When I was 9 years old I caught glimpse of Christian Laettner hitting The Shot that sent Duke past Kentucky and into the Final Four. The moment literally changed my life. I’ve been an unabashed, diehard, and at times annoying Duke fan ever since. I have a Duke hat that I joke is older than my 17 year old sister. It started out as white but now slightly resembles the color of old urine and yet I continue to wear (and refuse to wash) it because it some ways it represents the meaning Duke basketball has had in my life over that time period. I estimate that I cried only three times between 1997 and 2003 (legitimate injuries not withstanding). One was when Paco, the family dog, died. The others were Duke’s loss to UCONN in the 1999 Title Game and Duke’s championship win over Arizona in 2001. When I’m bored I run over Duke recruiting classes of the past decade in my head and think of possibilities in which the Blue Devils win seven titles in the last 20 years instead of just three. It’s almost a lifestyle choice at this point, especially between Midnight Madness and the end of March Madness. I’ve had a good feeling about the 2009-2010 Blue Devils since the very beginning. I don’t know why, honestly, because all things considered, this is one of the least talented Duke teams in recent memory. They lack legitimate star power and more importantly, they lost three of their top seven players from a disappointing Sweet 16 team the year before and added no substantial talent. But there was something about the way they played that had me dreaming about another title. This year’s Duke team controlled the ball, took good shots, and completely dominated on defense. They played defense like a Mid-major school but with the athletes to keep the intensity up for 40 minutes against major programs. The players all seemed to understand their abilities and limitations and played accordingly, which is a seriously underrated and rare gift these days. And most importantly, the one constant in all the years of Duke greatness, they have the best coach in the land.
Mike Krzyzewski is everything that is right with college sports. In a world that is literally dominated by cheating, lies, and manipulation, Coach K and the Duke program are a shining example of how things should be. He recruits the best players who can excel on the court and in the classroom. He talks consistently about his love for his players both past and present. And he wins. A lot. At times the program comes across as elitist, snobby, and annoyingly perfect and I understand why it rubs some people the wrong way. But no one, not even the most cynical sports fan or hardened Tar Heel, can deny Coach K’s greatness. He genuinely cares about the players and understands the importance of the student body, the fans, in a way that almost nobody in the country can compare with. Coach K makes even a fan in Texas who has never set foot on the Duke campus feel as if he is his coach. He exemplifies class in everything that he does and if that weren’t enough, he is perhaps the best teacher of the game of the last 30 years. After the Blue Devils clinched their spot in the Championship Game last Saturday with a win over West Virginia, I started to get the symptoms of Big Game Itis. I hadn’t allowed myself to get too excited until this point, knowing that at any moment that excitement could bite me in the butt. But as Sunday wore on into Monday morning and the hour of the game grew closer, the symptoms were plentiful. I was nervous for 48 hours straight. I could not sit or stand still. No matter what I was doing my brain was running scenarios of what was likely to happen on Monday night. I bit my finger nails down to the nub. I waged an internal conflict between excitement and dread, half wanting the game to start already, half wishing it was already over so I could know how to feel. It had been nine years since Duke had played for a title and, as my body wasn’t used to this anymore, this was the worst case of Big Game Itis I think I’d ever had.
As the game progressed, I kept waiting for the moment when my stress would die down. At some point, I thought, one team will pull ahead of the other by a decent margin and I’d have to either let myself feel good about the outcome or start preparing myself for the sure loss. This was not to be the case, however, in a game in which neither team ever got ahead by more than six points. This turned out to be, without question, the best NCAA Championship Game EVER. Basketball is a game of runs but both teams were so locked in defensively that neither were ever able to get on an extended hot streak. Duke would go up five then down one then back up five. There was no patented 15-4 run to seal the game or parade to the free throw line that Duke weaponizes so well. Instead, the game was a constant back-and-forth pressure cooker for two and half hours, never allowing me to get comfortable in any way.
In the final five seconds, I paced the floor as Butler missed a shot, Duke went one-for-two from the line, and Butler’s star Gordon Hayward missed a championship winning half court shot by approximately one inch. Even in that moment, as elated as I was, I could not quite yet let go of the stress and tension I’d accumulated over the last 48 hours. When you are this invested, winning the actual game is kind of like taking that first dose of medication when you’ve been sick for a while: the symptoms of the duress your body has gone through doesn’t go away immediately. You feel a little better, sure, but you’ve still got that nasty cough. The nasty cough in this case would be a heart rate that would rival that of a “Biggest Loser” contestant after a half marathon, combined with an inability to sleep that night. (And that’s after a win! I’m going to die young, I’m afraid.) When it’s all said and done, I’m as Sports Happy as I’ve ever been. Being back on top of the College Hoop World feels magnificent. The coach (my coach) takes his rightful place on the list of greatest coaches in college basketball (or sports in general) history. And this under-talented, underappreciated Duke team has become perhaps my favorite group of all time. Call it an obsession, call it a lifestyle, call it whatever you want. But as my Sports Tears trickled out and my ulcer began to shrink, I was yet again reminded of why I love this fickle game and the teams that best represent it for me. Go Duke, go.
Cue “One Shining Moment,”
Brian
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