PORTLAND — You can’t help but see the peripheral aspects of college basketball when you sit courtside at the NCAA Tournament. (See photo from a couple posts ago)
Two bands have been about 10 feet away from my left ear, letting everyone knows about their spirit. Or noise. Or both. After five games here at Portland, some things are blending.
Add, then, onto the non-basketball part of this tournament, the mascots.
Or in this case, “Pete” the Boilermaker of Purdue University.
It’s not much of a costume — Nike sneakers, shorts along with a padded jersey and a fake, huge plastic head. You can tell he’s about a 6-foot tall white guy in a costume.
The problem is, with that, there isn’t even a hint of fantasy on his part. This isn’t all on the costume though. It’s on Pete.
He stands, he taps his black and wood sledgehammer, shakes his first, and generally is boring.
Is that a mascot?
This kind of behavior might be acceptable if it’s Purdue vs. IUPUI in November. You could say he was just trying to get used to being Pete.
But it’s March, for Pete’s sake.
You see, there’s a lot of excitement in the Rose Garden today if you’re a Boilermaker fan. The entire fan section behind our press table is all Purdue fans, and they’re not letting any of the 13,000-plus Husky fans here forget it.
As we speak, Purdue just beat UW 76-74 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. I’m not sure if I’m at a basketball game or an N’SYNC concert from 1998 by the reaction here.
At the free throw line, Pete stands, clapping his hands, swaying his feet.
