Sports

My first recollection of NCAA Basketball Tournament Final Fours goes all the way back to 1952. I was a mere child then, but our family radio was always on when there was a big sporting event to be listened to. In 1952, Dad was following the Kansas Jayhawks. He wasn’t particularly a KU fan, but we lived in Kansas and the Jayhawks were involved in the Final Four. I remember him commenting on KU’s star player Clyde Lovellette. For some reason Dad always mispronounced the guy’s name. He called him Love-a-let. I had just begun listening to the games, but I knew the play-byplay announcers were saying La-vel-ette. When I pointed that out to Dad, he would look at me and say “whatever” and go back to pronouncing the man’s name wrong. Kansas went on to win the NCAAs that year. It was a Summer Olympics year and the common practice in those years was to invite most of the players on the NCAA championship team to participate on Team USA. Lovellette and his crew played in the Olympics and brought home gold.