Hoop it up!

This may not be the right time to say this… but… I am not a big basketball fan.

My apologies to all the hoops fans out there, but I’m just not. I have never played it. I do not like to watch it on T.V. I do not really like to go to basketball games, either. I have been to a few UT basketball games, and enjoyed them marginally (a cute halftime show can make up a lot of ground.) I don’t know the terminology. I don’t understand why many of the basketball players look like scary thugs that I would not want to encounter on a city street.

And there are just so MANY of these games. I find myself asking, “Didn’t those teams already play each other at least FIVE times this season?” I honestly would rather get a bikini wax than watch a basketball game.

In high school, I didn’t much care for getting decked out in my cheerleading uniform and cheering at basketball games either. Wow, nothing quite like cheering in a hot, stinky high school gymnasium. I spent many games looking up at the scoreboard, wondering… “Is it over YET?”

So it’s funny, then, that I should marry an Indiana boy. A boy who grew up in the shadow of all things ‘basketball’. My husband loves college hoops. He loves watching the games, checking the scores, filling out his brackets for the tournament… ah, March Madness.

I try to act interested. He knows it’s an act. I try to be disappointed for Phil when IU or Texas loses. But really the only thing I like about college basketball can be summed up in three little words… “One Shining Moment”.

If you are a hoops fan, or if your spouse is a bona fide basketball junkie, like mine is… you know exactly what that is. And it is my FAVORITE part of the tournament. And it’s honestly not just because it means that the tournament has (finally) come to an end. I’m just a sentimental goofball.

That song makes me cry every damn year. I love to watch the short video montage of the tournament highlights, the victories, the spectacular shots, and the cutting down of the nets, all set to one unbelievably cheesy song. This, I know, is a little strange coming from someone who is not a big basketball fan.

Maybe it’s the late hour of the victory, and the fact that I’m usually tired. Maybe it’s just those young kids having an experience that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. But I love it, for whatever reason, and I wait for it, every year, on the night of the NCAA championship game. Regardless of who wins and who loses, I will watch the video, listen to the song, and get teary-eyed. And for one shining moment, I will be a fan. ;)