Seven hundred and thirty days later

Claire: There was a power in those moments that I never tried to understand, but just let it sweep me up, clear knowledge that nothing else in the world was important except for the life we share and how this expressed that.

Say yes

March 30, 2008:

Those were the words running through his head.

Say yes.

Say yes.

Say yes.

Two years ago today

Claire in Detroit:

Our victory bellows take over, melding us into one hot sweaty bonetired (up for seventeen hours straight come from down South twenty-four hours ago I didn’t even think I’d be here wasn’t I in a Wendy’s in Ohio eight hours ago is it really the same freaking day of the week?) euphoric disbelieving jumble of jubilant kids, screaming into the depths of these thousands for our hometown boys, our friends, our classmates. Bob McKillop’s face appears on the big screen, stoneset like we’re not going to win by seventeen points, not going to go to the Elite Eight, not going to be the story of the year -- just a normal game. And yet the clock slides easily down, no pressurecooker countdown no heartstopping miracle -- bliss pressing from all sides all people all mouths.

Soltys on Cats.com: 1. We won. 2. I was there.

March

Almost a year ago by now, with Stephen and Jason and Thomas and the rest of the team, too, there was, I’ve come to think, a very rare convergence of ability and innocence.

The guys on last year’s team were good enough to do what they did. But they were also inexperienced enough and unburdened enough to not quite know what was on the other side.

That was the simple and unspoken and yet somehow tangible bond between the players and the coaches and the people who stopped to watch.

Here we are.

Here. We. Are.

I’m thinking now of those still photos, and maybe you are, too. That’s what everybody saw.

This year, of late in particular, it feels like maybe this team has gotten away from that, and certainly some of the fans have. Maybe it’s human nature. I don’t know.

Earlier this week, I flew though Detroit on the way to Pittsburgh, and when I was walking through the terminal I found myself thinking about a moment from Ford Field that Sunday last March.

During the timeout, with 16.8 seconds left, I was in Row 25 and I turned around and looked a row behind me and saw Tripp Cherry ’99, and he was on the phone, talking to his wife, Carrie ’01, who was back home in Charlotte studying for law school finals.

I couldn’t hear what he was saying, the place was too loud, but I could see the big, wet tears that had pooled in his eyes.

Many months later, over a supper at the Soda Shop, I asked Tripp about that moment. I ended up writing about this in the book.

Tripp said he and Carrie had talked about the play that was about to happen.

He said she told him just before the ball was put in play that she should probably let him go.

And Tripp said into the phone:

“No.

“Stay.”

The point here is this: There’s a game here at Belk in a minute. There’s a game Monday at Elon. There’s a game Saturday in Chattanooga, then maybe Sunday, then maybe Monday.

To ask March 2009 to be March 2008 is to forget what made March 2008 what it was.

The don’t miss this.

The here we are.

The No. Stay.

Mexican wrestling mask

(One of the last and hardest cuts from the manuscript ...)

Beaux Jones had a seat about three-quarters of the way up student-packed Section 128. His father had played for the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League, and he had come to Davidson from Louisiana to play football. He was loud and excitable, and in the stands at basketball games he wore a red and black Mexican wrestling mask.

Before the Kansas game, he had tailgated with his Phi Delt fraternity brothers outside Ford Field, doing shirtless pushups and drinking Bud Light from cans. They had walked two Detroit blocks to the building, 40 or so of them, arms locked, double file.

But now, inside Ford Field, in this moment, he got quiet.

He stepped out into the aisle, away from the others, away from the swell of the sound and still in his Mexican wrestling mask, and he felt an odd sort of calm. He looked down at the court. He looked at all the other fans in red.

Could they make a shot to win?

Did they even need to?

The thought confused him. It made him angry for thinking that way. As a football player he had been known as a serious competitor. In his freshman year, Davidson lost 56-0 to the University of San Diego; in his senior year, against the same team, Davidson lost by only three points. That’s how far he and his teammates had come, others told him, and how much they had improved. But he didn’t want to hear it. Moral victories were not victories. Moral victories were still losses, and athletes were supposed to win.

There was a book written not long ago about one of his father’s football friends. It was called Season of Life, and was about former Colt Joe Ehrmann, who used to volunteer as a high school football coach and had an atypical pre-game pep talk.

“What is our job as coaches?” he said to his boys.

“To love us,” they all said back to him.

“What is your job?” he asked.

“To love each other,” they all said.

Beaux Jones had scoffed. Ridiculous schmaltz, he thought. But now he stood in the aisle in his wrestling mask and came to a conclusion that surprised him. He had learned something from watching this basketball team that he had not learned in a lifetime as an athlete himself.