thunk.

When Tennessee doesn't make it to the Final Four, I hear a sound of something being dropped. The sound is best rendered as the word thunk but just a word doesn't quite capture the thunk I hear, which is a strong memory of something actually being dropped--thrown down really--on a post-game bus seat: a giant cardboard box, full of a thousand tee shirts.

In 1990 when Virginia beat us in the elite 8--I mentioned this before--it was the year the final four was to take place in UT Knoxville's shiny new arena. Predictions were that the capacity of that arena (over 25,000), combined with the possibility of the Lady Vols playing on their home floor for a championship, would shatter attendance records for women's final fours. Someone, I'm not sure who--some venture capitalist, or superstitious fan with a firm belief in the power of suggestion--in anticipation of the FF instant sellout should the team advance from the Elite Eight, printed 1,000 tee shirts, ready to sell at the moment Tennessee won. Here's what the screen looked like:

After the box went thunk, Pat pulled a shirt out to show us. My response, which I kept to my hunkered-by-the-window sophomore self, was one of outrage. Who made these? Setting aside the obvious fact that the shirts jinxed us, what hubris would lead someone to think of this slogan, "Tennessee and the final three," as if there would never be another final four without Tennessee in it? Who on earth thought it would be okay to print such a slogan? Pat's response, of course, was different. In the capitalist risk gone bad, Pat saw the possibility of daily reminders. She held up the shirt and announced through a tight, thin snarl, "this is next year's practice gear."

And it was. Over the summer, as players transferred to other schools or went on medical leave, and as the remaining ones, wondering if they should have transferred and feeling rather ill themselves, spent the summer months instead conditioning like no other summer before, the coaches added sayings on the back of the obsolescent shirts, chiasmatic sayings like "WHEN YOU FAIL TO PREPARE, PREPARE TO FAIL" or spelling lessons about how many "I"s TEAM has in it, or just plain old phrases they'd repeated frequently, not-so-gentle-reminders, such as this one:

During grad school I dusted furniture with these artifacts, keeping a few to drag out to tell the story, and every time, just like today when I dug it out of a moving box for these photos, the thunk becomes a shudder.

Comments

[Katherine]

Pat Summit is not someone I would like to face in such circumstances. I imagine you might feel as if surviving her means you can survive anything!

I've never met her, but I've watched her on the sidelines on TV and in person when I was at UConn--I know that makes me the enemy ;-, but Duke knocked UConn out of the tournament, so we're both in mourning--and she looked so intense!

[dhawhee]

Intense is definitely the word. Sorry about your Huskies! That ACC is unstoppable.

[caraf]

Now, when I read this story I am just twisted enough to think, Hmmm, what kinds of stuff like this can we put on our graduate students' t-shirts?

[dhawhee]

!! That IS twisted.

[km]

Fascinating post. This women is really something. I'm not convinced her look is intense, more like psycho-scary.

[katka]

Hey can I have one of those for my "rhetoric of a T-shirt" assignment? Better yet, can I have you wearing it, telling the story? I like the "Muck Fichigan" t-shirt, but I look so washed-out in orange...

[Z]

where can I buy one of those t-shirts?

[dhawhee]

Oh katka you look great in any color.

Z: for you, one million dollars! The one in the photo is my last one. I may have the prepare to fail one around her somewhere; I think I wore it when I was getting ready for comprehensive exams in grad school, though come to think of it, maybe it would come in handy for teaching prep. ha!

[Z]

Isn't "thunk" the past tense of "think" in Tennessee?

[dhawhee]

To quote Amy Adams in Junebug, "you did not."

Hicksploitation prohibited!

[katka]

Hey Z,
How many Penn students does it take to screw in a light bulb?

You know this one.

If you're gonna dish it out...

[Z]

But I'm not a Penn student...

also I don't know the joke.

[katka]

One, but he gets three credits for it.

[Scott]

On the topic of t-shirts and Penn State students:

PSU's College Republicans have proposed a campus-wide "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" game to raise awareness about the illegal immigration legislation before Congress. At yesterday's College Republicans' meeting, treasurer Dane Peterson described the game in this way: students will be able to approach students wearing orange T-shirts (leftovers from the "Tennessee and the Other Three" box, I presume) with the words "illegal immigrant" to receive information about illegal immigration.

You can read more about yesterday's meeting, which was attended by members of PSU's Black Caucus and Latino Caucus, through the following link to the Daily Collegian:

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2006/03/03-30-06tdc/03-30-06dnews-12.asp

[Z]

Katka,
Ah, when I was at Brown, that was a joke about Brown. Sort of true, in fact...

[katka]

Z,
http://www.aaaugh.com/jokes/light_bulb_jokes.html

All of 'em.