So today is my birthday and all I can think about is sports. Not sports in general, but basketball in particular. College basketball. But shouldn't I be reflecting on more important things? My gratitude for my life? For my family and friends? For my wife? Yes, that's probably true. But this birthday is different. Here's why.
Like most people, my memories from childhood have mostly blended together to paint a general narrative of my upbringing. The details get hazy in most places, with the exception of a few distinctly memorable moments. Those memories that we are able to recall shine like a lighthouse because they were either traumatic or ecstatic.
For me, twenty years ago today (give or take) is one of those moments. I was seven years old and hopelessly addicted to basketball. My team was playing in the NCAA Championship game against North Carolina. My hero was Michigan's star power forward Chris Webber. His number 4 was then and remains my favorite number (dougskelton4@gmail.com). I can't remember anything about the first 39 minutes of the game. But I'll never forget rolling on the carpet in heartache after Webber called a (sixth) timeout that they didn't have, resulting in a technical foul that effectively ended their season. I'll never forget Webber's teammate, Jalen Rose, yelling at him after his colossal mistake. Feeling his pain, I felt compelled to write Webber a letter. The letter I wrote and mailed to him that night are still as clear as day.
I told him that I was sorry about what happened and that it wasn't right for Jalen to yell at him like that. We all make mistakes. I told him that he was my favorite player and that they would win it all next year. Keep your chin up. I told him that the drawing below was created specially for him. I drew an artistic portrait of him in colored crayon being awesome on the basketball court. (I wish I still had it. No doubt it'd be worth a ton today.)
I can't remember anything after that except for, what must have been two weeks later, my dad coming into my room with a crisp envelope. It's for you, Doug. It's for me? I grabbed the envelope and examined it. It was addressed to me and it had the blue and maize "M" in the corner! Wow. I ripped it open. I wish I could remember now what exactly the letter said, but my memory of the letter is that Chris Webber personally thanked me for my letter and signed it. Signed it!
A few days later I was asked by my second-grade teacher to read his letter in front of the school during a school gathering. I was so proud. I was no longer sad. I knew Michigan would be back in the Championship the next year. This was the second year in a row that they had made it to the finals and lost. Webber and the rest of the starting five were only sophomores. They would win it next year. But then my hero never came back. Webber left Michigan for the pros after that season, becoming the number 1 draft pick, and later engulfing Michigan in a bizarre financial scandal. (See ESPN's excellent 30-for-30 documentary on "The Fab Five.") Since then Michigan never made it back to the Finals. I stopped following Michigan basketball altogether, instead shifting my interest and allegiance to Michigan football. A few years later, I gave up basketball altogether and focused on other sports, such as football, baseball and golf. I didn't look back...until a few weeks ago.
Two and a half weeks ago, I decided on a whim to enter a friend's March Madness pool. What the hell, I thought. It'll make it interesting at least, even though I hadn't watched a second of college basketball all season. So I spent five minutes filling out my bracket and paid twenty dollars to enter the pool. This was the first pool I'd ever entered for money, so I had no real strategy.
But when I started filling out my bracket I couldn't bring myself to chose against Michigan. So I didn't. Not once. And after I sent in my bracket and looked at the other brackets in the pool, I felt kind of embarrassed. I was the only person out of 83 people to choose Michigan to win it all. I shared a lot of the same picks as everyone else, but Michigan is where I differed. No one else even had Michigan going to the Championship game, let alone winning it. I kissed my twenty bucks away, I figured.
If you're reading this, or simply just breathing and occupying space, then you probably already know that Michigan is in the Finals tonight against Louisville. That fact alone is surprising to most. The fact that I am in first place in this 83-person pool and will win it all if Michigan wins is more surprising.
But what's most surprising to me is how by randomly entering a pool and by choosing by my childhood team, I have experienced emotions that haven't been tapped into in twenty years. I want to go shoot hoops. I want to go set up a screen on that guy walking his dog. I want to be Trey Burke. Or Mitch McGary. I will deeply feel their pain if they lose. I will write them a letter with a drawing on it if one of them screws up badly.
In other words, I'm twenty years older but I feel like I'm seven all over again.
But if this is all just a dream, please don't wake me.
