Oh Boy!
I am writing this during halftime of the 2nd game of the Final Four. I’m pretty sure I’ve watched the Final Four and the championship game all of the last 20 years. I’m from North Carolina. I grew up in a Duke house. I went to Wake Forest. And I never cheer for UNC (it’s really more of a distaste for their annoying fans - the ones who have absolutely no connection to the school - but that’s another topic all together). All that to say that I was basically predestined to enjoy college basketball. And that is an expectation I can live up to.
However, being as I’ve been in a philosophical mood today, I was thinking more deeply about my relationship with college basketball. Around the age of 10 was when I first started really watching games. It was 1990 - the first year Duke won the NCAA. I thought those guys were so cool - they were older and athletic and I just assumed they were wonderful. In high school, basketball was one of the only things I really enjoyed - both college ball on TV and working with the athletic department at my high school. It was an awkward time and basketball was a bit of an escape, even though I wasn’t actually talented enough to play. Then, I got to college and I was in school with those same guys I had watched play on TV. Needless to say, I was a bit starstruck! Just ask any of the ladies who lived on my hall during my freshman year. I was part of the “Screamin’ Deacons,” the student cheering group, all 4 years, and think I may have missed 2 home games during that time period. And I had a few classes with some players, which was neat.
Post-college, I was lucky enough to have a friend with season tickets to the Wake games who invited me along quite a bit during those first few years. Then, I started working for Crusade, my schedule got weird, I moved to Greensboro, and basketball became less feasible in my schedule. And today, I looked at those players and see them as “kids.” That’s kind of weird because I spend lots of time with students who are the same age as these players and I don’t see them as kids (at least not most of the time). In fact, most of the time I don’t feel that far removed from them (unless we talk about something that happened in the 80s which I remember and during which they weren’t even born). And I realized that I’m closer in age to the Butler coach (he’s 33 and pretty attractive), than those players. Oh boy!
Oh yeah, “Go Duke!”
1 year ago • Notes