Jen_Lada's Blog

Wow! I haven't tippy-tapped out a blog since a certain quarterback shuffled on out of 1265 Lombardi Ave. Shame on me for slackin'. Just like that March Madness is upon us.

And since it is the month of the march – I though we should pay homage to the master of the mid-game march…. Tom Crean.  

Anyone who’s been to an MU game (or seen one on TV) is quick to notice the head coach is constantly in motion. A few moments watching the action and you're likely to break into The Proclaimers' 'I'm Gonna Be' (And I would walk 500 miles...)  

There are a couple of plausible reasons behind the strut. (1) It's tough to find time for a daily workout with the hectic and demanding college coaching schedule. So Crean likes to crank out a little cardio during the contests. Completely understandable and an excellent example of time management.  

Or (2) he hopes the more walking he does on the sideline, the less his guys do on the court. And when the refs hit his players with a traveling call he can refer to the visual aid for clarification - "That's not a walk. THIS is a walk!"   

Whatever the reason, I did a little math... Actually it's a lot of math but I was curious so bear with me:

The college court is 94 ft long. Divided by 2 is 47. The coach's box about 2/3rds of the halfcourt length of 47 So there's about 30 ft between the baseline and the coach's line.  

I've watched every game this season and in one minute Tom Crean will walk back and forth about 5 times (this is a rough average but it is fairly accurate.) Which means in a 40 minute game, Crean will make 200 laps. 200 laps times 30 feet equals 6,000 feet. 

Now there are only 5,280 feet in a mile which means that Crean walks more than a mile during each game. To put that in perspective, from the Marquette Union to the Bradley Center is one mile. So Tom walks further than that distance during most games. Add up all the games in the season and you're talking 33 games (so far) times 6,000 feet which is 198,000 feet OR 37.5 miles. Impressive, right?

Actually despite my efforts, no one really cares about that march. It's a march of 1,305 miles that fans are interested in right now. Incidentally, that's the distance between the Al McGuire Center where the Golden Eagles train and the Alamodome in San Antonio - home of this year's Final Four. Let's hope Crean's able to lead the march there ultimately promising a very memorable March.