Call him an optimist, but Craig Masback says the American public will embrace track and field, even in non-Olympic years, if only television will first wrap its electronic arms around the sport.
2 Kind of brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it?
Weekend highlights
Call it fortuitous timimg: At halftime of tomorrow's Marquette-Notre Dame basketball game (Channel 11, 4 p.m.), reporter Mary Ann Grabavoy will have an update on the life and times of William Gates, one of two Chicago-area high school players featured in the brilliant documentary "Hoop Dreams" that was snubbed last week in two Oscar nominating categories.
After a one-game absence, Maryland basketball returns to the television airwaves tomorrow as the Terps close their home schedule against Clemson at 1:30 p.m. on Channel 54. On Sunday, watch the Virginia women go for a piece of ACC history when they attempt to become the first league team, men's or women's, to go 16-0 in a season when they face hapless Maryland at noon on Home Team Sports.
Finally, the always classy Robin Roberts is host for another of he"In the SportsLight" specials, where she chats up nonathletic types about their athletic experiences, tonight at 7:30 on ESPN.
Roberts' guests are the always serious NBC News chieftain ToBrokaw and comedian Sinbad, who, by the way, got a basketball scholarship to the University of Denver in the early 1970s, and related this anecdote about his love of the game to Roberts:
"Yeah, I played basketball. I mean I was a freak, man. I slept with the basketball. I used to put it in the front seat of my car and I put the seatbelt around it."
$ That explains a lot.
Ratings recap
Call the love affair off, or at least cooled: Maryland basketball slumped a bit last weekend in the local ratings, barely beating the Daytona 500, according to Channel 13's Andre "Dr Dre" DeVerneil, this week's official "On the Air" ratings supplier.
In a close race, which went right down to the checkered flag, the Terps-Cincinnati game on Channel 2 posted a 6.3 rating and 15 share, just edging out Daytona, which got a 6.2/15, even with a two-hour rain delay, on Channel 13.
Both events pounded the Houston-New York Knicks NBA game on Channel 11, which limped across the line with a 2.9/7.