Onward

I’m feeling anxious and melancholy right now for a number of reasons. Davidson’s exclusion from the NCAA tournament is not one of them. This season, the Year After, started in earnest with a four-point loss on the home court of one of the best teams in the country, on national TV, in which Stephen had 44 points, after which my phone rang with a call from a friend in the basketball business, who started the conversation by saying: “Whoa.” We saw gyms full and records fall. We saw a win in the program’s old second home in the city of Charlotte. We saw a win in the world’s most famous arena in which the buzz was for one of ours. One man moved from Oregon to Davidson to watch his alma mater’s basketball team. A man and his son from Florida with no connection at all to the school bought season tickets and started flying up from Tampa for Saturday games. Two kids from Michigan drove all the way down, just for a game at Belk Arena in January, and then turned around and drove back. Bob Knight called Stephen Curry the best passer in the history of college basketball. Now comes the NIT. Davidson has been playing basketball for 101 years. Only 15 of those years have ended with national postseason play. More than half of those 15 berths have come under Bob McKillop. This is one of them. This is the fifth in a row. That’s never happened before. It is the continuation of the most consistently fine time to be a fan of Davidson College’s basketball team in at least the last 40 years and maybe ever.

‘Had to be there’

Last Saturday night, the night the boys from Michigan visited the village, I also met Floyd Strand.

He’s Class of ‘71.

He’s an emergency room doctor.

He lives in Oregon.

And he told me at the Brickhouse, standing there in the noisy, crowded lobby, and practically parenthetically, that for the rest of the basketball season, well -- he’s kind of … moved to Davidson.

WHAT?

But you know how the Brickhouse is after games. Too many people to talk to and too little time to do it. So I told Floyd that I wanted to chat with him some more, and he gave me his card, and I gave him a call a few days later.

Why?

He graduated 38 years ago.

He lives 2,820 miles away.

Why?

Here’s what he said:

“To be a part of this …”

Floyd was born and raised in Alaska. He played basketball in high school and he played it well enough to get letters from Lefty. He wasn’t offered a scholarship but he was invited to come to school and try out for the team. He ended up playing freshman ball, back when they had that, the same class as Steve Kirley, Duncan Postma and Billy Pierce.

He went to med school in Chapel Hill. He’s lived out in Salem, Ore., since 1977. For the longest time, he kept track of Davidson’s basketball scores in the form of teeny-tiny print in the back of the sports section of the Salem Statesman Journal, and that was about it, because that was basically all there was.

In the mid-‘90s, though, he started to pay a little more attention to the basketball team. The Internet started to kick up. He didn’t have to just look at the scores in his paper back home. Now he could read about the games.

Then Bobby Vagt ’69 became president of the college. Vagt was his hall counselor way back when. A little more interest.

Then his daughter decided to go to Davidson. Molly Strand, now Molly Strand Deis, is Class of ’02. Her roommate for three years? Kerrin McKillop. Even more interest.

Then his son decided to go to Davidson. Peter Strand is Class of ’05. Even more.

Floyd bought season tickets for the first time before last year. He has four seats, Section 103, Row E, Seats 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Then last March.

Detroit.

“One of the great experiences of my life,” he told me on the phone last week.

“I had to be there,” he said.

“I ran into people I hadn’t seen since I was a student,” he said.

“It was a religious experience,” he said.

This man from Oregon who for the next couple months is living in Davidson is perhaps a particularly eye-catching example of something I’ve been seeing and hearing about all season long.

It is in my mind the very coolest part of this quite cool moment in the ongoing Davidson basketball narrative.

The McKillops’ team, the Mathenys’ team, the Currys’ team -- our team -- it’s drawing back in alums who had lost touch, and for those who already had a bond it’s making that bond that much tighter, and it’s connecting them to this place, and to this idea, and to each other.

It isn’t just about basketball.

It’s not.