Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 3/29/2011

3/29/1982:
North Carolina outlasts Georgetown, 63-62, in the NCAA men's championship game in New Orleans. With 15 seconds remaining, freshman Michael Jordan puts the Tar Heels ahead by one point on a 16-foot jumper. With 7 seconds left, Georgetown sophomore guard Freddie Brown brings the ball up the court, thinks he sees teammate Eric Smith and throws him the ball. Trouble is, he has mistaken Carolina's James Worthy for Smith and secured the title for the Tar Heels - the first for Coach Dean Smith after losing three championship games in 1968, '77 and '81.

Birthdays:
Cy Young b. 1867
Denny McLain b. 1944
Walt Frazier b. 1945
Earl Campbell b. 1955
Jennifer Capriati b. 1976

Packers Fact:
The Packers beat the Minnesota Vikings 24-19 on Kickoff Weekend in Aaron Rodgers' debut game as a starting quarterback in 2008. Rodgers completed 18 of 22 passes for 178 yards, including a touchdown.

ON HALFTIME ENTERTAINMENT, SOMEWHAT TASTELESS

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Oklahoma hoops’ career scoring leader turned jazz musician Wayman Tisdale will make his first musical appearance since having a portion of his right leg amputated at halftime of the Sooners’ basketball game.

on Sportingnews.com

“It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place.”

—LEWIS CARROLL, English writer

PERENNIAL CLASSIC

The Aubrey family is going through a rough patch. There’s no money in the house. Feckless father can’t seem to keep a job. Mother may be a bit emotionally unstable and eccentric, but she looks after her children. She is also very musically gifted, as are her twin daughters. The other daughter, Cordelia, isn’t but doesn’t know it, and no one can tell her. And then there are the poltergeists. Rebecca West was a major writer and intellectual of wide-ranging interests from spies to Yugoslavian history. This warm, often funny, and delightful novel is probably her most endearing book.

THE FOUNTAIN OVERFLOWS, by Rebecca West (1957; New York Review Books Classics, 2002)