Welcome to my morning-after. My throat is still sore and the only words that come out of my mouth come out in a raspy low register. I sit down to listen to the post-game conference and to read Adam Lucas' latest piece of wisdom and I smile and laugh because last night was wonderful. I watched my Heels play in Carmichael. I watched them win in Carmichael. I shouted the words to Victory and I swayed with pretty much complete strangers singing Hark the Sound.
Friends, let's talk about basketball a second. It should make some of you happy, seeing how the mighty have fallen. It might make you angry, knowing that the win last night was something that just happens in Carolina basketball. It's one of those games where the fans are loud, the refs are as terrible as the fans shout that they are, and the team plays until the very last second of the game. We haven't seen anything like that, not for a while. And it's good. It might not be the NCAA, but the National Invitational Tournament is still post-season play for a team that might not have started to play until after their season is over. It's a second chance, a fresh start as Marcus said. Everyone deserves a chance to fly. Again.
But, see, redemption doesn't make the rest of the season go away. They still screwed up against Duke. That stings. They still dropped the Georgia Tech game. Three times. Three times. They still lacked intensity and focus and they still drove me insane. People can still point to this season and the blemish will still be there. Even Roy is disappointed, though I think more in himself than in the team. My mom said that Dean Smith knew how to make a team a team and that just hasn't happened this year. The last thing Roy said at the press conference was something like, "It's my job to get them to play better and I just haven't done a good enough job at that this year." He was talking about the team caring, that when you play Carolina basketball, you have to have a passion for what you're doing. You have to have a passion. You, the player, the one on the court. And Roy is sure it's his fault that his players don't have a passion.
After I spent last night abusing the refs, I turned the abuse around. I gave up yelling at basketball games for Lent. Lenten vow broken. Massively. It's like giving up chocolate and then going and stealing all three of the chocolate Easter bunnies that your parents had bought for your family and eating them in one binge night with a chocolate milk shake to wash it down. Pent up basketball related things just poured out of me for hours last night, often leaking over into my description of the rest of the world. Please, if you have any kind of respect for me and don't want to loose it, stay away from me during a game. I'm a terrible person. And I carried that conception into the rest of my life.
I wonder if you know how much guilt is associated with this season? I broke a vow, that really I made in order to address the beast inside of me but was completely ineffective in that regard. I care. A lot. And I shouldn't. I don't know who this person is that screams at the television and at the court, but I can't just out of hand reject her. She's a part of my season. I just wish that she could apply her adrenalin rush to things that actually help. Not that Carolina basketball doesn't help. I think the world would be a much worse place without Dean Smith. But me yelling at a game doesn't feed anyone, it doesn't encourage anyone, it doesn't free anyone. The only positive consequence is that I get my anger out in one place so I can think about everything else, but even then, there are some things that are worth getting angry about.
I came in hoarse from the game and my roommate asked me if I had been yelling. I said some expletive and then yes. And she joked and said that Jesus died a little just then. And I said that Jesus had been dying since about the 12 minute mark of the second half.
Let's face it. Jesus has been dying my whole life.
I want to make Him live.
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