God, but when did I start becoming a fan again?
From 1978-96 I was a sportswriter for daily newspapers. I covered a lot of different things, but my two biggest areas of expertise were college basketball and professional football. I actually had four years of traveling beats — in Missouri and Nevada — covering basketball, which was sort os wonderful.
I’ve written before about being respected enough that in two different seasons I was one of 50 or so voters in the Associated Press college basketball poll, and there were two seasons I covered the NCAA tournament all the way to the Final Four.
I also did four regionals from coast to coast — Atlanta in 1984, Providence in 1985, Kansas City in 1986 and Oakland in 1990.
There was really only one team of which I cared enough to be a fan — Virginia of the Atlantic Coast Conference. I suffered when they came up short in the Ralph Sampson years, and sort of got away from really caring in the ’90s and the ’00s when they weren’t really that good.
But Tony Bennett changed all that when he came on board in 2013. For one thing, the Wahoos won the ACC tournament twice and won several regular-season championships. They came up short in the NCAAs until 2019 when wonder of wonders, they went all the way and won the NCAA title.
They haven’t won even one game in the tournament since, and when they lost to Furman on a last-second shot Thursday, I was in agony.
Once the Hoos were out, they only enjoyment was hoping teams I dislike would lose. I was halfway home when North Carolina didn’t even make it to the tournament, and Tennessee gave me the other half by knocking Duke out of the tournament in the second round.
So now it’s wait till next year.
I really wish I didn’t care.