Here’s a question for you.
What was the happiest moment of your life?
It may sound like an easy question, but I’m going to set some limits that will make it much tougher. First, it can’t be anything that actually happened to you — getting a job, falling in love, having sex for the first time, having children or grandchildren. Finding Jesus.
All these things are too big, too easy.
We’ll allow one exception. If you attended something life-changing and world famous, for instance if you went to Woodstock, you can count that.
I’ll allow another exception to the “happened to you” category — something you did without the involvement of anyone else. I’ll give two examples from my own life.
The first game I ever bowled, at the age of 10, 18 of my 20 shots were gutter balls and my score was 9.
Twenty-seven years later, I had become an average bowler with a league average in two different leagues of 154. Then in the last league I ever bowled in, I made six consecutive strikes and had a score of 222.
That felt wonderful.
The first time I played 18 holes of golf of a full-length course, it took me 135 strokes. My first goal was the one of any duffer — to break 100. After about four years of trying and improving, I shot a 98.
I remember reading that among American men who play golf, only about 10 percent broke 90.
In 2010, my last year in California, I shot an 83 on a pretty good course.
We moved to Georgia in 2010 and we live in a community that includes a golf course. For the first couple of years we were here, I was shooting in the low 80s fairly consistently. I broke 80 a couple of times.
Sadly, I haven’t played for years and I would be hard pressed to shoot 95 these days.
When we first moved to Georgia, I had a lot of great memories on my wall.
No doubt all the comebacks I saw John Elway lead in Denver’s Mile High Stadium would be high on the list, and the Washington Nationals winning the World Series in 2019 would be up there too.
But in 16 years as a sportswriter, the highest level I reached was covering college basketball. I had traveling beats for two years in St. Louis covering Missouri and two years in Reno covering Nevada. I covered two NCAA Final Fours, including a championship game 1985 at Kentucky’s Rupp Arena some call the greatest championship game ever.
Villanova 66, Georgetown 64.
I was even selected as one of the voters in the Associated Press poll, first representing Colorado and second representing California.
So what would be the best moment of all?
No contest. I started following — and loving — University of Virginia basketball in 1965. There were some wonderful moments and terrible disappointments, but watching them win their first-ever NCAA title in 2019 was one of those rare “now I can die happy” moments.
Now I knew how Cubs fans felt in 2016 or how Brooklyn Dodger fans felt in 1955.
I remember saying even if they never won another tournament game, I would still be happy.
Guess what.
Four years later, they haven’t.
Still my best moment.