With eight PCTI’s in the history books, it seems the days of
personal vendettas fueling rivalries are gone. Best I can guess, this is for a
few reasons.
For starters, as much
as I hate to admit it, we have collectively matured a little bit. Of course
weeding out a few bad apples over the past few years has made a difference, too.
But maybe most of all, by now most of us have won and lost with just about
every other person involved. There’s no substitute for shared experience. Whatever
the reasons, it makes for a less interesting off-season. There’s no more
villains in PCTI. I’ve come to accept that and it’s done nothing to lessen my
excitement for July.
But if the personal battles aren’t what they used to be, it
begs the question: what is on the line in PCTI VIII?
The answer is, a few things.
THE WIN-LOSS LEGACY: As the years continue to pile up, the
bragging rights around individual stats count for less and less (think about
it, could anyone do anything statistically that would change your attitude
about them as a player? Human nature dictates that we’ve all ‘seen’ too much of
each other to let numbers change our opinion.) Am I saying I won’t be keeping
close track of my own stats? Of course not. Having individual stats to try to pile
up is one of the very best things about PCTI. But considering they’ll do little
to change my lifetime averages and won’t have an impact on anyone beside myself,
it really matters little.
The one number that grows in significance every year is each
player’s lifetime series win-loss record. With each passing year a shining w/l
becomes more and more of an indictment of your standing as a successful player
and teammate. Conversely, a terrible record becomes more and more of a “you
problem” with each unsuccessful weekend. Just think, wouldn’t it be nice to
become the first player to win ten weekends? Or for the non-founding fathers,
to get there in less years than anyone before you.
I don’t have the series records of everyone in front of me
but it’s a number that we will make sure is brought to the forefront ahead of
San Diego. For people like Ben and Hops, this will be a great thing. For
Bruiser and Sabin, not so much. For many others like me who are around .500, a
few good years in a row could really stand out and shift things.
That’s what I think is on the line for each of us
individually. But the real battle this year is about the two teams and what
each represents.
QUAD POD VALUES VS BORED VALUES: At its core, PCTI VIII is a
battle for ideological supremacy. And our Donald Trump – our man who is making
the fifteen others choose sides – is Ben Wilson.
How did we get here? It started in the hours after Wilson’s
squad won game six in Cincinnati. Thanks to my late-game heroics, Ben’s team captured
the most competitive PCTI to date and his legacy as the ultimate PCTI captain
was irrefutable. That he would step away and cede the reigns to a person of his
choosing seemed a given. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the deal was sealed
before we left the Queen City.
Instead, a week went by. Then a month. Something was amiss.
Meanwhile, Danny was voted the MVP, setting up a possible Dan The Boy vs. Ben
Wilson captaincy showdown. And as it turned out, the chance to compete against
a DTB led team – the same DTB who for years had openly mocked Ben’s
drafting/captaining prowess – was too much for him to turn down. He kept the captaincy
for another year.
Dan The Boy vs. Wilson was a strong captain matchup and
would make for a fun PCTI. But the gauntlet was really thrown down with the
teams both men selected on draft day.
First, a little historical perspective for understanding.
Remember, Ben willingly declined the first pick before the
PCTI VII draft. Doing so meant that Ben was passing on a chance to draft Abe in
his rightful first overall spot. There were a few ways to interpret this. The
first is that Ben and Abe to some degree believed that for the competitive
balance of PCTI the two of them playing on the same team would not be good for everyone
else. Too put it bluntly, they feel that they’re invincible together. Secondly,
Ben was also no doubt motivated to again prove that it was he – and he alone –
who was the reason for his team’s repeated successes. Ben’s team won because of
Ben. He could afford to punt on the first pick because he already had himself.
What PCTI VII proved was that he was right about that second
point. Problem for Ben was, nobody gave him much credit for it. Instead, the adulation
for team’s success mostly went to Dan for a big offensive first half of the
tournament and his trademark defensive effort.
Of course when I say give Ben credit, it’s clear who
controls the PCTI discourse: Dan’s inner-circle. That would be me, Sabin, Joe
and his new pet in PCTI VII, Jeff Godon. If Ben wasn’t getting the credit he
felt he deserved for his run of success, it was on us for overlooking it or
deciding it wasn’t important enough to highlight. Likewise, it was no surprise
that Dan won the MVP with those of us who speak the most and the loudest about
PCTI trumpeting our guy’s performance.
Maybe things this year go differently if we give Ben his due
in the moments after our big win in Cincinnati. Maybe we’re in a different
place now if someone other than Danny had emerged as the star of our team.
Maybe we’re not even talking about this if Dan hadn’t for years repeatedly
mocked Ben’s successes.
Jump ahead to draft day. Ben has made the decision that he’s
going to pick first and he’s going to pick Abe. The days of him caring about
any sort of competitive balance now are gone. The message to Danny and his
supporters was a clear one: if you think you’re so great for being the “Abe
Stopper,” try stopping both of us together. I doubt any part of Ben thinks that
that same competitive advantage no longer exists with him and Abe on the same
team. I just don’t think he cares anymore.
With that said, you certainly can’t read too much in to his
decision to pick Abe first. Everyone has and would do the same thing. It’s
what he did in the rest of the draft that made his intentions impossible to
miss. In a move that I never thought I would witness, he drafted the entire
Quad Pod. In one swoop willingly leaving Danny with all of his inner-circle guys
(minus Smooth who was in a weird spot without having an established draft
value) and pitting him against the faction that he has railed against the most
of anyone.
And that gets us back to my first line about VIII being an
ideological battle. Since its creation, QP has aimed to divide PCTI. Sure, they’ll
try to divert their intention with all their phony love for each other but make
no mistake about it, this group was created to alienate itself from the PCTI brethren.
QP is the self-selected “cool” pocket of PCTI.
Of course, a cool group can only exist if a separate “uncool”
group exists opposite it. You don’t need a sociology degree to understand that
this is classic establishment vs. anti-establishment tension. And when you’re talking
about the PCTI establishment, it’s Dan and the rest of his people, who in
either an official or unofficial capacity make up the PCTI Bored.
Dan’s group sees nothing ridiculous about waking up early
and getting to the gym an hour before game one. The QP sees nothing ridiculous
about sleeping through breakfast because they stayed at the bar an hour later
than everyone else. Dan’s group will buy new gear and order t-shirts. The QP
will wear mismatched shorts, lawn mowing shoes and dress in drag. Dan’s group
will text workout updates and lament bad games in offseason men’s league play. The
QP are naturally the more gifted athletes who might be playing six days a week
or might have not touched a ball in six months. Dan’s crowd dreams of mid-offseason
meet ups to get in a few pickup runs. QP might rendezvous at Stagecoach one of
these years, just to hang.
For years this tension has served as the flint and tinder
that helped give PCTI its spark. And right at its middle was the one guy who
co-existed between both groups better than anyone: Ben Wilson. Anyone paying
attention has recognized that Wilson has long been the apple of the quad pod’s
eye. If they hadn’t of stupidly branded themselves geometrically and therefore
locked in a set number of members, I bet he’d have received a formal invitation
by now. To call him an unofficial member would not be an over exaggeration. Conversely,
few wear their love for PCTI as openly as Wilson, something Dan certainly has
to appreciate it. On the “lives for this” scale, Ben is near the top.
But now Ben has made his choice, and there’s no going back.
Truth is both groups have more in common than they might
want to let on. For all its antics, nobody would ever question QP’s collective
love for PCTI and what they bring to the hoops element of the weekend.
Likewise, for all its perceived straight-arrow, dad-like lack of hipness, Dan’s
people get after it plenty hard during the weekend nights. That’s why it’s been
a successful coexistence for all these years.
It likely would have stayed that way for many more, if not
for Ben. With his draft day move, Wilson made his allegiance (or disallegiance)
clear for once and for all: He’s a QP guy. And in a message that he had to know
would hit Dan right between the eyes, with a straight face he mockingly uttered
in the draft video, “I just wanted to draft the guys who gave a shit.”
Translation: Dan, not only can you have your guys, we’re about to beat you at
your own game.
So what is PCTI VIII about? It’s about your win-loss record,
which will ultimately be your legacy. But it’s also about an ideology winning
out. And if you don’t want to choose a side, too bad. Ben already did it for
you.
