I'm a sports fan. I have been my whole life, as long as I can remember. I have a long history of falling in love with teams, and so I have a long history of teams breaking my heart, as they always do at some point.
I remember the first team I fell in love with. It was the early '70's, and my dad had season tickets for the Austin Peay Governors' men's basketball team. My brother was deemed too young to go to the night games, so my mom stayed home with him, and my dad and I went to the games. Coach Lake Kelly was bringing a new excitement to old Memorial Gym; Austin Peay was putting together a competitive team in the Ohio Valley Conference for the first time in forever. I still remember the players: Mickey Fisher, Richard Jimmerson, Percy Howard, Danny Odum, and the incomparable, indescribable Fly Williams.
On Sundays, the team would go out to eat together at Three Brothers Pancake House, which was our usual family destination after church. My brother and I would look up at these titans in awe. As basketball teams go, they weren't really that tall, but they seemed gigantic to us. We listened to the games on the radio when we couldn't see them in person, and thrilled as they made the NCAA tournament for the first time. I'll never forget watching them beat Jacksonville in the tournament on TV, back in the days when teams like Austin Peay never appeared on TV. That they were blown out by Notre Dame in the next round didn't break my heart; the expected outcome only brings dull pain.
The Governors didn't break my heart on the court, they did it off the court. Fly Williams and Danny Odum were ruled ineligible over irregularities in their admission to Austin Peay. Richard Jimmerson fell in a construction accident over the summer, lucky to survive but ending his basketball days by shattering both legs. And Lake Kelly went off to Oral Roberts, to try and bring the magic spark there. The team fell apart, and I grew up and moved away. Austin Peay has had some memorable tournament moments since then, the highlight of which was defeating second-seeded Illinois one year, but I wasn't there, and they no longer had my heart.
There's a difference between being a fan of a team and giving a team your heart. As a fan, you're happy when they win, sad when they lose, and you go to a few games. When you give a team your heart, you're joyous when they win, devastated when they lose, and you know the middle name of every player on the team. It doesn't happen overnight. You have to watch a team build up and have them work your way into your heart slowly, one player, one game at a time. The Pittsburgh Pirates did that to me. I didn't particularly like the Pirates when I moved to Pittsburgh, and they were an awful, lousy team. But I liked baseball, and at least they were in the National League, so I went to the games. Watching a bad team means opens your heart to them; they're so bad, you can't find it in you to root against them (unless they're the Dodgers.) Then, they get a new coach, a good young player here and there, and you're watching them develop into something. You're hooked now; these are your players. You've seen their major league debuts, you watched them weather sophomore slumps, you've spotted the glimmer of hope.
The Pirates were on the cusp of coming through on that hope when I moved away, but they were still my team. I followed them from afar, and when they made the playoffs at the end of that season, I bought World Series tickets and plane tickets. I was going to see my team in the World Series! Then, the heartbreak: Francisco Cabrera rounding third, the throw too late, the Braves coming from behind to win Game 7 and claim the World Series berth. The Pirates haven't come that close since.
But I had moved on, and the Pirates faded from my heart. A new team captured me, even though they weren't a terrible team. They were actually a very good team, coming off a national championship. "We need season tickets for the Stanford women's basketball team," I told my husband, who knew very little about basketball and wasn't a fan. But he was game to try it, and we fell in love all over again with a new team. Every year in college basketball, there are careers ending and careers beginning; we were sad to see the seniors go, and thrilled at the new crop of freshman. Then came the class, the group of freshmen who were a level above previous years'. This group, this special group, was sure to take Stanford back to the national championship.
Kate Starbird. Jamila Wideman. Charmin Smith. Vanessa Nygaard. Kristin Folkl. A starting lineup, right there, from point guard Wideman to jump out of the gym Folkl. We didn't get to see them together all at once that first year; Folkl redshirted to play volleyball, and Nygaard injured her knee in the first exhibition game. But this class, backed up by a second strong class right behind them, did do special things. Their second year, Stanford went to the Final Four, and made it back their third year, both times falling short of the championship.
Then came their fourth year. Starbird was the Naismith player of the year. They had a deep, experienced, talented team. We just knew that this was the year. We held our breath as Stanford fought its way through the first four rounds, and finally they were back at the Final Four. They faced Old Dominion in the national semi-final, and at first, looked totally dominant. But ODU didn't make it that far by giving up, and they fought back, and had the lead late in the game. But still, we knew that this was the year. Charmin Smith stepped to the free throw line and sank both shots, tying the game and sending it to overtime.
Time running out in the overtime, Stanford trailing, the ball in the hands of Jamila Wideman at the top of the key, we still knew that they were going to win. Wideman was not a great three point shooter, but we had seen her hit that three pointer when it mattered most too many times to doubt her now. The shot flew, Clare Machanguana came down on her, but we knew no foul would be called in that situation. We didn't think it mattered; that shot was just going to go in, no doubt about it. When it hit the rim, and bounced off, we were in shock. It couldn't be. It just wasn't possible. Kate Starbird couldn't be done. Those seniors, that class, it couldn't be over without a national championship.
I've been a sports fan my whole life, and I've given my heart to teams, but nothing before and nothing since ever hurt as much as that loss. I had watched those girls grow up right in front of me; I couldn't stand it that their fabulous careers had ended in such painful disappointment. No team has ever wormed its way into my heart as deeply as that team, and I'm not sure I'll ever let a team do that again. Bart Giamatti said that baseball is designed to break your heart, but nothing in baseball compares to the pain of watching college seniors end their careers in bitter losses, as happens every March. The nature of the tournament means that most players finish with a loss, a sudden, unexpected awareness that it's all gone in an instant, there isn't next game or next year.
Now that's designed to break your heart.
