OMAHA — In the moments after such a devastating volleyball setback to Kansas last weekend in San Diego, USC coach Mick Haley was asked where the loss ranked.
“Yeah, I think the worst,” Haley said. “But you know, the next win will be the best. That’s the way it goes. You start ranking them, you might as well retire. That’s what you do after you quit trying to win the next one. But this one teased us so badly that, just a little hard to get over.”
Conversely, you stop ranking things as a sportswriter and it’s time to retire. It’s in our blood.
In roughly 35 years of hacking away, I have had the good fortune of covering many championship teams as a beat writer (1988 Los Angeles Dodgers) and columnist (Michael Jordan’s first three championships; Derek Jeter’s four championships in five seasons; Mario’s Miracle and the Todd Reesing/Aqib Talib Orange Bowl champions).
The most exciting games to watch generally are the most difficult to write because they involve remarkable comebacks on deadline, which requires a last-minute switch from writing a loss to writing a victory.
Five comebacks that I covered live rank as my favorites, which isn’t to say they rank as the biggest to anyone else, just to me.
I selected these off the top of my head and then did research to see which ones I either excluded because they didn’t come to mind as quickly or or decided not to include, all from Kansas basketball (KU 108, Iowa State 96, overtime, 2013; KU 88, Texas 84, OT, 2007; KU 85, Kansas State 74, 2009; KU 70, North Carolina 58, 2013).
Now, my five favorite comebacks during 35 years as a sportswriter:
**5 -** Kansas defeats Ohio State in 2012 Final Four: In the first half, one of Tyshawn Taylor’s better passes was caught by coach Bill Self. Ohio State, with Aaron Craft getting the better of Taylor, jumped to a 26-13 lead. In the second half, no Buckeye could stop Taylor from getting to the hoop. Kansas, which had made similar comebacks throughout the season, won it 64-62 to advance to a national-title showdown with Kentucky.
It remains the only post-Tulsa team that Self has coached that did not have a single McDonald’s All-American on the roster.
**4 -** The 2008 men’s basketball Final Four in San Antonio remains the only one that featured four No. 1 seeds: Kansas facing North Carolina in one semifinal, UCLA meeting Memphis in the other.
Down nine points with 2:12 remaining, KU forced overtime on Chalmers’ three-pointer with 2.1 seconds remaining and finished with 18 points. Darrell Arthur had 20. Sherron Collins made huge plays. Brandon Rush, as always, played stellar defense.
Cases could be made for Arthur, Chalmers and Rush being the MVP of that team, but there was no debate as to which star was the one Self most wanted taking the big shot and that was Chalmers.
Memphis missed 4 of 5 free throws down the stretch in regulation, but too much was made of that. KU had to do everything right at the end and did so well before Chalmers delivered in the clutch yet again.
The thing about thrilling comebacks in title games, they also mean seasons are over, which keeps this one from ranking higher. That was a phenomenal team that moved the ball, defended and played in transition so well that it was a delight to watch.
**3 -** Kansas rallies from 19 points down to defeat Missouri in the final basketball game of the Border War series: Thomas Robinson’s blocked shot forced overtime and he had a terrific game. But it was the relentless, under control way that Taylor led the team back that is the first thing that pops into my head when I reflect on that game.
**2 -** Kirk Gibson, his hamstring burning like a bonfire, rips a two-run homer to lift the Dodgers to a 5-4 thriller in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.
Gibson could barely walk when he arrived at Dodger Stadium, where Bash Brothers Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and closer Dennis Eckersley made the Oakland A’s the heavy favorites to win the World Series.
I had covered 144 of the 162 regular-season games, including all of Orel Hershiser’s 59 consecutive scoreless innings, and all of the postseason ones.
Gibson changed the entire tone of the organization during the first intrasquad scrimmage of spring training. Think about that.
Good chance no athlete in history has made his presence felt on a team as quickly as did Gibson. He did so by taking out the second baseman, spikes flying high, to break up a double play. On the day of the first exhibition game at Dodgertown’s Holman Stadium, someone had lined the inside of Gibson’s cap with eye black. While Gibson was running on the field to warm up for the game, the eye black began to run down his face. He figured out what had happened, stormed off the field and left the grounds, sending a loud statement that he nobody was to mess with him at his workplace.
Gibson, once a star wide receiver at Michigan State, had an intimidating presence about him. The next day, manager Tommy Lasorda made the perpetrator of the eyeblack prank apologize to Gibson in front of the whole team. It had to be a difficult admission for reliever Jesse Orosco to make, given that Gibson could have beaten him to a pulp. When asked how one goes about making such an admission to someone like Gibson, Orosco gave one of the all-time great responses: “Easy, I just walked up to him with a loaded pistol, pointed it in his face and said, ‘I did it.’ “
The Dodgers went on to win the World Series in five games and have not returned to the Fall Classic since.
**1 -** Down 13-9 in the fifth set, the Kansas volleyball team rallies to win by scoring the last six points to advance to the Final Four.
The final rally lasted for an eternity and featured a Kelsie Payne bullet beautifully defended, two spectacular Cassie Wait digs and Madison Rigdon’s powerful winning kill on a sweet set from Ainise Havili. Down went USC, the No. 1 seed in the tournament the Trojans hoped would end with them winning their seventh national title.
Unlike with the four comebacks listed above, the team that made this one flies commercial, not via chartered airplanes. Also unlike the other teams, only one newspaper, the Journal-World, had a staff member on hand to cover the comeback.
It launched a program that never had been to the Elite Eight all the way into the Final Four, a program that for the first time is on a four-year run of making the NCAA tournament. The comeback happened so fast, until that final rally, it was almost hard to believe my eyes.
I never thought I would see the day that the Gibson moment dropped to second, but it just did last week.
