Goodbye

The bitter side of March

Exactly 16 years ago, I wrote this blog post for the Amherst Athletics website. I was a senior at the time, and our men’s basketball team had just made it off the bubble and into the 2009 NCAA Division III tournament.

Today, the piece serves as an interesting time capsule, a way of measuring how far we’ve come in a relatively short period of time. There were no D3 online prognosticators sharing data-based analyses about who will/won’t make it off the bubble (shout out to our friends at D3 Datacast). My teammates and I didn’t have smartphones—we looked up the bracket on our laptops or, if we weren’t in our rooms, on the communal computers strewn about campus. And while D1 teams at the time used to gather together and film their reaction during the selection show, it would’ve been laughable for D3 teams to do so.

My, how things have changed.

Spoiler alert—we made the tournament, Amherst’s 10th straight appearance in the NCAAs. Another spoiler alert—we lost in the first round, so my optimistically categorized “running series” ended after just one post.

After the game, and in the days that followed, my dad told me to write a final entry. He (rightly, I might add) thought that an abrupt end to the season and to my competitive basketball career might make for a rich topic to explore.

I couldn’t do it.

I just didn’t want to write the obituary on my basketball journey at Amherst, on the senior year that fell far short of my own expectations, and on the end of my time as a competitive basketball player. I was in a hurry to put it all behind me.

The pain of losing that last game can be so deep, so visceral. Two decades have done their part in blurring most of my high school and college basketball memories, yet the aftermath of those “last games” remain distinct. I can picture exactly where I sat in the locker room at the United Center when I sat weeping after my high school team lost in the Supersectional, just like I can recall the exact layout of the locker room at Richard Stockton where I hurriedly took off an Amherst jersey for the final time.

Each losing locker room during tournament season is a symphony of emotions. Some players, disappointed in how it all played out, can’t rip that jersey off fast enough. Others bury any feelings beneath six feet of denial, unwilling to come to grips with the fact that all of the driveway free throws and AAU roadtrips were ultimately leading to this untimely end. Some sob beneath their jerseys, adding a coat of salty tears to uniforms that will soon be worn by someone else. Others cry openly, unashamed. Why hide, after sharing so much joy, pain, and vulnerability with their brothers over the years?

Conference and NCAA tournaments are great fun for players, coaches, and fans alike. But they’re also a bloodbath. In a matter of weeks, hundreds of careers come to an end. And usually an unhappy one, at that.

If I could go back in time to 16 years ago, my first inclination wouldn’t be to write that unwritten blog post. It would be to pry open my eyes, my ears, my nose, my pores, my memory, my very soul. I would do everything in my power to soak up that last shootaround, that last bus ride, that last pregame talk, that final layup line. When you’re in it, day after day, it can be such a slog. But when it’s over, it’s over in a hurry. Then it’s gone. Forever.

Wishing all the best to the players whose careers recently came to an end, or who unknowingly have just a few days left. The sting from the losses will fade, but so will the memories. Cherish every second. Even the painful ones.