Which Team Are We On?

My husband and I are not on the same team. He’s on the Golden State Warriors. I’m on the couch next to him, listening to him be on his team. I’m not on his team because I’m not on a team.

I don’t know too much about basketball. What I do is watch basketball with my husband.

And before we go any further, just so we’re clear, by ‘watch’ I mean ‘sit near my husband and work on cartoons while he sits in front of the Golden State Warriors on TV’.

Basketball, as far as I know, is a lovely pastime where I draw animals and think up gags and listen to my partner of 25+ years react vociferously to what the GSW does, didn’t do, or should have done.

No Investment

I believe that during those moments when my husband is experiencing angst over his team, I’m light and breezy floating on air due to the buffer that basketball ignorance provides. It’s safe and joyful. If you don’t know about basketball and sit down to ‘watch’ it with a highly invested fan, you will be happy too. No investment = light and unencumbered heart. Non-fandom has its advantages.

I love my TV basketball dates with my husband. From the middle of October each year until June, I will ask him, “Honey, do you have a game tonight?” I know that sounds like he has a basketball game, like he’s a basketball player. Now, I’m not going to describe the particulars of my husband, but you should know that he most definitely is not a basketball player, nor was he ever.

But Steph Curry is, and that’s who would be having a game if my husband is having a game. The two of them would be joined in basketball--one a historic player for Golden State, the other a non-historic but eager fan of the GSW. And thanks to both these fellows, and to another fifteen tall and well-compensated guys, plus the opposing team, I get my cartoons done.

Past Investment

But I wasn’t always so removed from basketball. I grew up in New Jersey outside of Philadelphia and went to college at St. Joseph’s University in Philly which lent its Memorial Fieldhouse to the Philadelphia 76ers to practice in for years. Across the street from the Fieldhouse was a famous cheesesteak shop where you’d routinely find undergrads standing in line next to 76ers for grub: Larry’s Steaks.

I started at St. Joe’s the year after the 76ers won the NBA championship. Those players ordering post-practice chow were glitterati to us students, skyward heroes. They’d come into Larry’s in packs of two or three and tower over the rest of us. Is it possible I stood next to a young Charles Barkley who was waiting to slap down his cash for a cheesesteak just like I was waiting to slap down mine? Moses Malone? I would have recognized Dr. J if I’d seen him. Those professional players would be quiet, talking low and modestly to each other as they waited in line, and we commoners would peek at them out of the corners of our eyes.

About seven years after my freshman year, well after I’d left St. Joe’s, Kobe Bryant’s family repatriated from Europe to that area of Philly after his dad retired from an overseas basketball career. This is when Kobe began his own illustrious high school basketball career and his long patronage of Larry’s Steaks. Now that he’s gone, it would have been nice to know I’d stood next to him.

So, you can see, basketball is intertwined with cheesesteak hoagies for me. At least, there’s a strong association. But what I think of primarily when I see the letters ‘NBA’ is Steph Curry chewing on his mouthguard. While I don’t look at the TV too much on my basketball dates, when I do, Steph is on the screen gnawing on that thing. Recently I discovered you can even buy a t-shirt with that very image--Steph Curry chewing on his mouthguard. They sure have something for everyone.

The Richter Scale

But despite little knowledge of the game, I’m not a basketball indifferent. At least not when it comes to college ball. College basketball is where I cut my teeth on the game, then where I walked away from it, and finally where I returned like a lost dog who’d been searching for a home.

After I left St. Joe’s to finish college at UC Davis, my brother graduated from St. Joe’s and between the two of us we formed a small de facto St. Joe’s Hawks basketball fan club. Because of this, the two of us and our extended family all drove up to the now defunct Meadowlands Arena to watch St. Joe’s play their Elite 8 game against Oklahoma State in the 2004 NCAA tournament. Of all the big sporting events I’ve been to, this was the most thunderous on the Richter scale for me—not in terms of the noise (it was very noisy), not in terms of the stomping (there was that), but in terms of my soul.

The game went back and forth until the very last minute. It was utterly tense. Most of the fans in the huge arena were from St. Joe’s, less than a two hour drive south. We held our breath for one whole minute: Oklahoma took the lead at 41 seconds; St. Joe’s at 30; Oklahoma at 7 seconds, bringing it to 64-62. Still holding our breath, Hawks Jameer Nelson, the top senior player in the country that year, took a shot from the outside, right at the buzzer—and missed.

The arena—I will never forget it. It was a phenomenon, the sound. For the whole of the night it was deafening, but in that split second, after the harrowing screech of the buzzer, the place stood silent. Silent. Sure, there was some noise from the out-of-state fans, but not much. In that instant, although I didn’t know it at the time, my heart was severed from basketball.

That must sound piteous, or like I’m a fair-weather fan. But the truth is, I was such a huge fan I couldn’t take it. The let-down was so big. And knowing myself, I find that a mystery. Why and how could I possibly care so much about a sport I never played and knew very little about? I was coming to understand how deeply sports, and being a fan, can run in us.

But I returned to basketball in 2019 out of necessity. My oldest was a sophomore at University of Virginia (or a ‘second year’) and we’d already been through the Cavaliers’ heartrending oust the year before by UMBC—a game that saw a No. 16 seed beat a No. 1 seed for the first time in history. Ouch. That game was a stunner, but I tentatively bounced back for the following season.

I’ll never forget the night of the final game in 2019, sitting next to my youngest son who’d committed to UVA just days prior to join his brother there. We were on the couch in front of the TV watching UVA battle it out with Texas Tech. It stretched into the night, and my son had a physics exam the next day at school, but we stayed glued to the game. When it was finally over and UVA had won the title, I turned and said to my son, “Looks like you chose the right school.” He smiled. It was the most exciting moment on the planet right then. I can say that with certainty.

And just like that, I was back.

It’s easy to love college hoops and it’s easy to be broken by them. What are the odds again for a perfect bracket? Apparently, 1 in 120+ billion if you're versed in the sport. What that says to me is that it’s heartbreaking for everybody. But then, those Cinderella teams are hope personified for all of us, too. This is fandom and being a part of something. It’s great when it’s good, and even better when it brings folks together for the good.

Hoop Dreams

As we move into the NBA Finals, I’m thinking it might behoove me to see what kind of life I’d have if I chose a team and started watching the game, instead of just ‘watching’ it. Would it be beneficial to my marriage? It might be risky. For example, my husband is West Coast, I’m Beast Coast. He’s GSW. What team would I choose? Do I go back up to Philly like in the old days, when I stood next to those guys at the hoagie shop? Do I venture to NY, where I went to grad school and had my first kid? We’ve got a team here, too, in DC. It’s something to ponder, so I’ll sleep on it.

The NBA season is winding down and soon my basketball dates in my family room will be put to bed until next year. No more GSW and their mouthguards. No more of my husband coaching his team from the stuffed maroon chair with the pile of snack food at his side. No more drawing cartoons in this familiar space.

But since life is about coming back, and so is sports, I’ll be back next year, same time, same place, with the cartoons and husband, with Golden State, with the wins and losses, with the snacks and cozy blankets. While you can’t predict life, I do hope these plans are a slam dunk.

Even though I don’t follow basketball or root for a team, in truth the real team is me and my husband. When we show up to support each other’s interests, that’s the essence of being on the same team. My husband watches the GSW while I draw cartoons--for the same team. Our team.

And even though all of us are on one or more of the countless kinds of teams in life out there, in the end, whether we realize it or not, whether we want to realize it, we're all on the same team, too.

I say, go team.