This weekend marks the seventh time Marquette University, Milwaukee and the BMO Harris Bradley Center have hosted the NCAA Men's basketball tournament. Before this year's visit, we last hosted games in 2010.
It's an amazing event, and one of the very best in all of sports. I've been honored to help volunteer at the tournament and, as area residents, we all can see the impact that bringing nearly 60,000 fans to town has on our city. Vibrance all over.
So, I found it somewhat beautiful that I came across this 1992 "Letter to the Editor" that I wrote to the Milwaukee Journal.
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL
LETTERS
Published: April 14, 1992
via Journal Sentinel Historical Archives
NCAA basketball
Milwaukee shows its good side
In the true spirit of college athletics, the NCAA championship tournament blazed into Milwaukee to rescue it from the clutches of recent negative exposure.
With some of the nation's premier players, coaches and teams in town for the first two rounds of the championship, Milwaukee was able to show the entire nation that it is indeed a championship town.
If Milwaukee is committed to becoming a true world-class city, it must continue its commitment to bringing in events such as this tournament.
JEFF SHERMAN
Short and sweet, but it could have easily been written today.
Of course, today's BMO Harris Bradley Center needs updates and replacement to continue to attract these types of marquee events. And while it's doing its very best to stay shiny, it's consistently ranked last in the league.
Yet, there's no denying when it comes to sports and events like the NCAA Tournament that Milwaukee shows up and is and always will be a championship town. Let's keep it up, Milwaukee!
Onward.
A life-long and passionate community leader and Milwaukeean, Jeff Sherman is a co-founder of OnMilwaukee.
He grew up in Wauwatosa and graduated from Marquette University, as a Warrior. He holds an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University, and is the founding president of Young Professionals of Milwaukee (YPM)/Fuel Milwaukee.
Early in his career, Sherman was one of youngest members of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, and currently is involved in numerous civic and community groups - including board positions at The Wisconsin Center District, Wisconsin Club and Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. He's honored to have been named to The Business Journal's "30 under 30" and Milwaukee Magazine's "35 under 35" lists.
He owns a condo in Downtown and lives in greater Milwaukee with his wife Stephanie, his son, Jake, and daughter Pierce. He's a political, music, sports and news junkie and thinks, for what it's worth, that all new movies should be released in theaters, on demand, online and on DVD simultaneously.
He also thinks you should read OnMilwaukee each and every day.
