Twenty years ago in 1988, the last time we won an NCAA Basketball Tournament, the party was on Oread Avenue. There were students in every tree and on every light post. Everything was decorated in tp. Traffic down the entire length of Oread was bumper to bumper and not moving (for hours...) No-one seemed to care. Anyone still inside one of those stranded cars leaned on their horns - just to make noise.

There were two continuous lines of people walking North and South on the West sidewalk - stretched all the way between the two extremes of Oread Ave in a loop - giving each other high-fives as they passed each other.

I saw a, top-down, convertible with Danny Manning perched, parade-fashion, on top of the back seat come roaring up 12th street toward Oread headed West. It hit the apex of the hill, nearly airborne, fairly flew past the Catfish and 'Heartbreak Hotel', and disappeared down the other side like a red sluice rocket. We clapped and hooted as it passed by.

My roommate painted, "Thank-you Danny!!" in white spray paint on the side of his own brown Corolla and drove it around town (for months, as it turned out...).

To me, it felt a lot like what, at a young age, I imagined the tree scene in "Go Dogs Go" must have felt like: insane, grateful, gleeful and unrestrained, joy. And I decided, right then and there, that I would give a lot to experience it again.