A funny subplot about the NCAA tournament: the appearance of Oral Roberts University in the field of 65 has brought the notorious '80s televangelist/extortionist back into the public consciousness after a lengthy absence.
Sort of strange, since Roberts' conservative Christian worldview has largely triumphed on the political stage, yet he's hardly been around to enjoy it for the past decade or so. But then again, Oral was always a lot more about constructing elaborate schemes to steal people's money than accumulation of political power, whether through visions of a "900-foot Jesus" or claiming that God would "call him home" if his flock didn't give him $8 million. Plus, he's now almost 90 years old.
Still, funny to see Bill Simmons devoting half of his March Madness diary to Oral jokes. Meanwhile, God and the 900-foot Jesus both failed to prevent ORU from losing by 16 points to Washington State, a school where the word "Oral" is presumably not associated with an 89-year-old cleric.
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 16, 2007 06:43 PM