Coolest Pregame

This is a homer pick, but the pre-game video highlighting the history of Kansas basketball combined with the Rock Chalk Chant, alma mater and fight song will give you goose bumps.

 

FWIW on the Haka.

I spent a bit of time in the Sout Pacific and had a few non-Kiwi Polynesians tell me that while the Haka looks fierce, the story it tells is prettly lame, something about a bird hiding than coming back to see if it was safe.

I had a couple Tongan guys tell me that other Hakas told much better/fiercer stories.

This being said, seeing the All Blacks do the Haka before playing Australia in the Bledsoe Cup was awesome beyond words.

 

A bird? Not quite.

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/features/haka-feature/haka.cfm
http://www.newzealand.com/travel/media/features/maori-culture/maori-culture_all-black-haka_feature.cfm

 

Thanks for the googling!

I knew it was something about hiding from your enemies.

 

Euless Trinity, the No. 2 team in the nation (behind South Panola, Miss.)

 

Look, I'm a jam band fan. I've seen the Dave Matthews Band dozens of times, but when a college team comes out to a DMB song it shouldn't be included in the list. Same for any team entering to Metallica.

 

Maybe it's because the team sucked, the fans were apathetic and the thing had been overhyped to me all my life, but I went to a game at Death Valley in '03 and couldn't find anything that great about Clemson's intro.

And I just don't really buy canned music. Enter Sandman, meh.

 

Don't forget Woody Hayes.

 

The Haka is fantastic.

Seeing every high school team in the country trying to do it, not so much.

 

Euless Trinity.

Same high school that was used in that Gatorade commercial with Bill Parcells.

 

There's a huge group of Tongans in Euless (both size of the group and size of the, well, Tongans). They have some of the biggest high school linemen I've ever seen, and I can't begrude them for bringing their culture with them.

The 5-8 white cornerback doing a haka (or whatever the Tongan's call their version), though, makes me laugh. A lot.

And being in the middle of this

would scare the tar out of me.