January 24, 2007
Americans Unite! 
Save The Sweeper.

To hell with progress.  In today’s society institutions must realize they’re held to a higher standard when it comes to keeping alive the traditions that made our country great.  But right here in Happy Valley is Example A of standing idly by and allowing another illegitimate child of the industrial revolution to attack the very fabric of our lives.  I’m pointing the forefinger at you Mesa State. 

The cavalier attitude of MIT (Mesa In Town) was demonstrated at half time of the Maverick/Ft. Lewis basketball game last week when a new sweeping machine rolled onto the Saunders Fieldhouse floor.  This motor driven, two wheel, clean up the playing surface, Zamboni impersonator swished its way the length and breadth of the court, cleaning as it went, and silently removing forever the tradition of a custodian pushing an oiled cloth covered broom up and down the hardwood between games and during half-time. 

Growing up in the hoops-happy Mid-West, I’ve been either participating or spectating (much more of the latter than former) at pee-wee, high school and college contests for over sixty years.  The un-written laws of Dr. Naismith’s invention dictate it’s not really a basketball game unless the p.a. system is as muffled as one at a Greyhound station, the scoreboard is required to malfunction (last week the Saunders unit rang up a badly needed six point basket for the Mavericks, unfortunately officials, slaves to the rulebook, reduced it by three) and custodians cleaning the floor between pompon and cheerleader performances at half-time and between games. 

Now, and the blame is on you automation, the over fifty guy in the work shirt and jeans replete with a minimum of one and sometimes two huge key rings hanging from his belt, the individual who just stares straight ahead making cleansing passes from end line to end line while enduring Fifty Cent rap blaring from the overhead speakers has been denied his starring role in the pantheon of American sports.  Oh true, someone has to stand atop and steer the new fangled, two wheeled whirling dervish de-blemishing the hardwood.  But it’s still a machine with no soul.

What took center court at Mesa was nothing at all like a Zamboni.  The clean up the ice between periods Zamboni, while a machine, is the very essence of sporting cool.  Emitting steam from almost every pore, the four wheeled Zamboni has an absolutely mesmerizing ice conveyor belt rotating along its top, features dials, knobs and levers the driver must manipulate to achieve optimum skating conditions on the ice surface plus an experienced Zamboni pilot can power slide the smoking beast into and out of corners at each end of the ice. And, on a Zamboni, there’s room for small children or the “lucky fan of the game” to sit beside the driver and wave to the crowd while experiencing the once in a lifetime thrill of a Zamboni ride. 

But the inspired by the devil floor cleaning machine at Saunders Field House?  No dials, no steam and no passengers.  To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, “I’ve seen Zamboni’s and that thing at Mesa State is no Zamboni. 

Repent your ways Mesa and return to those thrilling days of yore when actual humans swept the floor at Maverick basketball.  Not to overstate the case, but to follow the present path is basically against God’s law.