GOOOOOOOO RACERS!!!

 

Repeating once again, I’m not a huge sports fan! But I do love my teams! I really love this time of year in college basketball because there are very few blowout games and honestly, the ones I watch are actually won in the last few minutes! It’s exciting, regardless of the teams but this year….TA DA! The Murray State Racers are playing in the first round of the NCAA tournament tomorrow night (Thursday) at 9:40pm.

I am so excited for this team who actually was undefeated for awhile this season and ranked in the top 25 for a period of time! (I’m not good at tracking things, and to be fair, the Bengals were headed to the Super Bowl when a lot of this was happening!)

Murray State is my alma mater. It’s where I really “grew up!” It’s where I had my first “illegal” beverage! It’s where I had a few hangovers and it’s where I met some pretty fancy people. I met celebrities like Muhammed Ali, Alan Funt, Mel Blanc, John Dean of Watergate fame and more.

I learned about sororities and fraternities, homecoming parades and dances, and elections for student government offices.

I attended my first concerts at Murray State…Blue Oyster Cult, Paplo Cruz, the Doobie Brothers, to name a few. I traveled to student activity conventions and had great experiences…

Oh yeah, and I graduated, by the skin of my teeth, in 1980. I went to class…I was really good about that. But I didn’t study if there was an opportunity to do something else more exciting, which was just about anything.

I loved going to football and basketball games! Football games took place in Murray’s fancy new stadium and students got in free so we donned our blue & gold and headed to games on Saturdays. One of the highlights was our retired thoroughbred horse, who galloped around the field before each game, with a jockey, while the band played “The Old Gray Mare” and the students clapped and sang our unofficial school song. They always made sure to do this once before the game started, because they were never certain that Violet Cactus would get to run any more during that game. You see, Violet Cactus only ran around the field when Murray scored! Yep…there were some games where that one pre-game run was all we saw!

Several years ago, we returned for Homecoming and they still had the Violet Cactus tradition. (Several horses had this name over the years!) This homecoming, they were honoring the past jockeys that had the honor of running Violet Cactus. It was also the year that poor Violet Cactus almost died. That October homecoming it was 85 degrees and Murray State scored 64 points against their opponent. Poor Violet Cactus was running, getting hosed down, and running again for three hours. It was awesome for the Murray fans, but we weren’t sure Violet Cactus would make it. She did, thankfully, but I’m sure not for long. We also noticed that since the horse wasn’t running as fast, the song was played at regular speed for the first verse, then went into slow motion for the second…so the horse could keep up with the tempo. Oh the memories!!!

Basketball was different. The mascot was a furry creature like most mascots. But he was definitely active and when I was at Murray, the basketball team was pretty good. They had this defense that is no longer allowed now, but basically, Murray could play 4-corner defense for upwards of five minutes without penalty. The crowd loved it and most of the time, it worked and Murray came out with a win!

Fast forward to now and Murray has done really well without that crazy defense. They are playing hard and, in most games, beat their opponent by 15-20 points. However, in the final game of the OVC tournament, it was a nail biter. Thankfully, they won to earn the spot in the first round.

They will play the University of San Francisco tomorrow night. I’m hoping that they will win. The UK Wildcats will be playing their first-round game as well. When UK and MSU win their first games, they will be paired against each other! Now, that will be fun! It’s a game all Kentucky people should get behind!

Now I know the Wildcat fans in Kentucky outnumber the Racer fans, but having the two teams play one another will be a reason to party!!

So, now that my Bengals Super Bowl loss is a distant memory, I am changing course and looking forward to cheering on my Murray State Racers! I don’t know if they’ll go all the way, but my bracket will indicate that they do! I mean, a girl can dream, right???

Go Racers!