One Shining Moment

With eight meaningful games left before the official end of football season, college basketball is jumping (<---literally ) at the opportunity to grab the nation's attention. It's no secret the NBA lacks suspense until May. Sure it's fun to watch Lebron, Kobe and CP3 do their thing, but it's missing a certain intensity that only the playoffs create. Meanwhile, college basketball consistently brings entertainment and excitement throughout the season. Intrigue abounds with more glamorous non-conference matchups than ever. Every week pits numerous top 10 showdowns that rarely fail to live up to the hype.

To keep the level of enthusiasm at a fevered pitch, causing men to simultaneously weep, laugh and grow rock-hard nipples with the pure adrenaline rush, WeIsND wanted to highlight the last 22 years of NCAA tournaments with the greatest highlight montages ever created in the history of the planet - One Shining Moment. There's a reason why every viewer stays glued to the chair after the nets have come down. The sweet serenade of Luther Vandross (or Teddy Pendergrass) serves up the perfect encore to three weeks of madness. Reliving the players, coaches, mascots, cheerleaders, celebration, heartbreak, buzzer beaters and timeless moments from a given year's NCAA tournament in a 4 minute montage is the Cadillac of cruises down memory lane. The history of how OSM made its way onto the air and into our hearts is unique. The song writer even launched his own website dedicated to "The Anthem of College Basketball."

A couple years back, I unearthed YouTube clips of every version of OSM, hatching a plan to roll them out every few days to whet our appetite for 2009's One Shining Moment. Today I was horrified to discover that the majority of these precious pieces of sports history were removed due to copyright, a dastardly assault on my acorns. If any of our reader's happens to work for CBS Sports, or whoever owns the rights to OSM, get these back in the public domain where they belong. Or, if anyone has VHS copies of the title game from the last 22 years and wants to record and upload them onto YouTube, you will have the admiration of every man in America and I'd buy you a shot any time you desired. Until that pipedream is realized, the scant remaining OSM's will have to tide us over.

One Shining Moment
-David Barrett

The ball is tipped
and there you are
you're running for your life
you're a shooting star
And all the years
no one knows
just how hard you worked
but now it shows...
(in) ONE SHINING MOMENT, IT'S ALL ON THE LINE
ONE SHINING MOMENT, THERE FROZEN IN TIME

But time is short
and the road is long
in the blinking of an eye
ah that moment's gone
And when it's done
win or lose
you always did your best
cuz inside you knew...
(that) ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU REACHED DEEP INSIDE
ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU KNEW YOU WERE ALIVE

Feel the beat of your heart
feel the wind in your face
it's more than a contest
it's more than a race...

And when it's done
win or lose
you always did your best
cuz inside you knew...
(that) ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU REACHED FOR THE SKY
ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU KNEW
ONE SHINING MOMENT, YOU WERE WILLING TO TRY
ONE SHINING MOMENT....