Philadelphia Top Five
Comments (1) Tomorrow morning at this time I will be sitting in an airport waiting for a direct flight from suddenly sunny and beautiful Las Vegas, to Philadelphia, PA, home of our NCAA tournament site this year. This has been over a year in the making, as most trip sites are. We will unveil our site for next years trip after the final four in April.
But anyways, onto the reasons why we’ve chosen Philadelphia this year.
5. The Liberty Bell – The Liberty bell symbolizes Americans rights to look after themselves. It was created in 1751, 50 years after William Penn’s proclamation that Americans could and should govern themselves, planting the seeds of liberty and freedom from England. A little known fact (at least to me) – the Liberty Bell was removed during the revolutionary war and hidden in a church basement out side of Philadelphia when the city was occupied for fear it would be melted down by the English and fashioned into weapons.
4. Cheese Steaks – The members of the trip are particularly fond of food. In Milwaukee we did it right with crazy brauts and sausages from a few of the finer pubs and restaurants around town. This year, we will be sure to have our fair share of cheese steaks, as this is Philadelphia’s most well known food item. Giant hoagie roll, delicious grilled steak and onions and cheese sauce all wrapped up and warm and ready to eat. What else could you want? Hopefully a beer. Anyways, here’s to hoping they are as good as advertised, as I’m sure one is bound to save my life at some point this coming week. If it’s good enough for my wife’s favorite chef cooking person, it’s good enough for me.
3. Rocky – Whenever you train for something, it’s important to run up a flight of steps triumphantly as you near the end of your training in order to symbolize you’ve reached the top and it’s time to begin your fight. This comes from the Rocky movies, which are not totally near and dear to my heart because I don’t train for fights or run up steps like this all the time. Either way, I hope we can check this out. The steps Stallone runs up are the steps for Philadelphia’s Museum of Art. Museums, libraries and art houses typically have nice bathrooms, so we’ll see. May be mandatory after the cheesesteaks.
2. The Palestra – The Cathedral of College Basketball. Originally opened in 1927, the Palestra is home to Penn Quakers. It was also home to the Big 5 Basketball rivalry. The city of Philadelphia is home to five major college basketball teams who once held games at the Palestra, sometimes doubleheaders, etc. How epic would it have been to watch Villanova, LaSalle, Penn, St. Joseph’s and Temple play double headers in an intimate gym like the one above? You can imagine the rivalries, and this is where they played. It is the home of classic old timey rivalry basketball at its finest. I hope it will be open to the public so I can breath in the what is sure to be stank old air.
1. THE TOURNEY – What else would it be? 1st and 2nd rounds, Thursday and Saturday. Four games on Thursday. Friday (off day) to check out as much as the above as possible, while still catching as many games on TV as possible. Saturday watching four teams slug it out for the shot to go to the Sweet 16. The coaches (Jay Wright, Jim Calhoun, Ben Howland), the players (Anybody on UConn’s squad, Eric Maynor, Scottie Reynolds). Everything. It’s the greatest weekend in sports, and we’ve made the commitment to be there live every year for all of it. It continues this year with the Philadelphia trip, and I’m sure it’s going to be great.
Themocracy