Rick Wagoner Deserves High-Five for Final Four:
Commentary by Scott Soshnick
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Enough, already, with the notion of a basketball team -- even this loveable lot from East Lansing -- as a salve for bailouts and blighted neighborhoods.
Sport is a welcome distraction, not a solution. The problems persist.
Even if plucky Michigan State had toppled North Carolina last night, which it didn’t, falling 89-72 in front of almost 73,000 witnesses at Ford Field in Detroit, countless jobs would still be gone. The foreclosures will continue. Real life. Real problems.
While it isn’t popular to laud Rick Wagoner these days, the former General Motors Corp. chief executive officer was instrumental in Detroit playing host to college basketball’s Final Four championship.
Business leaders tout the benefits of attracting major sporting events. They speak of economic impact (questionable), packed hotels and waiting lists at restaurants.
More importantly, though, especially with this town at this time, the Final Four forced us all to look at Detroit. And perhaps, by extension, at ourselves.
Economic woe isn’t limited to the folks trying to sell cars.
Detroit today. Maybe Dayton, Decatur or Dallas tomorrow. Or maybe your town.
“There’s a lot of cities out there with problems,” said Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, a native of Iron Mountain, Michigan. “But this is ours.”
Check out the Michigan State roster. Nine of the 16 players are from Michigan. Places like Rochester, Flint, Saginaw, Okemos, Detroit, Lansing, Sand Lake and Sterling Heights, home of guard Kalin Lucas.
“It’s a storm in the city,” Lucas said the other day. “So we’re trying to bring sunlight to it.”
Needed Sunlight
The Final Four sunlight he talks about has brought much- needed illumination.
We should all be taking notice of a dying city and industry. And of suffering, hopelessness and homelessness.
And then remember the young men on these two teams.
Remember what you saw and heard in the Michigan State huddle. All hands in. And then they’d chant “family” in unison. Win or lose, they’re in it together. They help each other. They don’t point fingers. One falls down, the others help him up.
Had the Final Four been held in Fargo, North Dakota, we would have seen and heard more about people helping people, about a community joining to fight a rising river.
Perfect Fit
North Carolina fits in nicely, too. The team’s style of play is a testament to togetherness. It’s a group of talented individuals putting the collective accomplishment above all else. Effort means something. Ego doesn’t.
Both of these teams, to a man, spoke incessantly of family and unity, of what can be accomplished with teamwork and trying.
It makes you wish we would hear more of that from our lawmakers, who remain mired in partisanship and finger-pointing. You have to wonder if our leaders watched the Final Four, if they’re processing what’s happening in the streets of Detroit and on the court, where young men show more sense than elected officials.
Izzo spoke at length this week about his chances to leave Michigan State for other jobs, including the National Basketball Association. He stayed, though. Why? Because the Spartans, he said, gave him a chance. And loyalty means something.
Not only that, but Izzo isn’t done building. Even though his Spartans have made five Final Four appearances in 11 seasons -- including the 2000 national title -- Izzo isn’t done. There’s more. There’s better.
“I love the Dukes, Carolinas, Kentuckys, Kansas,” he said. “I love aspiring to those. We’re not there yet. I feel like I have so much more to build.”
Work to Do
In other words, Izzo has work to do. We all do. Izzo continues to build while the city of Detroit and its source of pride -- making cars -- continues to crumble.
No, a basketball team’s magic carpet ride isn’t a balm for what ails Detroit. Even so, the lads from Lansing captured the attention and imagination of sports fans.
In the end, the turnover-prone Spartans fell short of delivering a championship for Detroit. They did much more, though. This group of young men trumpeted the plight of fans and families. They plotted a course for collective accomplishment, even if the ultimate goal wasn’t achieved.
This is one of those rare times in sports where the final score isn’t the defining statistic.
What’ll be remembered, even around North Carolina, will be the scores of people who took notice of a team that delivered a sobering reminder of tough times in its town. The Spartans got us to pay attention.
“We lost a game,” Izzo said. “But this program is way better off.”
So, too, are those who took notice of it.
(Scott Soshnick is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Scott Soshnick in New York at ssoshnick@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 7, 2009 00:34 EDT |
