Courtesy of Flickr: Rex Gray
By now, everyone should know that the NCAA Men’s Basketball team from the University of Villanova is better known simply as ‘nova. And that they won this year’s championship in a historic tournament run.
What most people don’t know (unless they were of driving age back in the 70’s) is that Nova was also a Chevrolet brand for a pedestrian car that was fairly successful and like all Chevy’s, were most-of-the-time reliable, relatively inexpensive and stock cars that could be converted into powerful beasts with a few modifications..
“No va” means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish and there’s a urban legend that the car didn’t sell well in Latin America because of its unfortunate name; Nothing could be farther from the truth, the Nova sold fairly well in my native Venezuela. As a matter of fact, my family owned one in that puky dark-purple color. Although, I didn’t inherited it, one my older half-brothers did; And he drove it for many years.
After Villanova advanced to the Final Four, I made a comment to one of my college BFF’s that was rooting for ‘nova, letting him know that his chosen team ¡Si va! which of course means,“yes it goes,” in Spanish.
So why was this year’s Villanova’s win historic? It all there! But let’s not forget that it could have been a ‘villaneous’ game if the point differential would have been the same as in the first few minutes!