No Dance For Des Moines

The NCAA has passed on Des Moines as a first and second round site for the Men's Basketball Tournament in 2011, '12 and '13. DM Register Columnist Sean Keeler speculates as to why, here.

Some highlights that jumped out at me:

This from the director of women's basketball operations at Florida State:

"I think the one drawback for us was, we were there for five days and we had a hard time finding something to do in terms of entertaining our team."

Having spent a good four hours in downtown Des Moines a couple of weeks ago, I would have to agree with this. From what I've seen of Des Moines, I actually kind of like the place and wouldn't hate the concept of teaching/living there at some point in the future. Ali and I went up in May for a friends' graduation from Drake and the place seemed to look a lot nicer than I remember it. But downtown Des Moines? Not to be a hater, but finding a place to eat was a bitch. Finding a store of any kind to actually browse through was also a challenge. Maybe I don't know enough about downtown Des Moines and where they hide everything.

The executive director of the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitor's Bureau countered with this:

"But I've got to say, one thing that we always sell Des Moines with is our skywalk system. There again, I think anybody that's really experienced Des Moines, especially during business hours, is going to see we do have a very lively and vibrant downtown area."

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! OK, the skywalk system was very impressive, I'll give it that- but I was there on a Friday afternoon during business hours and the Missus and I had a helluva time finding a restaurant and there was literally no one around. Once you actually started walking on the sidewalks and looking for something, it was like a scene out of 'Vanilla Sky' just cars, no people anywhere. The skyway system may be fantastic during the winter, but in warmer weather it makes downtown Des Moines look positively dead, because everyone's inside using the skyway. (Or Skywalk, whatever you want to call it.)

I think Des Moines could be a very attractive venue for something like the Big Dance. But they've got spread their dining out from a cluster we discovered near 4th Street and actually put some more shit downtown. At least where it's obvious to the untrained visitor's eye- because if there is stuff to do in Downtown Des Moines, I myself had one heckuva time finding it.