Sports and Me

Something came to me last night as I watched two Hurricanes players streak down the rink toward the Edmonton Oilers' empty net and score with about a minute to play in the 7th game of the Stanley Cup Finals. As the puck hit the net, I knew then that the Carolina Hurricanes had won the Stanley Cup - the first North Carolina professional sports franchise ever to win a champoinship. At the same time, I realized, for the first time, that all the years I've thought I was a cursed sports fan were an illusion (or an allusion, given my penchant for stand-up comedy acts performed in the living rooms of others).

I used to dwell on all the NCAA basketball championship games that UNC should have won that they didn't; all the chances the UNC football team had to beat a ranked opponent to crack the Top 10 that ended in embarassing defeat; all the Super Bowls where the other team won; all the World Series games that the NL champion Braves have lost to wild card teams; all the times that Duke has beaten a favorite team and convince myself that I was doomed to pull for sports failures. Like my father, I could happily recount numerous games where the team I followed was either crushed mercilessly by its opponent or other games where my team (or player, in the case of tennis) seemingly had the win in the bag only to blow it in the last quarter or last inning or last 4 minutes of the half, or the last set, depending on the game. With that recounting came a certain satisfaction - it's easier to be funny (my goal is to have "She was funny" put on my tombstone) when you're talking about a loss or losses at the hands of the enemy.

As I settled down to watch the local news coverage after the game to see if the celebration in Raleigh was anything like the celebration in Atlanta, when the Braves won the World Series, I remembered that I had actually been in the home town or home state of championship winners more than once. In 1979, I was in the stands at the Gator Bowl when UNC upset Michigan. I was in Chapel Hill and a senior at UNC when Dean Smith won his first National Championship in 1982 with the storied team that featured Michael Jordan, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, and Jimmy Black, among others. That same year, I drove to Charlottesville, VA, to watch the UNC Men's Lacrosse Team beat Johns Hopkins and win the NCAA Men's Lacrosse title. I was in North Carolina in 1983 when State won the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and still there in 1993 when UNC won again in 1993. I drove to Atlanta in early 1992 and watched UNC beat Mississippi State in the Peach Bowl. I lived in Atlanta when the Braves won the World Series (I've been a Braves fan since I was a little girl, because they were as close to a home team that the National League had for a North Carolina resident - the Orioles were out of the question because they were in the AL) in 1995. I should have been in North Carolina when UNC won the NCAA Baskteball championship again in 2005, but was actually in Peru due to an airline snafu.

Now, in 2006, I was a mere 7 miles away from the site where the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup and last night, I asked myself (after spending most of the game trying to follow superstitions so that I wouldn't jinx the team) why I thought I wasn't one of the luckiest sports fans in the world. Okay, maybe someone who was born in 1960 and who's pulled for the Dallas Cowboys or the UCLA basketball team all their lives might be seen as a luckier fan. But, somehow, I think that I'm more fortunate because I've pulled for teams that have overcome embarassing losing seasons to rise to the top. I'm going to try to enjoy the moments of glory my teams have earned over the years. I'm sure I can find some other way to be funny - such as discussing my boyfriend's compulsions. Of course, if UNC blows it in the College World Series this year, I might forget all this.....