First Down

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D1SCOURSE: Patrick Stevens checks in on our colleges blog from the Final Four.

Chatter: Mark Zuckerman is on the road in St. Louis with the Nationals.

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The Final Four gets under way with Memphis and UCLA, then Kansas and UNC. Chs. 9, 13, 6 p.m.

LIVE FROM SAN ANTONIO ” EXCERPT FROM D1SCOURSE, OUR COLLEGES BLOG

It has been busy here at the home of the Final Four, which everyone knows is a congregation of coaches as much as anything else. After all, there is a basketball coaches convention right across the street from the Alamodome (not to mention the lovely media hotel).

But what people don’t always realize is that it also means the airport and the flights coming into the host city are also a coaches’ convention.

On my Southwest flight from BWI, multiple staff members from Maryland (including Gary Williams), UMBC (including coach Randy Monroe), Navy and Mount St. Mary’s were on board, as were people wearing logos from places like Marymount, St. Mary’s (Md.), Sacred Heart, Holy Cross and Hartwick.

Highlight No. 1 from the flight: Before taking off, one particularly obnoxious guy was yelling into his cell phone: “You wouldn’t believe who’s sitting next to so-and-so. It’s GARY WILLIAMS, the COACH at MARYLAND. We’re going to the FINAL FOUR, this big event, and so-and-so gets to sit next to GARY WILLIAMS on our flight down.”

Highlight No. 2 from the flight: After the typically friendly Southwest flight attendant tried to do a poll of who would win the tournament (greeted by nonparticipation), an old lady in the front row asked her to find out how many people on the flight were playing in the Final Four. This, predictably, got some laughs.

Lowlight No. 1: I know middle seats aren’t any fun, but that doesn’t mean you should spread out into the two adjacent seats like a guy to my left did. Of course, that might have been my karmic reward for deciding as a 5-foot-8 reporter that it would be amusing to take one of the front row seats with extra leg room on a flight filled with basketball coaches who for the most part are a bit taller than I am (think Keith Booth).

But back to San Antonio. Walk around anywhere and you’re bound to see some basketball luminary. Heck, I saw Oscar Robertson TWICE last night — once in the hotel lobby (which prompted me to say to a friend “It’s not every day you see Oscar Robertson walk by.”) and then later in a Riverwalk restaurant.

— Patrick Stevens