The passion isn’t burning, but there are hot coals that ignite this time of year with the winds of March. My brain piles on memories until the fire is once again raging.
My freshman dorm was designed by a firm that designed prisons and was on the opposite corner of the Rec Center, but right across the street from a little Italian place called Mama’s. For ten bucks you could get a massive plate of tortellini with marinara and sit in the shade of casually trimmed Queen’s Wreath on the back patio.
Log.
In the basement of the Student Union, $4.99 got you a chicken sandwich, fries and a medium drink at Louie’s Lower Level. That was the old Student Union that was demolished my sophomore year. It kicked off four years of construction while I attended.
Log.
My new friend Carlos and I were chatting before our Psychology 101 lecture started when I happened to mention Alaska. The girl in front of us turned around and asked why it was so cold in Alaska if it was down by Mexico. I had heard of such ignorance spawned by Lower 48 weather maps, but had never experienced it.
Log.
I chose the University of Arizona to be a Division I fan and ended up as the sports editor for the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the student run newspaper. I covered the team in 2002, the season after a loss to Duke in the National Championship game. The roster was lean thanks to the departures of Richard Jefferson, Gilbert Arenas, Michael Wright and Loren Woods to the NBA, but the team made the Sweet Sixteen. I sat on press row and watched the season collapse in the second half to No. 2 seeded Oklahoma.
In the locker room after the loss, I remember pointing my recorder toward freshman star Salim Stoudamire. The team was disappointed because even though they were underdogs, they cared. You have to earn the right to be proud or disappointed. Performative dejection is gross and probably more about shame for cowering in the moment than losing the game.
I wrote the recap and sidebar in the media room then made my way to the hospitality room at the hotel where well-lubricated (hammered) sportswriters were laughing and telling stories. It was a different group of we and I felt like a kid, because I was. Plenty of journalists I met at the Pac-10 Tournament and NCAA Tournament locations were friendly and helpful while others smelled the journalism major stink.
Log.
Instagram showed me the One Shining Moment clip from 1996, the year before Arizona won its only National Championship. I had just finished a podcast that referenced the “collective flow experience” and thought, that’s it. The inspiring nature of March Madness, before it became an opportunity to leverage performance into a better NIL deal or a way to gamble away tuition, mortgages or a lifestyle, was watching that collective flow experience. A team without NBA prospects taking down a favorite is the charm. Unless that favorite is Arizona.
With enough time, and a full-formed pre-frontal cortex, I can conduct a post-mortem on my college experience without being simply regretful of idiocy.
My friends put off a lot of heat. One was an engineering math and applied math major. Another pursued a degree in management information systems. Political science. Computer science. I had never been around such intellectually diverse and academically driven peers. My graduating class in Klawock, Alaska, had 16 kids and only three of us went to college, most choosing the trades or local jobs after turning the tassel.
We weren’t on a team, but friend groups that put off heat ignite something within you. We never talked about what would happen after we graduated or whether or not we would stay in touch. We’d finish our work then chase down opportunities. The goal wasn't a piece of paper or lifeline friends. Friendship and a college degree were the byproducts of the heat of work.
Watching the NCAA Tournament doesn’t make me wish I was back in college or that I had become a sportswriter. It does motivate me to approach my career with effort worthy of being disappointed, and tend to the creative embers that might get neglected by the demands of life.