If you read this immediately upon publishing (and why wouldn’t you?), assuming I’m not running late I am on the way to the Resch Center in Ashwaubenon for the WIAA state girls basketball tournament.

I have two games to announce today — Barneveld vs. Fall River in Division 5 at 1:35 p.m. (to which you can listen here), and Cuba City vs. Fond du Lac Springs in Division 4 at 6:35 p.m. (to which you can listen here). If either wins, I announce their state championship game Saturday (to which you can listen here).

(It’s a bit illogical that given that creeks are smaller than rivers, Fall Creek is a bigger school than Fall River. I’m not sure what the over–under will be of my saying “Fall Creek” when I mean “Fall River” and vice versa.)

Next week is the 100th annual WIAA boys basketball championships, or at least the 100th anniversary of the tournament (held by Lawrence College, now University, in Appleton) that the WIAA recognizes as the first state tournament. That is not this …

… that is the 1966 WIAA quarterfinal between Grafton and number-one-ranked Madison East at the UW Fieldhouse. (It’s too bad there’s apparently no sound. I’m not sure about this, but given the rarity of the last name I’m pretty sure I covered the son and daughter of one of the East players, both of whom played for La Follette two decades later.) There was only one class in those days, and there was no girls tournament at all. And I’m sure I watched this, though I was nine months old. Other than the Packers (and my father’s swearing at the ineptitude of the post-Glory Days Packers), state is the first sporting event I remember watching, every March without fail.

State is sometimes called The Dance because, well …

Just as state is the pinnacle for a high school basketball player, announcing state is the pinnacle for a high school basketball announcer. (The trick is to get people to watch the game, but turn down the sound and listen to your broadcast.) I’ve done two state basketball games, one involving the boys counterpart to the Cuban girls. Earlier that day I announced two undefeated teams, 10 days after I announced one of those undefeateds against another unbeaten team in their regional final.

Readers know about my second trip to state, the excellent adventure that was the 1982 state championship. Since then I’ve gotten to watch state, cover state as a newspaper reporter and editor, and announce state. And I’ve covered teams that got to state and lost (which means they still got to state), and got to state and won.

My most unexpected state basketball trip (which weirdly paralleled my most unexpected state baseball trip two years later) was the 1987 Madison La Follette girls team that finished the regular season 9–11. But after an easy regional semifinal win, a regional final win in overtime (the third overtime win over Madison East, which finished above La Follette in the Big Eight), a win over conference champion Madison Memorial, and a win over the team that beat La Follette to go to state the previous year, there I was on Thursday afternoon (which was about 30 degrees colder than the previous Saturday) in the Fieldhouse covering a state game I never expected to cover.

I’m old enough to remember when state had three classes, with Class C starting Thursday and Friday daytime sessions. Then they created Breakfast at the Fieldhouse, moving all of Class C to Friday morning, with the first game tipping off at 9:05 a.m. Then they expanded to four divisions, with Division 3 Thursday and Division 4 Friday starting at 9:05. And now they have five divisions, with fewer state games (and thus lower gate receipts) than the old four-division days, because Division 1 had eight teams and the other divisions four teams each.

The format doesn’t matter, because thanks to what the WIAA calls the Magic of March (because “March Madness” is copyrighted), you get moments like these: