Such joy

Claire Asbury is a junior from Georgia who’s studying abroad this semester. She gets back next week. One of her first stops stateside: Belk, Saturday, Chattanooga.

I met Claire early on reporting for the book and she sent me her journal entries about Davidson basketball. She writes beautifully, and with such energy, and there clearly and palpably is not a whole lot of space between what’s inside her and the words on her page, and I love that.

Here, with her permission, is some of what she wrote on Jan. 20, 2008, after the game on last season’s 100th anniversary weekend:

We could have told you that long ago, but we’ll jump up and down and let you soak it in for yourselves as you finally figure it out, and as we enjoy the ride that they have every right to take. And yeah, there are ups and downs and profanities and jubilations -- but they’re always there, and we’re always there.

That’s what it is.

At halftime today, the court was lined with 70 years’ worth of men who have left our collective home away from home and made their way out of the bubble to create wonderfully full lives. They came back and stood before us so that we, no longer teenagers but barely adults, could see the significance that this place holds for them, and that there is much more history behind today’s dunks and threes and blocks and steals and rap music intervals than we realize. And that our boys, holed away in the locker room planning, have a place in this history -- and therefore, so do we.

It’s a humbling feeling. And honestly, it’s not humbling because it’s basketball and we’re oh-so-good at it and we can get national recognition for such a small school; it’s because I will always be able to say that I am a part of this COMMUNITY that comes together to support each other, that becomes joyously one in so many ways -- because this is only one.

It feels kind of silly to be so emotional about a basketball team, trying to write about it in such a life-altering sense, and I know that my male family members deserve some of the credit for passing on their intense sports-angst to one of their few daughters. But it’s that word up there in caps – the word that inspires so much of what I write, the very real concept that brings a grin to my face at some point every single day -- that leads me to this point. Standing there in that arena that only holds about 5500 people, I can scream, jump around, sing, laugh, shriek -- I can be completely myself (sometimes with a little extra profanity thrown in) and it’s fine with everyone else, it’s welcomed by them. I can start cheers if my sports-angsty heart moves me, and people will join in. There I stand in the sold out student section behind the basket, with a very deep knowledge that this is exactly where I am supposed to be -- not only in this hour, but in my life. At this place, in the state of North Carolina, in this dorm room writing at 2 in the morning, not knowing so many things. But it’s okay, because this place -- most importantly, these people -- bring me such joy.

And so it semi-started with a basketball game …