It’s a night off in the NBA playoffs tonight, as Memphis-San Antonio resume their Western Conference Finals matchup on Tuesday, and Miami-Indiana don’t start in the East until Wednesday. That allows the NHL to be the focal point of the daily sports menu on Monday.
The Notebook’s year-by-year study of the modern era (1976-Present) has focused on the best place to live as a sports fan in any calendar year. 1981 challenges that that paradigm. While California teams won the World Series (Dodgers) and Super Bowl (49ers), SoCal and NoCal are worlds apart. Indiana won the NCAA Tournament while Clemson’s Orange Bowl win gave them the national championship in football. The New York Islanders and Boston Celtics won titles in their sports. With titles all splintered out, was there any common theme? Yes, there was. The championships by both San Francisco and Clemson marked landmark wins in the football landscape, for two different reasons. Both were the first step in significant shifts in the power structure of the NFL and college football. The Notebook looks back at their autumn and winter rides to glory…