March 13, 2009

WASHINGTON - The tale, as it so often does among men, began with meat.

You read any book long enough, you find good sentences here and there. And so it had been for AU over the decades: a few moments of bliss - a Kermit Washington averaging 20 and 20 here, a Willie Jones and Frank Ross there - covered by, overwhelmed by, really, years of pain. Gut-wrenching, searing pain.

Through the years in Division I, through the conferences - the MAC, the ECC, the ECAC South, the CAA - our Eagles were sometimes good, more often mediocre, almost always doomed to some kind of mythic failure on the rare occasions that they were close to the NCAA tournament.

Did the '81 team, which went 11-0 in regular-season play in the ECC and took a 24-4 overall record into the tournament title game against St. Joseph's, really blow a 14-point first-half lead and a six-point lead with four minutes left?

Yup.

Did the '89-'90 team, with the 20-8 record, lose to Richmond in the CAA semis, in double overtime, when a Spider named Curtis Blair threw in a prayer at the buzzer than banked in off the glass, after a scramble in which the ball somehow went through two Eagles' hands and bounced back to him?

Yes.

Did the '01-'02 team, the top seed, playing at home in the Patriot tournament final against...Holy Cross...have a one-point lead with a minute to go, and a chance to win in the final seconds, only to have a baseline jumper hit the backboard and bounce away?

Why do you keep asking me these questions? You know the answers.

This is where the meat came in.

As an exercise in gallows humor, soon after our arrival in Spring Valley, my friends and I likened being an AU fan to sitting down for a scrumptious meal, one you've been waiting for for, say, a few decades. The silverware is shined; the napkins are a brilliant white; the plates are clean enough for you to see your reflection.

And then you smell the meat. A beautiful roast, perhaps a T-bone prepared to perfection. A ribeye, maybe. You hear the pop of the steak sizzling on the grill; you smell the succulent flavors; you imagine the meat falling off the bone.

Then, they put the meat on a wench above you.

Odd, you figure, but what the hell; you're hungry. Slowly, they lower the meat. The drippings cascade down your cheek. Your taste buds snap to attention. The meat is a few tantalizing inches away. You open your mouth to take the first glorious bite, and...

They snatch the meat back up. Like Lucy taking the football away from Charlie Brown.

This was what being an AU basketball fan was like. Last-second defeats, improbable losses, horrifying exits from conference tournaments, so close to our goal, to make the NCAAs, could be explained away with a shrug, a grimace, a gnashing of teeth and one terrible, awful, depressingly consistent word: meat.

Coaches, some very good ones, came and went, as did athletic directors, university presidents and fundraisers, many convinced they were the ones who could bring March Madness to Ward Circle. The years piled up. Alums grew angry, then resentful, then accepting. It was not meant to be, not here.

But with the turn of the century came Jeff Jones, a good man in search of a second chance, to a school that had never been on that first date. Over the years, his teams didn't break through, and yet, in the back of one's mind, lay an observation: his teams are almost always playing their best at the end of the season.

It did not happen overnight, but it began to happen, slowly. First came a move to the Patriot League, a conference more in keeping with our school's budget realities and academic desires. Then came a new president, for whom athletics was an important part of university life, not something to be tolerated, then ignored.

Then, finally, in came players. Better players. Players from storied high school programs. In one incredible class. This class. Class of '09.

Senior Brian Gilmore

Mercer.
Carr.
Nichols.
Gilmore.
Simon.
Borden.
Markusovic.

They grew and struggled and lost some, but they won a lot more. They became upperclassmen. But as juniors, they were picked to finish seventh in a preseason Patriot League poll. Seventh.

People didn't know.

You, Derrick Mercer! Point guard for St. Anthony's High in Jersey, one of the country's best prep programs, coached by a legend, Bob Hurley, Sr., who called you one of the best on-ball defenders he'd ever seen.

And you, Garrison Carr! Your senior year in high school, you dropped 31 on the number-two team in Washington state and knocked them out of the playoffs - a team that had two future NBA players on it, Martell Webster and Spencer Hawes.

And you, Jordan Nichols! Played at DeMatha, the premier high school program in the area, maybe in the whole country, with four decades of excellence at your back.

In the winter of 2007, things really began cooking. They won at places AU hadn't won in years, like...Holy Cross. They went to College Park and smacked Maryland around, beat them...soundly, giving the Eagles a win over the Terps for the first time since before the Great Depression. Carr, all 5-whatever of him, knocked down threes at a prolific rate all season. And yet the NCAA sat just offshore, tantalizingly close, as it had always been.

Meat, thought the alums.

They were third in the Patriot, then second, and they kept winning. His teams are almost always playing their best at the end of the season. And lo and behold, the other teams in the Patriot lost a game here and there, and AU didn't, and at the end of the regular season, the Eagles were in first place, with home court - Bender Magic! - throughout the tournament.

Game one, against...Holy Cross.

My friend Dan was sitting next to an elderly alum during that quarterfinal. Dan was beside himself with anxiety. If AU could finally rid itself of the Crusaders' albatross, what else was possible?

"I've been waiting 20 years for this," said Dan, Class of '86.

The old man alum harrumphed. He actually harrumphed.

"Been waitin' for 40," he said, and really, there's no good response to that, is there?

Last-minute game. AU down one. Ball goes out front to Brian Gilmore, who came here after being injured for almost two full seasons in high school. Gilmore's not a quitter, though, and he worked his way back. Gilmore drives the lane, stops, pump-fakes, gets fouled, puts it in. Eagles up one. Gilmore sets, shoots...and the free throw goes in. Doesn't the kid know the history around here?

Crusaders come down, get two shots at it - one to tie, one to win. The last one, to win. A three in the corner. The kind of shot that's gone down and killed AU dreams since the Kennedy Administration. Except...the ball bounces away. No shot taken, no shot made. AU wins, 62-60.

Army next. Things look great in the first half. Bryce Simon, who's quietly become invaluable, the guy who kills teams that spend all their attention on Carr, is making Army pay every time it leaves him to find Carr. And then...Simon goes down, clutching his knee. Not Simon. Not now. Out for the season.

Meat, thought the alums.

A 15-point AU lead evaporates down to four with four minutes to play. And here comes...Nick Hendra? A freshman? Who hasn't played in the last nine games? Why is Nick Hendra in the game now? Why is Nick Hendra shooting a jumper now? Why is the ball going in the basket now? Doesn't the kid know the history around here?

AU, 72-60.

One game away. Again.

My friend Jay Bilas thinks that the NCAA tournament, if it wants the best 64 teams, should just eliminate some of the automatic berths that the smaller conference champions receive for winning their conference tournaments. And Jay is entitled to his opinion. But Jay might think differently if he'd been at Bender Arena on March 14, 2008. We have dreams, too, and we get one shot at them. Every dozen years or so.

In comes Colgate. Bender is packed. Hundreds of students, back early from Spring Break. Hundreds of alums and fans, putting their hearts on a platter, again, the emotion thick and powerful. It's a street fight, with both teams nervous, the crowd restless, never really able to let go because it knows the moment, knows the stakes.

It's one of those games that's endured, not won or lost, the lead going back and forth throughout the second half. AU down one with two minutes to go. This is where it ends. This is where it always ends.

Meat.

Except...here's Frank Borden, the kid who replaced Bryce Simon. He has the ball at the elbow. He turns, and throws a textbook bounce pass underneath to Nichols, the DeMatha kid. Layup. Three assists for Borden in the game, three baskets for Nichols off Borden's passes. AU up one. Colgate comes down, and shoots, and Nichols blocks it clean. AU ball. Mercer shoots, and misses, but there's Gilmore, flying out of bounds, throwing it blindly behind him back into play, and there's Mercer, all 5-whatever of him, grabbing the ball out of the air. Don't these guys know the history around here?

Less than a minute left. Eagles still up one. Meat juice dripping all over. AU's kids bear down, force a tough shot by Colgate with the shot clock running down--the kind of shot Curtis Blair banked in 20 years ago. This one misses. Gilmore gets the rebound. Gilmore gets fouled, with 31 seconds left. No pressure or anything, just the first NCAA berth in school history. Shoots two. Makes two. Eagles up three.

Colgate has the ball and wants to find its star, Kyle Roemer. Except Borden won't let him get the ball. The ball goes back out front, and there's Gilmore again, slapping at it. Slapping it away. Diving on the floor. Coming up with the ball. You ask people about the five most important plays of the season, they'll say Gilmore's made four of them.

Eighteen seconds left. Mercer gets fouled. Let's be honest, Mercer hasn't had his best game. He's had a rough day. He's taken 14 shots at the basket--10 from the floor, four from the foul line - and made one. Uno. Ein. Ohfer from the line. No pressure or anything, just the pent-up dreams of two generations.

Seniors Derrick Mercer and Jordan Nichols

Mercer shoots. Swish.
Mercer shoots again. Swish.
Don't these kids...

Shut up, old man. Things are different now.

Now it's Colgate that's desperate, that throws up a prayer, which misses. And it's Gilmore - it's always Gilmore - that comes up with the rebound. And who makes the final free throw. And the buzzer sounds, and the crowd empties onto the court, and Jeff Jones, the coach who just wanted a second chance, buries his head in a towel and sobs.

A few hundred feet away, so do I.

They are tears of joy and relief and remembrance, of people who you don't know, people who kept AU playing Division I sports when there wasn't money for a Division I program, people who died believing something magical was possible at Ward Circle, someday.

I will tell you their names, for they deserve the moment. Men named Bob Frailey, and Mike Trilling, and Mark Asher, and Marc Splaver, and Craig Tartasky. I cried because AU meant so much to them, and this moment would have meant so much to them. I cried because my little boy thinks AU always wins, because they won this time. I cried because I couldn't believe my school, finally, was going to be in the NCAAs. Why that meant so much to me, I can't tell you. But it did.

Later that night, my friends and I, and our wives and girlfriends, went to a restaurant. The waiter asked what we wanted.

We wanted meat.

The meat came, and we each put a slab on our forks, and made a meat toast, to AU and our friends and all those teams and all those coaches from long ago, and to our friends that had passed away, and to this wonderful, special team, led by the seven from the Class of '09, from Derrick Mercer to Frane Markusovic, and its wonderful, special coach, who made us so happy and brought back so many memories and made us feel young again, anticipating what life would bring.

You won't understand that today, when AU did it all again, against...Holy Cross.

But you will. Someday. Sooner than you can possibly imagine.

Go Eagles.