You may or may not have seen the footage, but Jan. 22, Tennessee men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl showed up to watch the university's No. 4 women's basketball team take on No. 1 Duke and demonstrated his support by cheering from the student section … shirtless.
That's right: The head coach of a well-known Division I program got quite a rise out of fans and media alike when he showed up to Thompson-Boling Arena sans upper-body apparel.
But it's not as if he were baring all from the waist up. Pearl painted a burnt orange "V" on the center of his chest, surrounding it with a coat of blue (you know, for aesthetic purposes).
As Pearl jumped up and down, pumping his fists and cheering on the Lady Vols, the fans in the student section went nuts. They loved it. If there were one way to spice up the atmosphere of a top-notch matchup at a school where the fans already are crazy about their women's basketball team, this was it.
On a related note, the No. 16 Marquette women's basketball team takes on No. 6 Connecticut at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Al McGuire Center. Although the athletic department reports the game is sold out, fans in the Golden Eagles' student section could use a little extra invigoration to get their cheering juices flowing.
Surely by now you have figured out what I'm proposing: Men's basketball head coach Tom Crean, front and center in the student section, with "MU" painted in gold on his chest (surrounded with a coat of blue for aesthetic purposes, of course), madly cheering on the women's basketball team as it takes on Geno Auriemma's squad.
Why not? There is no doubt Crean has a deep appreciation for the student fans at Marquette. After all, he appears on the JumboTron at the Bradley Center before each of his team's home games to thank them for coming out.
He even takes the time as he walks out onto the court to shake hands with a handful of student fans in the front rows. These kinds of acts engender adulation and enliven the spirit of the student crowd. At the very least, Crean is respected throughout campus as an authority figure in the basketball realm.
So what better way to hype up a crowd of student fans at a women's basketball game than by sending that same man in to cheer side-by-side (belly-by-belly, in this case) with his people?
Pearl showed the fans he was not holier than thou, showed his players he could let loose and have some fun and showed a nationwide ESPN audience that taking one for the team does not always mean taking one for your team.
Listen, I know the men's team has a game earlier that day versus Providence, and I know our beloved Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat will be in town to play the Bucks that night, but this still is feasible.
There will be plenty of time after the men's game for Crean to cool down a little, and after making an appearance at the women's game, he could make his way back downtown to watch Wade in action.
After all, Pearl didn't stay longer than the midway point of the first half, saying he didn't want to become too much of a distraction. But he did stay just long enough to crank the excitement of the crowd up a few dozen notches.
Go for it, Coach. They'll love you for it more than they already do.