Often times in sports, you have a game or a tournament that transcends the bounds of a sport. It reaches past a sports' usual target audience of teenage junkies and middle-aged couch-potatoes, and becomes a symbol of something greater. The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament embodies this very quality in a sport, as it consistently brings economic growth, excitement, and passion to the cities, universities, and people that are a part of it. But this year, the championship game also transcended the game of basketball, although not in a way most Americans would like to believe.
You see, Michigan State's 89-72 loss to the UNC Tar Heels was not just a basketball loss, it was a metaphor and perhaps a bad omen of the hopes and dreams of the American Auto Industry.
The Spartans came into Monday's championship games as underdogs that had fought off many challenges throughout the tournament, including defending National Champion Kansas and a pair of #1 seeds in Louisville and UCONN. Hailing from Michigan, these Spartans were out to defend and represent the city where the title game was held, Detroit, a city that had faltered in the face of the recent economic recession. They were out to restore hope and pride to America's deadened engine.
Unfortunately, they were unable to. However, more discouraging is the manner in which their failure occurred, one that could foreshadow the future of the auto industry.
Michigan State is a team that prides itself on recruiting homegrown talent (as most state schools are obliged to) for their sports teams. Thus the majority of their players come from the Great Lakes area and are all proud Michigan State fans. Similarly, the American Auto Industry holds its deepest roots in Michigan, and rarely if ever outsources any of its work to other states, much less other countries. The American Auto Industry keeps most of its manufacturing within the state of Michigan
The University of North Carolina, however, is in many ways the polar opposite (recruiting-wise) to the Spartans. They search the country for the best talent, regardless of location, and are willing to bring in recruits from all over the country and all over the world. Similarly, the Japanese Auto Industry is willing to take the best talent from all over the world and is willing to develop its technology at any one of its plants in different countries.
Both teams, and both industries, have had their ups and downs. However, recently UNC has been considered a perennial powerhouse, just as the Japanese Auto Industry has established a dominant market share in North America. Michigan State, and the American Auto Industry, has attempted to rally and has been willing to ride emotion and innovation to challenge the elite. And in many ways they have.
But when UNC and Michigan State met in the final, the result was both highly discouraging and highly predictable; a blowout victory for the Tar Heels that destroyed the Spartans. What does this say for the American Auto Industry, one that has a similar philosophy and many of the same attributes that Michigan State does, when put up against the might of the Japanese Auto Industry that seems so similar to UNC? I don't know and I don't think that anyone really knows, but if the recent turmoils at GM, Daimler-Chrysler, and Ford are any indication, then perhaps the NCAA Tournament is a symbol of what's to come for our auto industry. Don't get me wrong, I had my money on Michigan State and am rooting for American cars, but one can't help but think that this might be one of those times when a sport truly transcends its "usual" meaning to become a symbol of the present or future.
