All I want for Christmas ...

Dear Santa Todd,

I've been a particularly good Dawg this year [HTML_REMOVED] for starters, I sat through the entire Stanford football game. I even had your back on the several occasions when fellow alums and current students insisted on questioning your vision, general intelligence and line-of-parentage in my presence.

I could go on, but I guess what I'm getting at is this: You owe me. Big time.

The good news is, I'm not asking for much.

You see, ST, I love basketball. I love college basketball even more. And I love intrastate-rivalry college basketball almost as much as I love my friend's new Wii [HTML_REMOVED] which, according to said friend, his roommates and several anti-gaming-addiction Web sites is way, way too much. But that's not the point.

The point, ST, is you seem bound and determined to destroy something I love, namely the UW and Gonzaga's annual throwdown.

Now, I know the 'Zags enjoy a bit of an edge in the rivalry as of late. And I get that the UW is a national program now and can't afford to "think small" when it comes to scheduling. But for God's, Yahweh's and Allah's sake, man, this is my favorite game on the slate year in and year out.

And I'm definitely not alone.

The game sells out every year. Casual fans who normally don't care about college basketball until sometime in March talk trash over it at work. It dominates sports radio and the papers on both sides of the state for an entire week.

In fact, if there was any hope of scalping a ticket and still being able to pay rent, I'd be driving my 1993 Ford Taurus with a shaky battery and no snow tires to Spokane on Saturday to see it in person [HTML_REMOVED] I have law-school finals on Monday, ST, law school.

How can either program just walk away from that sort of intensity?

Look, I've heard the reasons (and read the message-board rumors) for skipping the game next year. Whether it's that the Dawgs are already playing a tough non-conference schedule, or the program needs more East Coast exposure, or that Lorenzo Romar and coach Mark Few are having some sort of tiff, it just doesn't add up.

Strength of schedule is suddenly a bad thing? Bad blood between the suits makes the game less compelling? Playing one home-and-away against an OK Big East program (Pitt) gives us more street cred than beating a team that grabs national headlines every spring? There's only one word for that type of thinking, ST, but if I said it here I'd be on your (and my editor's) naughty list for many Christmases to come.

Put simply, UW [HTML_REMOVED] Gonzaga is already a great regional rivalry. If both schools commit to it (and maintain their high national profiles) it will inevitably become one of basketball's best backyard brawls. Think Louisville-Kentucky, or Xavier-Cincinnati or, at risk of blaspheming, Duke-North Carolina.

If reason fails, I'm not above begging. (If begging fails I'm not above leading the DawgPack into your office for three hours of impromptu heckling practice. Admittedly, the DawgPack wouldn't follow me to a free pile of money, but you get my drift).

So, please, please, please, Santa Todd, don't take this game away.

You have the power to make Christmas come early: Just walk into the post-game press conference with Gonzaga's Mike Roth on Saturday, shake hands in front of the television cameras and announce you've agreed in principle to extend the series another decade or five.

It'd be the best gift you could give your fans, your program and college basketball at large.

Sincerely,

Jason Sykes

UW Alumnus (Communications, History)

UW School of Law '09

P.S. Oh yeah, the swimming team wanted me to ask you for a diving board too.

P.P.S. I'll be sure to leave you more of those "special" cookies you liked so much last year. And no, Mrs. Santa doesn't need to know.