We’re headed to the NCAA Regional Basketball Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum, but the year is/was 1976

Headed down the street on a Thursday afternoon, and a guy was standing on the corner of College Road, and West Market Street, at the intersection beside Eddie Lee Royal’s Exxon gas station…

You would think that at this time, and it was a few years back, this fellow might be standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, but I’m talking about a guy standing on the corner of College Road and Market Street, right back there in the old Guilford College community…

He was supposedly selling basketball tickets, tickets for the NCAA Regionals at the Greensboro Coliseum…This was a Thursday afternoon, and the games were set for that very Thursday night, back in March of 1976….This was back before the real “March Madness” had set in…

This was a time two years removed from the N.C. State Wolfpack winning the NCAA National Championship, on the Greensboro Coliseum floor, with David Thompson, Tommy Burleson, and Monte Towe leading the Wolfpack past UCLA with Bill Walton and John Wooden, and Al McGuire’s Marquette Warriors, as N.C. State took the The Title back to Raleigh, in 1974…

But this was now 1976, and I was driving past this fellow with the NCAA Basketball Tickets for Thursday night, at the Greensboro Coliseum…I was driving past this basketball ticket seller, and I was cruising down the street in my 1967 cream colored Chevy Impala…

The guy was supposed to be selling the tickets, but he must have felt sorry for me, because when I stuck my hand out, with no money or dinero in my claws, he looked at me, smiled, and put two tickets in my paw, and I don’t mean my father, dad, or any other related family member….The fellow put the tickets in my paw/hand/grip, and he said a mere four words to me….”Hit the Road Jack”…

I did just what that man said….I hit the road Jack, and did not look back…By the time I passed the Hedgecock Builders Supply building, I was on my way to the Greensboro Coliseum…An eighteen year-old kid about to see some college basketball, on its largest stage…

This was the launching pad for the winning Greensboro team to move on to the Final Four, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…I had just been given two FREE tickets, for the forerunner of some sort of huge March Madness event at the Greensboro Coliseum, and I didn’t even know who was playing….

Ends up Greensboro was hosting the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, the VMI Keydets, the UConn Huskies, and Ray Meyer’s DePaul Blue Demons…
**********March 18 and 20
East Regional, Greensboro Memorial Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina*********

There you go, with Rutgers, led by Phil Sellers, and Rutgers came into Greensboro with a record of (29-0) and proceeded to beat the UConn Huskies, 93-79, on that Thursday night March 18, at the Greensboro Coliseum…Now the Rutgers Scarlet Knights were (30-0) and they would be playing for the right to go on the Final Four, in a Saturday afternoon game at the Coliseum…

And who would Rutgers meet???

It would be the winner of the DePaul-VMI game…VMI was led in here by Ron Carter, a true sharp-shooter, and VMI had become our crowd favorite…DePaul came into Greensboro with a record of (20-8) and they felt the hammer come down on them, as the Blue Demons fell to Ron Carter, and his VMI Keydets, 71-66…Ron Carter averaged 26.3 points a game for VMI…

VMI and Rutgers met in the Final Eight game on Saturday at the Greensboro Coliseum, and Rutgers as always led by Phil Sellars, prevailed over the Keydets, 91-75….Sellers averaged 19.2 points per game, and 10.3 rebounds, as Rutgers left Greensboro with a (31-0) record…Sellers’ head coach at Rutgers was Tom Young, but his assistant coach, and the man that recruited Sellers to Rutgers was none other than, Dick Vitale…

Rutgers left Greensboro headed to Philadelphia, where they were joined by Indiana, Michigan, and UCLA…Rutgers lost to Michigan in the Final Four semifinals, and then Rutgers lost in the Third Place Consolation game, to the UCLA Bruins…The Indiana Hoosiers won it all that year, topping the Michigan Wolverines, 86-68 in the National Championship Game…

Indiana is the last men’s college basketball team to finish their season undefeated…In the 1975-1976 season, the Indiana Hoosiers went a perfect, (32-0)…Some memorable names on the Indiana Hoosiers squad, with Quinn Buckner, Kent Benson, Bobby Wilkerson, Scott May, Tom Abernethy, and Bob Bender, who later played for the Duke Blue Devils..

Lots of basketball info from all the way back in 1976, and I was right there, smack dab in it at the Greensboro Coliseum, as we were all part of the “Road to the Final Four”…..

But, now we need to give you the rest of the story….

Lots of basketball on the court, but there was activity going on off of the basketball court too, and I am glad I lived to tell you about it…

As I was saying earlier, my fan base group adopted the VMI Keydets, as our hometown favorite team, and although VMI did not win it all in Greensboro, they sure won over a large following of Gate City faithful…Those VMI Keydets became our VMI Keydets, and their home base was the Hilton Hotel down on West Market Street, as you hit the downtown area of Greensboro…

Well, our team won on Thursday night, but they lost on Saturday afternoon to Rutgers, but that didn’t spoil the celebration that broke out on Saturday night at the Hilton Hotel…It became ‘VMI Night at the Hilton Underground’…The Hilton Underground was the downstairs hotel bar for the Hilton Hotel, and that place became the Saturday Night headquarters for every pre-Greensboro VMI fan, and for every fan that became a VMI fan and follower for that very special weekend…

I don’t have a total recall for what the special was at the Hilton Underground on that Saturday March 20, 1976, but I do remember it was March 1976, and it was a Saturday, and it was March 20, so all of my brain cells were not destroyed on that night, when “The Celebration” became bigger than any game that could ever had been played in Greensboro that week…

Got to be thinking that every Keydet from Lexington, Virginia must have been somewhere near that Hilton Underground hotel bar on that Saturday night…The catchphrase for that late night gathering became, “Can I get you another”…We made conversation with the General, the Major, the Colonel, the Lieutenant, the Private, and before the night’s festivities were over, we were celebrating with The Admiral…

Around 2am, they decided to cut us off, and send us upstairs to our barracks, but for the Keydets and all of the military leaders, who were all now living, and nearly dying in their regimented glory, the Keydets told me that they were not done yet…

It was time to hit the Hilton Hotel parking lot and do 200 pushups, and we were told it was time to run 25 laps around the hotel parking lot…All-in-all, the official word was that for everyone that had joined in with the military troops on this night of celebration, that the our official Marching orders were now in, because as The Colonel told me, son, “You are in the Army now”…

The Colonel, who was calling me son, was not my dad, so I told him, I was going to drive my Chevy back to the levy, and if the levy was dry, I was going to introduce that levy to Mr. Miller, Mr. Anheuser Busch, Mr. Adolph Coors, and to Mr. Joseph Schlitz, and if The Colonel had a problem my maneuvers, then he would have to take that up with my probation officer, for he would surely be in charge of my future plans by Monday morning…

Needless to say, Paul Harvey could have had a field day with this special trip we just took down memory lane…The story is pretty much true, and no names were changed to protect the innocent, or the guilty…I do wish now, that I would have caught a ride home with Joe Friday, on that Saturday after the game, that lasted way into Sunday morning…

What a time it was, when the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament came to Greensboro, back in March of 1976….