‘And so now here’s this part’

Lots of things made March 2008 so special. Lots and lots and lots. So to start a sentence with “What made March 2008 so special ...” is sort of folly upfront. But let me try it anyway.

What made March 2008 so special is that it came at the end of a season-long effort that had started at 4-6 and at the end of a two-decade-long effort that had started at 4-24. Implicit in that story for those who chose to see it as such were lessons involving work, and faith, and humility.

Those 10 days, those three wins, that one loss -- it was all so powerful to see where they were because we knew where they’d been.

The rainy night in Anderson, S.C.? Remember that?

The handouts McKillop gave to Jason Zimmerman back in 1994? Remember that?

The “sometimes you learn lessons from losing” ... ? Remember that?

The “walk humbly with your God” ... ? Remember that?

From pages 47 and 48:

Months later, William Robertson, Davidson Class of 1975 and the chaplain at the state mental hospital in Morganton, North Carolina, would wonder whether people aren’t somehow hard-wired to be attracted to stories that contain moments like this. They tell a truth in the end.

From struggle comes patience. From patience comes experience. From experience comes hope.

And hope?

Hope does not disappoint.

That, he said, is the theology of the cross. It’s Romans 5. ...

This was how he came to see sports. The experience of caring about a team existed to examine how people dealt with disappointment and defeat.

There are of course all sorts of saws that say the same thing. McKillop has plenty of them. “Proud peacock today, feather duster tomorrow ...” Here’s a version for right now for this blog: Sometimes you score 20 points on Thursday and then you can’t hit a thing come Saturday. I’m only 32 years old, so I don’t know much, but I do know that.

It’s all the same big story, round and round, never not, and so now here’s this part. Here’s 2-6. Here’s 18.8 percent shooting in the first half. Here’s having the College of Charleston students mock you in the second by chanting the name of your former teammate, your former roommate, your friend.

Somewhere inside the bad stuff is where the good stuff starts. We know this because we’ve experienced this. Remember?