Colburn comments
If you didn't attend the Hillsboro Trojan Classic basketball tournament, but wondered how Marion High School teams fared, you didn't need to wait for this week's paper.
A Sunday morning drive past Central Park would've given you a clue. You'd have seen a snow-capped Woody the Warrior hoopster statue, an icon which fittingly depicted the chilly reception the boys' and girls' teams got at the Classic, where they finished with a disappointing 1-5 combined record.
The record isn't reflective of the overall effort displayed by Warrior and Lady Warrior players, particularly given that both teams went up against Class 4A competition.
The games did provide evidence of what happens when teams go cold from the field.
In each of the boys' two losses, they had halves where their shooting percentages uncharacteristically dropped into the mid-30s. Shots that have found the bottom of the net in other games maddeningly clanked off the rim.
There had to have been plastic wrap over the rims when the Lady Warriors played Wamego. The two teams got off exactly the same number of shots, 52, but Marion hit barely half as many as the Red Raiders.
To be sure, the opponents get credit for some of this. But much of the time, Marion players had open shots, but their "touch" was just a bit off.
It happens when you least expect it, often at the most inopportune times, and all one can do is keep shooting, hoping it will work itself out. Sometimes it does — and sometimes, it doesn't.
I don't think I've ever felt so good about losing a game as I did when the Lady Warriors fell to Sunrise Academy.
Why did I feel good? Marion put together three spirited, intense, competitive quarters of basketball for the first time since early in the season. That Sunrise Academy pulled away at the free-throw line in the fourth quarter was disappointing, but overall it was encouraging to see some spark and fight left in the Lady Warriors.
Even better was seeing the strut in their steps coming out of the locker room after the game.
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National Football League fans got a dose of thrills Sunday as conference championship games propelled Chicago and Indianapolis into Super Bowl XLI.
For many, including myself, it was equally thrilling to witness the historic first of not just one, but two, black head coaches reach the NFL's ultimate game.
While America takes pride in being the "land of equal opportunity," it is still unfortunately a land in which opportunities are more equal for some than for others.
Former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue recognized this when he established policies to ensure minority coaches could at least get interviews for head coaching spots.
Chicago's Lovie Smith was ready to be a head coach long before he landed with the Bears. Living in St. Louis when Smith was an assistant with the Rams, I watched time and again as Smith was passed over for interviews, despite glowing accolades about his work from the local media. It's good to see that once he finally got his shot, he made good on it.
