RICKAROO - The New Mexico Sports Place

Reacting to my recent blog about the 1983 Final Four in Albuquerque, Dennis Latta, then sports editor of the Albuquerque Journal, emailed me with recollections not just of Final Four week but of that entire NCAA Tournament and how the Journal covered it. Forthwith:  Your note made me stop and think about that 1983 Final Four and I thought I would pass along some of the things I remembered. When we were preparing, I went to a weekly  Tuesday  meeting with Frankie (McCarty, managing editor) and crew. I never went so she was surprised to see me there. I told her we should coordinate coverage, and she informed me that they didn't need anything for A1 on a sports event. But Susan (Stiger) and the woman who was head of that weekly women's magazine we printed (Pat Reed) stood up and told her it was a very big event. So Frankie informed me that they would assign someone from the city desk, she didn't want anyone from sports writing for A1. That needed a real reporter.

This morning, my friend and former Albuquerque Journal colleague Chris Tomasson direct messaged me with a reminder that today is the 37th anniversary of North Carolina State’s unforgettable victory over Houston at the Pit.  Why not, wrote Chris, now the Minnesota Vikings beat writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, tweet out some memories? Great idea. But why not blog some memories instead? That Final Four week was a week like no other in my memory for the Journal sports staff. Dennis Latta, our sports editor, made sure everyone was involved.  I was a bit disappointed when Dennis did not schedule me to cover that Saturday’s semifinals between Houston-Louisville and NC State-Georgia. But he did assign me to do a sidebar on Sunday’s Coaches All-American all-star game. My subject was Kentucky guard Dirk Minniefield, who happened to be a cousin of former Lobo Darryl Minniefield.  During the week, I’d done a story about an appearance by then-UNM coach Gary Colson at an NCAA Coaches