End of the clip

Stephen: “That last shot against Kansas ...”

3/30/08

And more Claire:

It ended SO FAST. I know I felt that in the stands, but the last seconds on TV seemed SO much faster than the last seconds in real life, easy-fast, like time didn’t care fast (well, it didn’t). But for me, a blurry vision of Jason standing at midcourt -- with the ball, without the ball, moving, not moving, clock or no clock, I have no clue -- is burned into my brain forever. And on TV, he just went for it, so fast because it had to be. And I had never seen him fall before, because I don’t think I really “saw” anything after that point. And they went back and showed the bench watching him shoot it (Rachel and I screamed in agony, WE DON'T WANT TO SEE THAT PAIN!) -- but I want to rewind and pause the tape before it missed because I wonder what their faces looked like then. I really wonder what MY face looked like then. I could barely tell watching it because their expressions changed so fast when it was done. And it was weird yesterday to think that up in the stands, 20-year-old me was standing there stunned and speechless and disbelieving and absolutely exhausted. About to get on a bus and drive for 14 hours, stopping at a gas station in Kentucky at 3 AM, getting back to campus 10 minutes before my class started. About to begin the rest of my life, and never a day done without thinking of 3/30/08 and what made 3/30/08 and what 3/30/08 made.

Tension and energy

More Claire:

I remembered 2 moments that were especially electric but I didn’t remember exactly when they happened, so I need to go back and watch them again. When Andrew scored to put us up 6, and when Bryant kept hitting the 3s. I didn't remember the point when Thomas scored (I think) and then almost immediately after took a charge. Hearing our crowd at those moments, and watching the camera pan over us, and watching the boys’ determination spill onto their faces -- it reminded me that they really were playing the game of their lives, and it brought back the INCREDIBLE tension and energy that was in the stands for that entire two hours -- something that I don’t think I can ever replicate in any other situation in my life. That noise from the TV, even dulled by the announcers and by the year between this day and that day, just pulled at something in my heart that has been there since that day.

‘Higher and higher peaks’

On Tuesday Claire Asbury and a friend watched the DVD of the Kansas game for the first time. On Wednesday I was lucky enough to have her thoughts show up in my inbox. Here, with her permission, is a piece:

When we watched the other games (yeah, we did a marathon -- mainly the 2nd halves of the other 3 and then the whole Kansas), esp. G and G, we kept saying “HOW did we win this game? HOW did we pull it out?” We saw the plays and we saw the clock count down and we even saw the mistakes but I think we still kind of have this haze of miracle, and how does that shot fit together with the next possession, and how did we make it from possession to possession, time out to time out, and make it turn out the way it did? That’s what hits me always when I’m starting the 2nd half of Gtown -- we were down by 11 and at the end of those 20 minutes, we’d won by 4. And those boys walking onto the court didn’t plan it that way. They played to win, yes, but they had to do it all within that span of time -- and they didn’t know it yet. And it’s so different when you know you’re going to lose -- we moaned and groaned so much more over the mistakes, “if we had just done THAT differently ...” It was harder to completely appreciate the great plays and shots we DID make because we knew the end (although Bryant’s 3s sent chills up my spine because I remember how pumped up we were, and you can hear us screaming). BUT -- it also reminded me of the several times that I dipped into despair during the game, when we were down six, or when they kept hitting (although they missed a good amount too, it seemed), and I just came to this resigned acceptance (“I was happy just beating the Zags, I CANNOT complain about losing to Kansas”) that we would probably have to deal with being 10 down by the end and we would know it was over before it was over -- I expected that, to a point. Or I prepared myself for it at least. But the boys kept un-preparing me, cutting me loose from that, making us hit higher and higher peaks of ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

On authentic moments

Posted this on a blog I kept this past weekend at a writing workshop I went to in New York State. Thought it might apply over here too.

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.

More on the moment

An e-mail back-and-forth with Kansas City Star KU beat man Brady McCollough:

Me: Enjoyed your piece. Posted it on the blog at 16point8.blogspot.com. I’ve obviously thought A LOT about that moment, probably too much, but hey -- it felt right, and it feels right, and so I thought about it and still think about it. In your story, you write about the image of Self on his knees – “the purest kind of relief” -- and that’s part of the conversation that’s been going on mainly in my own head since almost that moment itself. Since Detroit. Was starting to knock around up there literally as I was walking out of Ford Field. Question: What to make of the differences between the emotions being felt in the immediate aftermath of that game by Kansas fans and by Davidson fans? In other words: The predominant emotion on the Kansas side was Self’s emotion: RELIEF. The predominant emotion on the Davidson side, I think, was … fullness? Maybe that’s a tad revisionist. Missed opportunity, for sure, but the emotions I was feeling right after that game, and the emotions that were being felt by many others on the Davidson side, were just so … overwhelming. So varied. So full. So … interesting. Contrast that with relief. Relief is a form of happiness, for sure, but it also, by definition, is happiness above all else, I think, that the OTHER thing did NOT happen, not that THIS thing DID. You know?

Brady: That difference in emotions is what made the Kansas-Davidson game the most fascinating psychological battle of the college basketball season last year. You had Kansas, a basketball blueblood and perennial power that had not performed up to expectations in the NCAA Tournament in five years and hadn’t won the big one in 20 years. In the Jayhawks’ corner, all you had was negative energy on that day: Bill Self’s 0-4 record in the Elite Eight (encompassing trips with Tulsa, Illinois and KU) and Jayhawk failures under Roy Williams (losing to Arizona in 1997, Rhode Island in 1998 and Syracuse in 2003). The Jayhawks played like they understood their reality all too well: If they lost, they would let down hundreds of thousands of fans and alumni. Then you had Davidson, with enough positive vibes to make downtown Detroit seem less Gotham and more Metropolis. (Okay, not quite that positive). Davidson had America pulling for it, they had absolutely no expectations to live up to and that’s how they played. When Jason Richards’ shot didn’t fall, Davidson’s fans were crushed, of course. But they appreciated the fleetingness of the moment. Kansas fans, after a loss, would have left the arena assuming that a trip to the Elite Eight in the next few years was a foregone conclusion. They would have gone home to their Rivals.com accounts and started forecasting the 2010 starting lineup. Davidson fans left the arena with the stark realization that they may never experience those two hours ever again. Am I right?

Me: Fleeting, yes, granted -- absolutely -- but NEVER is a big word. There were plenty of people there that day in Detroit, middle-aged men, dressed in red and black, who were boys the last time Davidson played a game for a spot in the Final Four, against Carolina, in College Park, back in 1969, and still have vivid memories. Here’s the thing: I don’t want to judge and in essence try to quantify the validity or the intrinsic value of one fan’s experience of that moment versus that of another. But I do wonder: Let’s say Davidson fans really did understand -- your word -- the “fleetingness” of that moment. The specialness. Let’s say that because of that they watched it and felt it that much more intently. Let’s say Kansas fans left thinking mainly: Whew, what a relief, that was close, too close, shouldn’t have been that close. Let’s say life is pretty much white noise, blah, blah, blah, one foot in front of the other, except for very, VERY few moments of true, clear meaning, where time practically slows to a stop, and that give you the energy to even begin to put up with all the blah, blah, blah. Davidson got one of those moments, and its fans, even inside that moment, right then and there, seemed to know it. Kansas fans? They wanted the shot to miss. Maybe I’m being totally unfair. But I can’t help but compare.

The shot

The talented Brady McCollough: Why, for me, the Davidson game -- not North Carolina, not Memphis, not KU football’s epic Border War win over Missouri -- is the moment of the year on the Kansas beat.