NCAA Tournament

As I get older, I find that my memory is not what it used to be. This irritates me, because once upon a time I had a very good memory. I say "very good," because over the years, I've realized that I only remembered things that I care about. If I didn't care about it, I probably didn't remember it. I've never cared about numbers and I have always had trouble remembering phone numbers. The only way that I've ever remembered a birthday or anniversary is by fighting my natural inclination to not care about them (and ever since they were invented, setting Outlook reminders).

However, every year when the NCAA men's basketball tournament starts, all of a sudden I realize that I can remember all sorts of college basketball things from years and years ago.

Starting lineup of the 1985 St. John's Redmen, my second favorite team ever? Check. (Mark Jackson, Willie Glass, Chris Mullin, Walter Berry, Bill Wennington...coached by Lou Carneseca.)

Starting lineup of the 1983 Houston Cougars, aka Phi Slamma Jamma, my favorite team ever? Check. (Reid Gettys, Alvin Franklin, Larry Micheaux, Clyde Drexler, Akeem Olajuwan...Michael Young off the bench...coached by Guy Lewis.)

Favorite name of a player? Memphis State's Baskerville Holmes, who played in the early 1980's with Keith Lee and Andre Turner.

Names of Rick Barry's sons? Sure...Scooter (Kansas), Jon (Georgia Tech), Brent (Oregon State) and Drew (Georgia Tech).

I can go on like this for awhile...but I usually don't because unless I'm around other people that know some of the same minutiae that I do, I've found that most people find it obnoxious. (Especially when I do stuff like insisting on spelling Hakeem Olajuwan's name the way that it was in '83 or referring to the University of Memphis by its former name.)

Most people point to the 1979 NCAA championship game that featured Magic Johnson and Larry Bird as the point that most people really began to pay attention to college basketball. I come from a basketball family, so I remember that, but in all honesty, it didn't stand out to me any more than famed Catholic Al McGuire and Marquette winning the title in 1977. We were, after all, an Irish-Catholic basketball family.

No, my defining moment with the tournament was the 1983 one...known famously to most people as the Jim Valvano year. That was because Valvano's North Carolina State team upset my beloved Houston Cougars -- who had just won the most entertaining basketball game ever by defeating Louisville in the semifinals -- and the coach ran all over the court trying to find someone to hug. It was already a big deal just because of the last second nature of the shot that won the game...but its taken on epic proportions since Valvano's untimely death from cancer.

To this day, I remember staying up on a Friday night early in that tournament and watching NC State come from behind and beat Jim Harrick's Pepperdine team. The game didn't get over until after midnight Eastern time and I didn't sleep for a while after that because I was annoyed at the outcome. From that point on, I watched every game of that tournament that was televised...which, let's face it, wasn't anywhere near what it would become years later.

So, there it is...not only do I watch the NCAA Tournament every year, I watch replays of old games on random cable channels.

This is the stuff that I can remember...but I have to set a reminder on my phone for my wedding anniversary and I start most conversations with business associates with, "Hey, how's it going?" so that I can buy time to remember their name.

God willing, I suppose, I'll be in the home someday babbling on about why Louisville's Rodney and Scooter McCray were a better sibling teammate tandem than Stanford's Robin and Brook Lopez...all the while calling everyone on the staff, "Hey you!"