Thinking out loud

Another e-mail:

Or maybe it’s not exhaustion at all. Maybe we as fans know that going to the Sweet Sixteen, or the Elite Eight, or the Final Four is just not something that is going to happen with any regularity for a school like Davidson. So we feel somehow that the magic of the run of ‘08 can’t be duplicated, nor should it be. Do we subconsciously think that a “lesser” NCAA run this year would push the memories of ‘08 out of our minds? Do we not want that to happen? Do we need another year, or two, to revel in the excitement of ‘08? Do we think the magic of the run of ‘08 will be somehow diminished by getting to the same place, or farther, every year?

After Cloud Nine

Claire from her files to my inbox:

APRIL 4, 2008.

April showers have been beating down all night. A bunch of us went to see Leatherheads at Birkdale (in the lobby we saw one kid wearing a Sweet Sixteen shirt and Zach muttered something under his breath about a bandwagon). It was strange to slouch in the dark, quiet, half-empty theater like we might on any other Friday night, our legs slung carelessly over the railing... still not over the last seven days, when most of us had been standing and screaming, half-starved but adrenaline-buzzed in the Cloud Nine storm of fifty thousand people, more than six hundred miles away from this little town where it started oh so quietly.

At the end of the movie, George Clooney’s character huddles with his football team. They’re down, despondent, caked with mud, surely will lose.

“You guys having fun out there?” George asks, with his sparkling trademark grin shining under all that muck.

I have minor convulsions in my seat between Mike and Zach. “THAT’S WHAT BOB ASKED THEM!” I yelp in a whisper, bouncing my legs up and down on the rail.

They smile.

They know.

Reminds me of something I’ve been thinking about of late: 2008 was so special because 2008 was so special. It sounds like a tautology but I think it’s worth some consideration.

Relief?

This showed up today in my inbox:

Extremely interesting feelings on the part of some, me included, and apparently Claire. Not sadness, not disappointment, not anger. Just a sort of relief. I can’t say it is a memory of last year’s physical and mental exhaustion in Detroit. I don’t think I usually remember such things that far in the past.

Maybe it’s a deep, somewhat hidden feeling that this is not a great team. Not even a really solid team. At least on a consistent basis. Spectacular at times. Awful at other times. Maybe in places we don’t want to look we’re relieved these kids won’t have to face the possibility of an ugly beat down when they have one of those awful games.

Delving into why we feel this way might be more difficult than trying to find out why we felt the way we did last March.

Thanks

Sorensen:

Alas, the loss Sunday almost certainly knocks the Wildcats out of the NCAA tournament. Some other team will be this season’s Davidson. But those of us who watched last season, and that was almost all of us, will always remember the original.

Quoting Stephen

The new/old team motto: “It should hurt to play against Davidson College.”

Whelliston

Makes a good point.

Making the argument

Gregg Doyel: Davidson played its way into the 2009 field by nearly playing its way into the 2008 Final Four.

What happened?

Well this is just silly.