John Krull
I was traveling back from Paris to Indianapolis by way of Atlanta. For reasons inexplicable to everyone on board, the live TV options on the flight from Georgia to Indiana didn’t carry the NCAA Men’s Elite Eight showdown between Purdue University and the University of Tennessee.
So, word traveled up and down the aisle as those who had better internet connections shared updates of Purdue’s battle to get back to the Final Four for the first time in more than 40 years. We heard of Zach Edey’s monster game — 40 points and 16 rebounds — in snippets.
This, somehow, made it seem even more impressive.
There was something communal about having to share the ebbs and flows of the contest by word of mouth. The fact that we couldn’t see it made it more of a shared event.
By the time we landed in Indy, the game was over, the Boilermakers were going to the big dance and everyone deplaned smiling.
It also brought back a happy memory.
More than a quarter-century ago, my wife and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. Her brother and his soon-to-be wife had chosen our anniversary weekend to exchange their own marriage vows.
The site for their wedding was beautiful — Block Island, just off the coast of Rhode Island.
But it was also remote. The rustic old hotel where everyone stayed didn’t have TVs in the rooms — or even in the splendid old 19th-century bar.
The Indiana Pacers faced the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals that year. It was the height of the epic Pacers-Bulls rivalry in the ’90s. The series went the distance and, in many ways, determined not just who would win the conference title but the league championship because the two teams arguably were the best in the NBA.
Our anniversary was on the day after the family wedding.
My wife and I opted to stay on Block Island and celebrate. We found a lovely place to have dinner — the cupola of the lighthouse attached to the old hotel. It was so small it only could accommodate a table for two and one server, who had to clamber up and down a spiral staircase while loading and unloading the dumb waiter that brought us our meals. It was cozy and intimate, and it offered a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean and the night sky.
That same night, the Pacers and the Bulls squared off in the decisive game seven of their series.
Both my wife and I wanted to know how the game was going.
Our waiter, a nice young man, brought us updates as the game seesawed back and forth. As he moved us through the courses and kept our wine glasses filled, he filled us in on the score and told us who was in foul trouble.
When dessert arrived, we learned that the Pacers had come up on the short end, 88-83.
We shook our heads and murmured the losing sports fans’ traditional lament, “wait ’til next year,” along with the waiter, who had become a Pacers fan over the course of the evening.
Over the years, my wife occasionally has referred to that night as our “basketball anniversary.” We both smile when she does so.
Part of what made that game and that night stick in memory, just as the Purdue victory will, is that the experience cut to the essence of sports.
What draws us to games and contests are the chances they afford us to share experiences, to feel together a moment when something is at stake.
I never have been a rabid partisan in the Purdue-Indiana University rivalry. Although my loyalties have leaned more toward IU — largely because that’s where my late brother went to school — I’ve been happy to cheer when the Boilermakers do well, too.
I suspect I’m not the only Indiana citizen who feels that way.
The young men playing for Purdue have battled through setbacks and disappointments to get where they are now. That’s not just an inspiring sports story.
It’s an inspiring human story.
I doubt most of the people on that plane from Atlanta to Indy began life — or even the flight — as Purdue fans. When they got off the plane, though, they were.
Let’s hope for the Boilers that next year is this year.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students, where this commentary originally appeared. The opinions expressed by the author do not reflect the views of Franklin College. Send comments to [email protected].
