'BAMA SLAMMA: Shedding Light On Midnight Madness

Tick…tick…BOOM!

Have you felt the Madness?

I did—last Friday, Oct. 15 at 12:01 a.m. Calendars changed nationwide. So did lives.

Harvard’s home of basketball, Lavietes Pavilion, was part of the act. Colleges across the country celebrated the beginning of a new day—the NCAA-mandated start date for the 2004-05 basketball season—by packing arenas full of fans in the wee hours.

Doesn’t sound familiar?

Acquaint yourself with Midnight Madness.

The Pavilion, just like its counterparts at Duke, UConn and Stanford, became more than a court on Friday—it transformed into a roiling cauldron of smoke and fire.

It was the biggest pep rally for Crimson basketball, ever. Heavy on pyrotechnics and light on lethargy, it turned into quite a spectacle.

With sparks and screams showering down, I watched Jason Norman, the Crimson captain, emerge from the shadow-spackled periphery of the gym to a thundering ovation.

And then I woke up. It was only a dream.

Midnight Madness exists. The only problem is, it ain’t here.

“At 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 15,” sophomore guard Ko Yada told me, “I was sleeping.”

“I was cleaning my room and doing a pset” junior guard Michael Beal said.

“I was in bed at 10,” senior guard Kevin Rogus remembered, “cause we had practice at 8:30 in the morning.”

In all, it was a fairly tame night. Surprisingly tame.

“Although some people may say I was cruising the streets or in the Kong at 12:01 a.m.,” Norman said, “I was actually in the library reading for Positive Psychology.”

Let’s be honest. Harvard will never have Midnight Madness, for the same reason Harvard will never pack the student section at The Game.

Too many students don’t care about sports. And what’s more, there’s plenty going on outside the stadium.

But that doesn’t mean hardcore hoopsters can’t dream.

“I think next year would be a great opportunity to do it,” Norman said, “after we win the Ivy League championship.”

“A big Midnight Madness thing would be fun,” Rogus said.

Yada said he would “love it” and that it would be “a great event for fans.”

“But currently,” he added, “there is more likely to be a Midnight Madness party on April 17-18, the night after the MCAT.”

Party on.

So why can’t the Crimson have a Midnight Madness? According to a 1999 SI.com article, the tradition—which began when Lefty Driesell made Maryland players run laps at midnight, Oct. 15, 1970—is now celebrated in more than a third of the nation’s Division I basketball schools.

One reason is that sarcasm and cynicism prey on events like these.

“We could have a Midnight Madness thing,” Rogus said, “but the only ones there would be us, the coaches and the janitor.”

In the meantime, players will look to drum up support the old fashioned way: by winning.

Last year, the much-maligned Crimson went 4-23, but surprised Yale and gave Princeton a scare at the end of the season. The Harvard team roster, one of the nation’s youngest and least experienced, did not feature a single senior.

Now, Norman is back for his second tour as captain. Since NCAA rules only limit practices led by the head coaching staff, it was Norman who honed his skills at the whistle before October 15.

Norman said he made his players tougher by throwing chairs and sending freshmen to Somerville to get him sugar cookies and cheesecake.

“I think I would make a wonderful coach,” Norman said. “Perhaps the greatest coach of all time, even, like Phil Jackson. All I would need, then, is the greatest players of all time like he had.”

In a perfect world—a world just a little bit madder—a lot of things would be made right.

If only it were true...

—Staff writer Alex McPhillips can be reached at rmcphill@fas.harvard.edu. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.