Kind of nostalgic, isn't it, to look back at the weekend after Thanksgiving and see that an incredible number of people - at least an incredible number with internet access - couldn't imagine why on earth everyone was nitpicking to death that little late-night fender-bender in Florida. It was 2:30 in the morning, it was right on Tiger's street, the windows of his truck were shattered, his wife was wielding a golf club, Tiger was bleeding, neighbors were calling 911 ... nothing to see here, folks, everybody disperse. Private family matter.

And people all over the country, probably the world, will not ... stop ... talking about it. Even when they're telling everybody within earshot that they wish everybody would stop talking about it. Sometimes entire conversations, debates, arguments, likely fistfights, start with somebody saying they're sick of all the talk about Tiger Woods. Journalists have begun reports, columns, features and essays explaining why their chosen topic is more important than what's going on with Tiger Woods, immediately rendering their arguments faulty and their stories irrelevant, by definition. (Note: Tiger Woods' name, second paragraph; topic of commentary, a U.S. Senator, fourth paragraph.)

The point of all of this: Tiger Woods is a pretty big deal. And the fact that he is such a big deal is, in itself, a pretty big deal.

(Photo: TMZ.com)

It's an extremely sad day for D.C. overall and its sports fans in particular. Abe Pollin died this afternoon. The fact that so many people in the area feel this so deeply tells you how set apart Pollin is from not only the average major sports team owner, but from almost any owner you can name.

Think about it: how much would you really mourn, besides what you normally would for the end of a person's life, if your team's owner passed away?

And he might have been the most generous human being of my lifetime. He leaves this earth a rich man, but he gave back over and over and over again with hands-on charitable work and insanely huge donations. His money, time and commitment fed people, clothed people, schooled people and housed people who otherwise might not have had any of those. In fact, down the street from where we lived for several years in Southeast D.C. was a public housing complex named for a daughter who had died young. Everybody in that area, everybody who went to St. Thomas More and all the other schools around there, knew about Linda Pollin, and it's a sure bet that a lot of the people who lived there were better off than other places in Southeast they might have resided.

The only times anyone ever had anything bad to say about him was when the Bullets or Caps didn't win, which happened a lot. He was sentimental and loyal, sometimes (very occasionally, in the realm of basketball operations) to a fault. But no one could ever say he didn't care about winning, or care about the city and keeping the teams in town; you know a lot of fans can't say that. He and Michael Jordan butted heads twice, once when they were adversaries during the NBA lockout in 1998-99, once when Pollin fired Jordan after having turned the franchise over to him, so boldly, years later. It's hard to fault Pollin on either move, in the moment or in hindsight. Especially when Pollin then shook up the way the Wizards ran things immediately afterward, by hiring, among others, head coach Eddie Jordan - a D.C. native, who helped break the long playoff drought.

There were All-Star games at Cap Centre and at then-MCI, and walking into the downtown arena in 2001 reminded me of all the years of going to Cap Centre, and how much I had hoped during those years that one day the team would actually be Washington's. Even now, I get nostalgic when I visit the shopping area on the site where Cap Centre once stood, even though it was out of the way, hard to get to, too far from Metro and, in later years, a tad obsolete. But once upon a time, the arena with the Pringles chip-shaped roof and the groundbreaking "TeleScreen'' - imagine that, a video screen above the court! - was the place to be.

Abe Pollin also had the stones to go against the grain and stand up against the forces of both conformity and insensitivity - when he changed the name of the team from "Bullets'' to "Wizards.'' It was back when the murder rate caused many to dub D.C. "Dodge City.'' It also was when longtime friend and former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. No more association with weapons, gunfire, violence and death, Pollin said, no matter how innocuous the nickname's origins. The world kept revolving, jerseys kept selling, and when the team started winning in its new building, no one cared what the nickname was.

If only a certain other racist-nicknamed D.C. team had that kind of vision. Pollin made Washington proud.

I'll never forget June 7, 1978, the night the Bullets beat Seattle in Game 7 to win the NBA championship. I'll remember the photo on the front of the Washington Post the next morning, of Wes Unseld hugging Pollin in the locker room. I'll remember watching the championship parade, and when I was lucky enough to see my other favorite teams win championships later - the Redskins three times, Georgetown once, even Maryland basketball - I always put the Bullets in a special place because they were the first.

Pollin's presence is stamped all over those memories, as it should be for everybody who rooted for a team - or simply existed - in D.C. the last half-century or so.

I'll miss him. There will never be another like him. He really did my hometown proud. Hope your favorite team's owner can, will, does do the same for you and your town.

(Photo: The Washington Post)

It had all the makings of a curmudgeon's convention. Bobby Knight was there, riffing on the various shortcomings of college basketball today. Billy Packer was there, too. So was Gene Bartow, who coached in a national championship game against John Wooden. George Gervin, of a different era of the NBA. Even perpetually overlooked legend Travis "Machine'' Grant, who played back when some Southern colleges still weren't recruiting blacks. And, of course, a theater full of coaches from days gone by - way, way by.

Hall of fame ceremonies, by definition, should be about the good ol' days, and the one for the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Sunday night in Kansas City was one defined by a golden era. The marquee names in the induction class made their reps in a single game 30 years ago that has been credited with changing the nature of the sport. But no matter how tempting it would have been to turn the night into a session of griping about how these kids today couldn't carry these guys' jocks, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird managed to bring their careers, started and ended long ago, back to life and connect it to what makes basketball great and will keep it great for years to come.

It was a heartfelt recognition of how unique and eternal Magic and Bird are, and how just not watching them play, but being around them, made you fall in love with the game. Even seeing replays of their 1979 NCAA championship game, when Johnson and Michigan State beat Bird and Indiana State, reminded you of how they made themselves and every game they played a must-see event. Only Magic and his coach (and fellow Hall enshrine) Jud Heathcote would insist that it was a gem of a game, but even as Bird struggled against a defense that made him a one-man team, it was obvious that both of them had a special quality about them that defied what appeared to the naked eye - even Packer's, as he had to admit - to be fairly limited pure athletic ability.

Bird was slow, and Magic couldn't shoot. Bird could shoot, really well, but a lot of forwards could shoot well. And Magic trying to play the point at 6-foot-9? Ridiculous.

What raised them both a level above the rest? Both would do absolutely anything, whatever it possibly took, to make themselves better, to make themselves the best, to make their entire team better - to win. That, all agreed, was something that couldn't be measured with a stopwatch or ruler, or quantified by stats. Magic even said that had circumstances been different, had he left school a year earlier and landed with the then-Kansas City Kings or had the Bulls won the infamous coin flip over the Lakers a year later, he believes he could have helped them win; it was just easier with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on his side. Bird, meanwhile, apparently was prepared to just play as much and as hard as he could until somebody made him stop.

They both were asked about their legacies. "That we loved the game, and we still do, and that we played with passion and heart, and we made our teammates better,'' Johnson said. "I love the game of basketball and I always will.''

"It's not only what I think, it's what the fans think,'' Bird answered. "It's really their game. We had a great opportunity to play the game we love. Not only in high school and college - I still can't believe I got paid to play the game I loved.''

It's not an easy formula to duplicate it. Some have done it since their heydays; some are doing it right now. Some did it before they showed up on the scene. Very few did it while they played. Those who have done it, and will do it, become immortals. When Magic and Bird did it, nobody could touch them, and three decades after their legendary first meeting and more than a decade after their last, they still exemplify basketball at its best and demonstrate the possibilities of what it can be.

Not just what it used to be.

(Photo: Getty Images/Sports Illustrated)