Final Four

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Four of us friends went to THE Final Four victory celebration. It was April of 1997, and the Arizona Wildcats had finally won it all. What was our goal? Get to the players! What would we do, once we got them? We had no idea. Getting an autograph was always on my mind, but not a priority for Sam and Eric. It was about proximity. Maybe they’d acknowledge us, talk to us, or want to set up a time to shoot hoops with us. Whatever the case, whatever the outcome might be…we first had to get to them.

One morning a couple years ago I woke up and let our three dogs out into the backyard. They bolted, yapping as viciously as twelve-pound fluffy white dogs can, for the corner of the yard toward the neighbor’s cat, who always hops the wall and gets away. The difference this time was that the cat leapt onto the lid of our alfalfa box in the back yard, which happened to be covered in a thin coating of the morning dew. The cat landed and it’s legs immediately flew out from under it and it slid off the lid on it’s back and onto the ground in front of our three ferocious carnivores. They’d done it. They had successfully caught the cat! And what did they do? They stood there, stunned at their success, as the cat regained it’s footing and levitated six feet up and over the wall.

The photo above captures a parallel moment in which my friends and I caught up to Miles Simon on the field of Arizona Stadium. There he was, and we had no idea what to say or do. The photographer for the Arizona Daily Star captured the moment perfectly. There we were, mouths open in adoration, as Miles scurried away with the trophy and the wave of his hand. The photographer decided he loved it. It captured the spirit of the day. Kids adoring their hero as he held the trophy they aspired to earn themselves one day. The editor admired the photo and cropped it down to size. He cropped me and the other guy off of the right side and sent it off to print. (I apparently cropped the other guy out of my mind entirely as I can’t remember his name!) Eric and Sam got to be on the front page. My only consolation was that, perhaps, I was making a ridiculous face too, and the photographer spared me.

I have never forgotten this day. I can see this photo from the paper in my mind’s eye at anytime. I wonder if I would remember it if I hadn’t been there on a mission with my friends. I know I wouldn’t have chased players alone. Even my angst in being cropped off the front page is so acute because my friends got the glory. It’s something we razzed each other about for years. They rubbed their accomplishment in my face, and reminded them how moronic they looked. Both Sam and Eric have died, and this newspaper clipping is one of the treasured memories we have of them together. I no longer care that I got cropped. I’m glad that the two of them got this moment in the spotlight, and that they got it together.

This year I filled out my second NCAA bracket of all time. I swore I wouldn’t do another after I won a workplace bracket twenty years ago. I won by choosing my favorite team names, mascots, and my bosses’ least favorite team to go all the way. Duke won it all, and so did I! This year though, as I seek to remember my friends who are gone and open myself up to the friendships before me, I jumped into two groups for the shared experience. I filled out this bracket for the sake of my friends. I picked Michigan for Eric, Ole Miss for the boss who hates Duke, the Illinois Illini for the family I met I lived with in Chicago, and the U of A as national champions for the majority of my friends and I in Tucson. It made watching the tournament more fun than ever. My connection to teams felt stronger, and the sting of defeat was a little more intense. I felt a lot of that sting this year. My bracket was a total bust!

I’m glad I participated this year, because I wasn’t doing it alone.

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Final Four was originally published in 2,000 Miles to Wrigley on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.