Falling in Love in March

March is my absolute favorite time of the year... Sure, there's not a lot of sunshine, but what this month DOES have is all of my favorite things...the Oscars, Irish festivites, spring fever, and above all else... the madness. MARCH MADNESS. That is college basketball's 65 team tournament which takes up 3 weekends of my life in March. It's a time that I make it about what I want to do. I'm totally selfish in March. And I don't care. It's a time when I kind of blow off friendships. If you want to hang out with me, I'll either be at the bar or at home on the couch watching the best of all sports. Seriously....girlfriends? What girlfriends? Unless it involves a bracket and some beer, I'm pretty much not available until the nets have been cut down at the Final Four the first week of April. The very first day of March, I am fired up! Hoops, hoops, hoops.

Many of my girlfriends don't quite understand this passion of mine. And sometimes it's hard for me to explain, but I can try... I first started playing hoops in the 5th grade. And I cried. I cried because I didn't really want to do it, but my mom and dad pushed me to try it to see if I liked it (they had to do this a lot with me). I quickly became a fan of it. And I was actually pretty good at it. Fine, I'll keep playing. But it was March of 1990 when I truly fell in love. His name was Christian Laettner and he played for Duke. He was beautiful. (Insert a roll of the eyes by every male reading this...Laettner was a pretty boy). I was down in the basement at our house in West Point, NY, turned on the TV and saw a basketball game was on. I thought, "Okay, I should really check this out. Maybe I'll learn something". What I didn't know was that I was watching my very first National Championship game between the Duke Blue Devils and the UNLV Runnin' Rebels. First I spotted Christian (sigh), then I noticed this short and sort of ratty looking point guard named Bobby Hurley. I was drawn to the team immediately. Laettner and Hurley just seemed the perfect little duo on the court. Hurley was throwing these alley-oop passes to Laettner and he'd slam it down. It just seemed like a team I wanted to cheer for. But they weren't doing so well against this team... in fact, they were losing by 30. The Runnin' Rebels were GOOD. I mean it was boys playing against BIG men. Nothing was going right for Duke. Bobby Hurley was playing awful (turns out the poor kid had the runs) and had to make several "runs" to the bathroom during the game, Coach Mike Krzyzewski was frustrated. This game made NCAA history as the biggest blowout ever in a National Championship game. And that night, I became a Duke fan. They were the good guys and I wanted cheer for them.

I became obsessed with the sport, the NCAA Tournament and I wanted this team to do well. So I decided to fully support them. If a Duke game was on, I revolved shopping trips with my mom around them. I watched every game that was on television. I learned the game, the strategy, and it was so much fun. My family would watch these games together. The year following the UNLV-Duke blowout, these 2 teams matched up again in the semi-final game of the Final Four... and Duke won.. by just 2 points, making it one of the biggest upsets in the history of the tournament. The Devils finally got their revenge against the Rebels. And it was the first time I saw 2 grown boys (and hardcore UNLV fans) cry. Duke went on to win the championship that year (their first), beating Kansas in the final.

In 1992, Duke made an attempt to win a second straight championship. They faced Kentucky in the Elite 8 round, a game that is now known as THE greatest college basketball game of all time. It had all the drama an NCAA tournament game should have. Overtime. Laettner had a perfect game (10 for 10 from the field, 10 for 10 from the free throw line... 30 points.) He was literally perfect. That perfection included a buzzer beater at the end of overtime to win the game (You might know the clip... "And there's the pass to Laettner. He shoots, Scoooores.") Now, I wouldn't know exactly how it went because I had to attend a winter formal dance that night.... I had a date and a dress and I had to go. I did manage to watch some of it though. We were having dinner at my friend Matt's house and there were a bunch of his family members in the basement watching the game. Already "fashionably late" (2 hours!) for the dance, some girls went to primp before we left. Screw that. I went downstairs with the guys to watch the end of this game. I was loving this game and hating this game. I knew I was watching something special. It was almost over. Just 5 more minutes. They'll wait 5 more minutes, right? Wrong. My friends made me leave with 19 seconds left. 19 seconds of the best college basketball game ever played!! I heard it on the f*cking radio on the way to the dance. Bitches. (I'm not bitter or anything) Now, I have to say... once Duke won, I did become quite a great date after that! I danced all night long.

Sidenote: my sister who didn't know jack about basketball went to this game and brought me home confetti as a souvenir. What a BITCH. Couldn't name a starter on the team, but yeah... thanks for the confetti.

This game took Duke to the Final Four, and after matching up with the Fab 5 of Michigan in the National Championship game, they won their second straight title. It was the best season of college basketball and I've been hooked ever since. Some people LOVE Duke, some people HATE them... for me, they taught me about the game I love. I jumped on their bandwagon when they were the underdogs. I met Coach K (their coach) the summer after their blowout with UNLV, and he was all class. I have continued my respect for the Dukies, and have since become a loyal fan of the University of Connecticut Huskies, my alma mater. They have taken me on quite a journey too, winning 2 national championships. But you always remember you're first love, even if you don't have a relationship with them or talk to them anymore. That's what Laettner and the Dukies did for me...they made me fall in love with this game. So this month marks another year of amazing moments. So tune-in to the tourney... Maybe you'll fall in love too.