last visit dates back to 1995 when they won it all. That would be your UCLA Bruins and on this date 35 years ago today they knocked off Villanova 68-92 to give John Wooden his 5th consecutive NCAA championship...
UCLA was up 45-37 at the half after Steve Patterson stepped it up big time with Sidney Wicks nursing an injured foot, to score 20 points. In the second half Patterson added 9 more points to finish with 29 as the Bruins held on to beat the Wildcats 68-62. Henry Bibby finished with 17 and Curtis Rowe with 8. A hobbled Wicks could only muster 7 points. Howard Porter of Villanova was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player but the Wildcats were disqualified after the tournament for having an inelligible player and their 1st place finish in the east regional was relinquished to Penn with Fordham moving up to 2nd place...
Coach Wooden would have UCLA on top again in '72 and '73 for 7 consecutive national championships. He would wind up with 10 NCAA titles in all. It would take Norm Sloan's North Carolina State team to stop the string at 7 in 1974...
More March 27 Memories...
1513] Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon sights Florida (puts some money down on a condo on Collins Avenue and vows, "I'll be back")...
1794] President George Washington and Congress authorize creation of the U.S. Navy...
1860] The corkscrew is patented by M. L. Byrn (who tests his product on every wine bottle in the pub to make sure it works)...
1884] The 1st long-distance telephone call is made from Boston to New York...
1893] The Stanley Cup, a silver bowl costing its owner 10 guineas ($50) is donated as an annual award for Canada's amateur hockey champions by Frederick Arthur Lord Stanley. The NHL takes possession of the Cup in 1910 as the symbol of hockey supremacy...
1932] The 1st NCAA championship game was played with Oregon beating Ohio State 46-33 (The NCAA will dominate the NIT in the mid-50s)...
1952] "Singin' in the Rain" starring Gene Kelly opens at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan...
1958] Soviet First Secretary Nikita Krushchev replaces Nicolay Bulganin as Soviet Premier...
1967] The Young Rascals record "Groovin'" (on a Sunday afternoon ?)...
1968] Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the 1st man to orbit Earth, dies in a plane crash...
1972] Elvis Presley records "Burning Love"...
1974] John Denver is #1 with "Sunshine on My Shoulders"...
1977] A KLM Boeing 747 attempting to take off, crashes into a Pan Am 747 on the Canary Island of Tenerife, killing 582...
1981] AC/DC release "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"...
1984] Cyndi Lauper releases "Time After Time"...
1984] Kenny Loggins is "Footloose" and #1...
1996] Cigar, the great American thoroughbred wins the 1st $4 million Dubai World Cup to collect racing's richest prize (it's the 14th straight victory by the 6-year old bay)...
1997] Dexter King, son of Martin Luther King Jr. meets with James Earl Ray in prison and believes his father's alleged assassin had nothing to do with the shooting...
1998] The Food and Drug Administration approves the drug Viagra, made by Pfizer, to fight male impotence...
2002] Dudley Moore dies at his New Jersey home of pneumonia, a complication of progressive supranuclear palsy at 66...
2002] "Mr. Television", the legendary Milton Berle dies at 93...
[To ensure accuracy of dates and content, mulitple reference sources are used in the timeline]...
Happy Birthday To...
1942] Michael York...
1952] Maria Schneider...
1955] Racing car driver Cale Yarborough...
1963] Quentin Tarantino...
1970] Mariah Carey...
Commentary...
Happy Trails to Buck Owens who died at his Bakersfield, California home over the weekend at 76. Owens recorded more than 20 #1 Country hits, most released from the mid-60s to mid-70s. Owens will mostly be remembered for "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail" and "Act Naturally" and also for his TV work as part of the cast of "Hee Haw" for 17 years. I agree with David Hinckley who wrote an article about Buck and the need for a radio place to turn to when someone the stature of a Buck Owens suddenly dies. It's something that doesn't exist in New York but is sorely needed. You can read David's comments at: www.dailynews.com/entertainment/story/
As David pointed out, Buck started his career in radio with a live show in Arizona in 1945. He would eventually own a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix. Buck was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. At that time he described how he wanted to be remembered: "I'd like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time"...We need more people like Buck Owens...
[Today is the 86th day of 2006 with 279 days remaining in the year and just 6 days until opening day]
