'Lunatic Fringe' and Louisville's Pat Kelsey Wins ACC Coach of the Year
Plus, a theology lesson thrown in for good measure.
There’s irony that the 2025 NCAA Wrestling Championships will take place in Philadelphia (March 20-22). The City of Brotherly Love will be hosting guys trying to rip each others’ heads off.
Okay, not exactly. But, as the cool kids say, IYKYK.
This time of year always sends me down memory lane. Among other recollections, hard smacks on my backside by my high school coach, Dick Roche, come to mind. It was his customary and final do-your-job statement to his wrestlers as they walked out on the mat. Teammates of the Roche era joke to this day about about their rear ends still stinging in the second periods of matches.
(Imagine a time when parents didn’t dream of contacting school boards for coaches’ motivational smacks. That it’s hard to imagine is on us, fellow 40 and 50-somethings.)
But, I digress.
This time of year, a certain song comes to my mind, too. Lunatic Fringe became an anthem for high school and college wrestlers during the 1980s Even today, prior to the finals of tournaments each season, Fringe - with its eerie, battle-prep intro - can be heard over sound systems in countless wrestling gyms across the country. Some (read: the best) venues play the song and dim the lights, with solitary spotlights shining over finals’ mats - a proper nod to the two, still-standing combatants in each weight. Those around the sport for even a limited time know the value and feel of such extra-mile, hosting efforts.
For four decades, Red Rider’s Fringe blaring before critical matches or big duals has felt right.
The signature tune from the Vision Quest soundtrack, Fringe hit differently when I was 14. I’d heard it before - it came out in 1981 - but when VQ hit theaters in 1985, the movie established itself as the ultimate, go-to motivational flick for wrestlers, Fringe the ultimate wrestler jam.
The soundtrack - highlighted by Journey’s Only the Young, John Waite’s Change, Ronnie James Dio’s Hungry for Heaven and, most notably, Lunatic Fringe - has accompanied wrestlers during multiple-sweatshirt laden weight-cutting jogs for decades since. Whether logging miles on cardio runs donning Sony Walkmans, Dr. Dre’s Beats or Apple’s wireless AirPods, the VQ soundtrack has become part and parcel to wrestlers’ top-of-the-podium dreams for four decades, each listening device marking our eras. With the exception of the Rocky IV soundtrack, it’s hard to think of too many sports-training soundtracks that have stood the test of time on a par with what Vision Quest provided.
A while back, I wrote about Vision Quest, starring Matthew Modine, Linda Fiorentino and Michael Schoeffling. I wrote about its forever-in-my-mind connection to a longtime friend, Dax Pearson. Since I can be (occasionally) arrogant, I was convinced I knew all there was to know about the movie and its songs. I was a peerless, VQ savant. I could opine on how a young Forest Whittaker played the role of one of Louden Swain’s (Modine’s) teammates. A 20-something Madonna played the role of a lounge singer, with her songs Gambler and Crazy for You making the soundtrack cut. I knew Ronnie James Dio was the former singer of Black Sabbath before embarking on the solo career that spawned Hungry for Heaven.
I’d most assuredly brag that I’ve interviewed Frank Jasper, who played Brian Shute, the monstrous, undefeated state champion that main character Louden Swain inexplicably wanted to wrestle.
Bottom line: I couldn’t be stumped about anything having to do with the movie, its songs or its soundtrack artists.
I was wr…wron…mistaken. I learned something I didn’t know last week.
The signature song, Lunatic Fringe, was sung by the same guy who sang the popular 1991 hit, Life is a Highway, Tom Cochrane.
Shoot (or Shute, if puns are permissible). I didn’t know all I thought I did.. I would’ve missed it had it been a Jeopardy question, harkening feelings from 20 years ago when I’d begun to take an interest in theology. Imagine my surprise when I learned the “Immaculate Conception” does not refer to Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus in a solitarily, uncommon way. It refers to something entirely different.
(Oh? You thought you knew, too? Type it into a Google search. You might be as shocked as I was.)
I never knew that Cochrane was Red Rider’s lead singer before going solo. Rascal Flatts covered Life is a Highway in their own 2006 rendition, but it was Cochrane’s pipes that belted out the original, the same voice I’d listened to for years on Lunatic Fringe.
I didn’t feel quite as bad when I asked (NameDropAlert) Shane Sparks if he’d known. One of the Big Ten Network and ESPN’s primary go-to voices for the biggest (real) wrestling events on U.S. soil didn’t know, either.
Sparks would have lost money on Jeopardy with me.
Solace comes in all forms.
Pat Kelsey Wins ACC Hoops Coach of the Year
Pat Kelsey is from Cincinnati. I’m from Cincinnati. Kelsey won a state title as a star point guard for Elder High School. I’d heard of state titles when I was in high school. We’re pretty much the same person, lining up our accomplishments side by side.
Dripping exaggerations aside, as a player and coach, Kelsey wins. Whether at his early, smaller D1 college coaching jobs like Winthrop and the College of Charleston or stepping in this year at basketball-tradition rich Louisville and immediately reversing the fortunes of the Cardinals, the Kelsey Touch seemingly works not-so-minor miracles once he arrives on scene. The Cardinals were 13-19 during the 2021-22 campaign, 4-28 in 2022-23 and 8-24 in 2023-24.
The nationally ranked (No. 13) Cards are 25-6 this year, Kelsey’s first year in charge. If math isn’t your suit, that’s the same number of wins - this season alone - as the program has had over the past three seasons.
Kelsey’s squad takes on Stanford tonight in the ACC Championship Tournament quarterfinals. Their No. 2 seed is the Cardinals’ highest conference tourney seed since having the same seed in the American Athletic Conference, 11 years ago.
Since University of Cincinnati fans can now only plan, possibly, on watching their Bearcats play in the newly minted College Basketball Crown Tournament, a lot of UC hoops fans will be rooting for a different Red and Black brand of basketball during the NCAA tournament.
Go Cards.
Sponsors:
Industrial Solutions Authority
E. John Rewwer, DDS, 513-923-3839
Chair Force 1 Foundation (donated sponsorship)
