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A-10 Tourney... Meet the Zooperstars
3/11/05
by Clay

My buddies, Shekhar and Jason arrived on Wednesday night and after an evening of carousing in Nashville we headed for the 'Nati this morning. At that time I believed the city of Cincinnati was still deserving of a nickname. We arrived in mid-afternoon and killed some time until the tipoff of the A-10 tourney (the ostensible subject of this chronicle).

Upon our arrival in the arena we were greeted by a sea of empty seats. The arena was a heckler's dream; a well-shouted quip could carry from one side of the arena to the other and back again. At one point during the George Washington-Fordham game the only reason I couldn't hear the instructions of both coaches was because they were speaking at the same time. Earlier I had talked to Lara and told her to watch for us on television. She suggested it was unlikely she would see us, but then I told her that we had an entire section to ourselves and the seats were pretty good. Ultimately the seats filled up around us, but attendance is absolutely woeful. I can't imagine what it would have been if the Zooperstars hadn't been coming.

Here were the highlights of the game:

1. During player introducions a fan directly above media row (where I would have been seating if I were credentialed) began to spin out of control so that it caused sparks and where there were sparks eventually there became fire. All sort of detritus fell onto the court and the media and GW band scrambled out from under the fan in an effort to avoid death. Remarkably as I wondered how many people were going to be decapitated by the fan, the announcer continued to talk as if there was absolutely no threat. By the time someone got the fan off, there was a pile of soot all over the court and those sweeping kids were overwhelmed by the mess. Since those sweeping kids never do anything, they had to immediately call in the real sweepers to get the game started. I hate the sweeping kids. This was perfect for the A-10 tournament though whose slogan could be, "Even the fans don't work at our tournament." Which is an awkward double use of the word fan, but then most A-10 fans are awkward in one way or another.

2. The commissioner of the A-10 is named Linda Bruno and she resembles an aged stripper. She also wears loafers everywhere she goes and has large front teeth. I don't know why this matters but it always bothers me.

3. Keith Butler of Temple has the littlest head combined with the largest body in the A-10. He looks like that scene from Beetlejuice where Beetlejuice's head gets shrunken.

4. At halftime of the GW game there was a near fight between one of the other twenty GW fans in attendance, an aged bald man, and a Dayton fan with glasses. The Dayton fan was the least threatening fan to want to fight since my freshman year when I was swung at by the previously least threatening basketball fan to want to fight. I believe had last night's fight occurred it would have been the fight equivalent of watching girls middle-school basketball.

5. Even though it was seven years ago, when the previously least threatening basketball fan to want to fight threw a punch at me it was because I was standing up in the student section. During this course of time, the angry fan wearing glasses made the following threats:

"I'm going to give you a knuckle sandwich" immediately followed by "I'll punch your lights out."

My lights remained on as his feeble punch did not reach me. Gotta love Philly fans.

6. The Dayton band had three wardrobe changes which consisted of changing hats. On the top of their hats they had sirens, airplanes, and giant sunglasses. If every hat were worn at the same time, they would look as ridiculous as each hat worn individually.

7. The Temple cheerleaders were really fat. Somehow the girls in the band were better looking. After every made basket, the cheerleaders executed a laborious flip; in California frayed nerves would prevent the flips from occurring.

8. And finally for the highlight of the evening. At halftime of the last game of the night (presumably they were the featured attraction) the Zooperstars arrived to dance and perform The Zooperstars are inflated animal mascots designed to entertain and there were four of them at the arena. Basically they run around and dance with one another. At one point their music was not working and they kept waiting for it to start. Which was interesting primarly because when the music was on, they moved around with no discernible connection to the music itself. Their names were, and this is completely true,

a. Shaquille O'seal (he was a seal in a Miami Heat uniform)
b. Dick Flytale (he was a fly)
c. Stallion Iverson (my friend Shekhar claims that allion sounds sort of like Allan so this actually makes sense, I disagree)
d. Yao Flamingo (lesson: every word that ends in O rhymes)

Now as the dancing occurred the crowd absolutely loved it. I mean really loved it. No one left their seats at halftime. If ever there was any further indication needed that most people aren't that smart, the success of the zooperstars is crowning evidence. As I watched them bounce around the court, it also occurred to me that the existence of a single zooperstar was not that surprising. After all, crazy ideas and crazy people make America go 'round, but what was shocking to me was there were zooperstars plural. I just kept picturing what the conversation would have been like when the zooperstar concept was created. Surely it began with a dream; everything begins with one man's dream. But then this crazy bastard was able to convince at least three other people to follow him.

Imagine the conversation, Dreamer: "I've got this great idea. We'll dress up in inflatable costumes and give ourselves bad names tangentially related to sports that don't really rhyme. Then we'll make ourselves be animals and call ourselves the Zooperstars because that is a witty name. And people will pay us to come entertain sports fans at halftime." Raise your hands if this pitch would have worked for you.

Right, but somehow it worked for at least three other people. And now sports fans across the country are amazed...amazed by the zooperstars. Some guy sitting next to me kept slapping his knee and nudging the guy sitting next to him, he actually said five or six times, "They're so funny." Anyway, here is the zooperstars website and you actually have to check it out.

Post zooperstars we left and headed back to the hotel after closing down two bars at the ripe hour of midnight.

Cincinnati's slogan should be, no one lives here and there is nothing to do (but the Zooperstars come occasionally). Of course this would be a weak slogan but this is a pretty weak town. Last night after George Washington knocked off Fordham, my friends Jason, Shekhar and I were wandering around the streets of downtown with absolutely no one around us. For a time we considered the possibility that a plague had stricken and miraculously spared the A-10 tourney.

Then we realized no plague could ever spare the Zooperstars. Now, we're just ready for the semifinals.