Too Old to Cry but It Hurts too Much to Laugh

 

My wife and I have a standing joke that anywhere we go I know someone. Comes with getting old, I guess. I sold her on going to last night’s UMSL men’s college basketball game with the angle they have a good team and nobody we know will be there. The officials come out and I say, “that is the guy who waived off John Coverdale’s tip in at the 1996 district tournament.” She rolled her eyes.

I had not seen the official since that night almost 27 years ago. We were both two younger men trying to do the best job we could, both mandatory cogs in the great student experience of high school basketball. The difference: for him it was an avocation, for me it was my vocation. I would imagine he slept soundly that night.

The two settings could have not been more distant. The UMSL campus is two miles from ground zero of the Michael Brown Ferguson riots, much different than the demographics surrounding this official and my self’s 1996 “heart of the Ozarks” encounter. 

Licking, MO is the kind of place where every boy, as soon as puberty allowed, grew a beard, where every male of driving age owned a pickup truck. At my first Saturday morning November practice, all 12 varsity players showed up dressed in camouflage hunting gear. Basketball practice on the opening day of deer hunting season? This new coach must be serious.

We were 24-2 and our opponent was 25-2. In overtime, down one, John Coverdale, who was a sophomore and only in the game because three starters had fouled out, made a very athletic corkscrew leap from behind the basket to tip in a missed shot. The official working at UMSL last night was the trail official that night 27 years ago. He waived off the tip in as after the buzzer. We lose by one. On the game video the scoreboard clock is visible behind the basket. In those days, with no tenth of a second feature on scoreboard clocks, when the clock turned to zero there was still one second yet to run off before the horn would automatically sound. Of course, we later timed it with a stopwatch, and of course, we thought the basket should have counted. John Coverdale became a good high school player, but for me, he will always live in a shadow of what if.

I clearly recall how physical this game was. Two back-alley brawlers who had battled each other through 32 evenly matched minutes of regulation and nearly four minutes of overtime and were still running neck and neck. We hit a buzzer beating trey to force overtime. When the combined records entering a “winner take all” game of the two combatants is 49-4, neither is giving an inch and a good team is going home crushed.

To be fair, the gym was packed to the rafters, and no one could hear the horn go off, signaling the end of the game. MSHSAA (the state athletic body) at the time had a policy that in playoff games a starter’s pistol was to be kept at the scorer's table and shot off if the officials felt the crowd noise was such that they might not hear the horn. The gun, not the horn, would signal the end of the game. There was no gun at the scorer’s table. The hosting AD told me afterwards, “we dropped the ball.” But using a starters pistol was wrought with human error, as well. I have seen it used several times in just such hard to hear situations when the gun was shot off either too early or too late.

In baseball the tie goes to the runner. In football, simultaneous possession goes to the offense. Basketball has no such rule and good officials will admit there are times they just have to make a guess, one that must be done immediately and decisively. And in high school basketball, there is no replay video review. Life is not fair. My biased evaluation, after reviewing the video evidence and timing numerously with a stopwatch the last second is the shot should have counted. But it was bang-bang close, and it was a very tough call, so I will be gracious.  In Licking, that video is still played endlessly, frame by frame, Zapruder-like, a mini-epic in every split second. 

Last night, I approached the official at half time, and I asked, do you remember me? He looked like he had seen a ghost, but he immediately knew me by name and asked how I was. I said, “better than the last time I saw you.” He said, “we were talking about you over Christmas at the Blue and Gold Tournament.” Oh boy, I said. He said no it was all good, “those were some great teams, great coaches and great memories.” I concurred. He told me that in four months he would be retiring from his job as an elementary school principal.

I learned early to clear the slate. When a game was over, and it was time to get ready for the next one. Learn and move on. Except this one. For the only time in over 30 years in a profession that will drive you mad if you let it, I will admit, that night I didn’t sleep. This group were nail drivers. Between the lines they never let up. There was a lot of competition for best overachiever award, and they deserved a better ending. They say over the years you will not remember who won or lost. I remember. But the magic of sports is that there is always the potential for great drama, and I know well the advice of it’s the journey not the destination.  It is a crazy, improbable, illogical way to put food on the family table. It is also rewarding beyond measure. 

Connie Chung once asked Marlon Brando his philosophy of life. He said, “You take your last breath, and you say to yourself, what was that all about?" There's no disputing my single-mindedness over this game has never subsided. I don’t know if the proper term is imbalanced, unbalanced or out-of-balance, but I am sure I am one, maybe all three.

Like life, fate is the force that swings the pendulum of playoff basketball. It is always a zero-sum proposition- survive and advance, where one team’s gain is another's loss. The paths of this official and I, since March 1996, completely diverged only to cross again last night. We shall ever remain linked by one game that still hurts. And that is ok. We were both there for the kids. I hope he enjoys his retirement, and I hope he was an impacting elementary principal.