I have struggled this week about what to write about here on my blog. Well, struggled might be too extreme—let’s just say I have been pondering the appropriate topic all week. I could write about how the top of my head almost blew off when NBC hired Ronna McDaniel as a news commentator (at the price of $ 300,000 per year); surely this can’t be true. It is. Or I could write about the continuing saga of a Congress that can’t seem to fund the government and continues to think it is okay to rob the poor to benefit the rich. All these news events are ones that should concern even the most apathetic of us.
But the honest truth is that I have been living in a basketball-obsessed bubble this week as the ACC season finished and the NCAA playoffs began. Both Tom and I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and our blood still runs a lovely shade of Tarheel blue. Even I find it hard to believe that I can identify all the players on the Carolina basketball team.
Don’t be fooled. I am not really a sports fanatic and in many ways am a sports illiterate. I do watch the Super Bowl each year, but that is primarily because my husband cooks wings and before we reformed our diet it was the once a year time we let Velveeta be a mainstay in a meal (we miss you, queso dip!). I am sports literate enough to know when a touchdown is made but decades of my family trying to educate me (and failing), I still do not understand what downs mean or much else about the game.
For several years when two of our grandsons were playing football (the little league variety) I would faithfully attend their games (even when the weather was blustery—see above photo) when we visited them in Colorado, but all I knew to do was (1) hope they didn’t get a concussion and (2) follow them on the field based on their jersey numbers. I really had no idea what was going on.
I grew up in a sports-obsessed family. My dad was an excellent athlete growing up even though he did not have the opportunities young athletes have today. But he loved sports. I grew up playing backyard softball on summer evenings. Girls were very limited in participating in official sports but I went to lots of little league baseball games when my brother played.
It seems like there was always some sporting event on television and my father used to watch two games simultaneously as he had set up a portable television next to the big behemoth television in our den. If he were still alive today, he would be ecstatic over the way you can watch multiple games on a Smart TV or even on your phone.
Both my parents were Atlanta Braves fans and even after my father died, my mother watched the Braves games whenever they were broadcast. I do like baseball; maybe because I actually understand it.
But my real love is basketball. Not to play, but to watch. I follow the Tarheels and have all their games entered on the calendar on my phone. I will work diligently to avoid scheduling any event that conflicts with one of their games.
So yes, I was really disappointed when they did not win the ACC championship but let’s face it, NC State (the team of choice for most of the rest of my birth family) played an incredible game. Even though Carolina lost, that game was a joy to watch.
Now we are in the NCAA playoffs. I have never filled out a bracket of my own plus all I really pay attention to is how the Tarheels are progressing. We are on to the sweet sixteen now having won in two rounds.
I recognize that there are serious and disturbing events happening all around us in the world. There is much to worry us. But I also realize that sometimes we all need to take a break from the worry and fear and just relax with something that is not life or death, not fascism versus democracy, but is just fun to watch, to cheer, to celebrate. For me that is college basketball.
So maybe the NCAA tournament came at just the right time to keep me from blowing my stack over the crazy times we live in. Maybe I just needed a spoonful or two of games played well, of three-point shots hitting the net just right, of having a team to cheer on.
I may not know all my neighbors names (I do live in a community of 600+ residents) but I do know R.J. and Armando and Harrison and Eliot and Cormac and more…and don’t forget Coach Hubert Davis. I know where former Coach Roy Williams and his wife Wanda usually sit at the games and Dean Smith will forever be one of my heroes. Tom and I were at Carolina when the first African-American, Charlie Scott, was recruited by Dean Smith. He paved the way for players like Michael Jordan who came many years later. Tom used to work as a cinematographer (AKA shooting game films before videotape overtook) for the Athletic Department when he was a student.
Maybe you could care less about any sport but have a passion for a different activity. Or maybe there is one team that you love, no matter how unreasonable that may be. Maybe there is a sport that you played when you were younger or still play now. Maybe you have learned about track or cross country skiing or swim meets because your children or grandchildren have a sport they love.
Maybe there is a team that you cheer on and maybe you always do your own bracket for the NCAA playoffs. Who knows? Maybe you even understand football.
Ah, well, I am a fan of three sports: Carolina football, the Chicago Cubs baseball, and UNC
basketball. The Cubs are the only sport I can watch with my husband. You have heard us say we aren't baseball fans, we are Cubs fans. Before we retired we traveled all over the National League Central to watch them play (Chicago, Atlanta, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington DC) and knew most of the names of the team (Wood, Sosa, Grace, Sandburg, Zambrano, Maddux, etc).
Carolina football: I went to law school with Chris Kupec (now a big-time Charlotte attorney) and I followed Matt Kupec and Mark Maye.
Now I am enjoying the heck out of Tarheel basketball and, like Jeanne, I know their names. My college roommate Lisa and I live 240 miles apart but nothing can keep us from watching the games and keeping up a running reaction to the game by text message!
Love this!