Blog Entry #2

The Greatest Game I Ever Saw (Klosterman) is as true an underdog story as I have ever heard. With the "Iron Five" being chopped down to three with 106 seconds left on the clock and finding a way to come out with a victory was amazing. The most interesting thing about this story however is the striking lack of media coverage it received. The events of that game should have been spread throughout the nation however, no reporters came knocking until over two decades later. The popularity and effect on the community of junior college basketball in North Dakota was marginal compared to high school football as described in Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio (Wright). Every autumn Friday the town of Martins Ferry was able to escape from their real lives filled with heartache, depression, sadness, and even if just for a few hours be proud of their towns team.
The stark contrast between these two stories is more an issue of the cultural of sports in the local communities then it is of the games themselves. In North Dakota junior college basketball is not an escape from reality the author simply described it as a way to pass the time on a boring Sunday night. If a high school football team won a game with only 11 players or less that would be a huge story in the town, state, and possibly even the nation, that just illustrates the difference in popularity and importance of the two sports in the american culture.
Memory is very important in both the poem and the story. In the poem the people of the town are selectively forgetting all their problems during Fridays in autumn. In this brief window they choose to only think about the game and the pride in their town and forget about all the racial tension, domestic disputes, and work hardships they have to face on a daily basis. The basketball game is completely different with the memory of the amazing game on available to the few who actually attended the game because of the lack of television, radio, and newspaper coverage. The attendees of the basketball game try to hold onto the memory of that historic day while the attendees of the high school football game experience temporary amnesia from their lives. I can use aspects from both of these stories in my essay. The descriptive story telling of Klosterman and also the deep multidimensional metaphors of Wright.