Moments that Count

It’s obvious, once again, why they play the games.  If  your bracket (like mine) suffered so much from Kansas and Villanova, you might not have given a second thought to Notre Dame’s loss.  But Old Dominion won their first game in the NCAA tournament since 1995.

In my house, we noticed.

I was married in August of 1994.  Our engagement had been long distance for the most part, and our sporting history consisted of a number of Red Sox games in Fenway Park as well as college baseball games and an occasional football game. Baseball was my wife’s favorite sport, but I didn’t stand a chance with the other sports.  Football wasn’t particularly promising.  Once I took her to a Florida/Florida State game to experience the utter thrill of being amindst 92,000 screaming fans who all want the same thing -- for our Gators to make a stop on a critical 3rd down and 10,.  That’s when she turned to me and  asked, during the tumult, “What’s a ‘down,’ again?”  At that moment, the great Warrick Dunn scored on the play to clinch the win for the Seminoles.  Though I did not technically hold her responsible for our loss, it did make me regret her lack of interest.

Forget basketball.  Even the finish of Duke’s classic win over Kentucky in 1992 while I was home on Spring Break didn’t pique her interest.  While my parents and I jumped off the couch and almost through the roof -- even our basset hound howled with joy in the aftermath of Laettner’s shot -- she simply smiled indulgently.

During the first basketball season of our married life, I wasn’t able to watch Duke on television without the kind of diplomacy usually reserved for government officials.  Why couldn’t Brenda just hurry up and tell Brandon and Andrea what he had to say so we could get to commercial break – the only moment I could switch the channel from “90210” to the Duke/Georgia Tech game.  (By the way, if your pre-marital counseling consists of being told that it’s good for your marriage to only have a single television in the apartment, run to the courthouse to get the deal done before your future spouse is further poisoned by the nonsense.)

So Old Dominion, right?  You’d forgotten, I know.

In March 1994, I ended up watching the first few games in their entirety while at work – perhaps not advisable from a career standpoint, but it may have saved our marriage.  At night, I continued watching the games on our 20” television during commercial breaks of Seinfeld or Friends.  One fateful night, Amy was still awake, grading papers, when Old Dominion played Villanova.  The classic #14 v. #3 seed matchup.  

I was trying to paint a storyline to make the game more compelling, telling her that Old Dominion’s coach was the father of a Duke player and anything else that I could come up with to hold her attention.  After a while, I didn’t have to offer anything other than the game.

Three overtimes, each of them filled with dramatic shots.

Finally, Old Dominion prevailed, 89-81, and we were emotionally drained from simply watching the game unfold.  Though the papers hadn’t been graded, we spent two hours on the edge of the couch.  It was late, Thursday giving way to Friday, when Amy turned to me and asked, “And they do this tournament every year?!?”

It was a marital moment.

So last Saturday, when that backup guard from Michigan State hit the gamewinning twenty-five footer to beat Maryland, there was bedlam in our house.  I yelled.  Our ten-year old asked her mom, “But didn’t the buzzer sound before it went in?”   Amy explained that the ball left his hand before the horn sounded, so the points are good. Her enthusiasm surprised me, when she added,  “They count!”

This year, March Madness is once again bringing people together.  

Our family is bonding over tattered brackets, huge bowls of popcorn, and the dramatic ups and downs of the games.  And I have to admit that  -- finally – my wife and I agree.  Even though our teams aren’t faring as well this year, we still gather in front of the television screen…which has grown, thankfully, since that first year of marriage.  

And these moments…  they count.