Sunday morning kneeling at the altar rail as the communion assembly line does its thing is not a great place to be having less-than-holy thoughts. Up past midnight the night before, up at six this morning, I could think of dozens of things I\u2019d rather be doing than being in church. The communion procession approached from my right\u2013\u201cThe body of Christ, the body of Christ, the body of Christ . . .\u201d I wouldn\u2019t be here if I didn\u2019t have to be, I thought. I am so unprepared for the discussion group I\u2019m leading after church. I hope someone has something interesting to say, because I sure as hell don\u2019t. My buddy Bruce, one of the morning\u2019s chalice bearers along with his wife Cathi, approached from the right with cup in hand. \u201cThe blood of Christ, the blood of Christ, the blood of Christ . . .\u201d Bruce gets it. Eucharist celebrations come and go\u2014I could celebrate every day if I wanted to (I don\u2019t). But the Providence Friars basketball team winning the Big East Tournament title? That happens once every twenty years. Literally. On a March Saturday in 1994, I received the call we had been hoping and praying I would receive\u2014the offer of a tenure-track teaching position in the philosophy department at Providence College. I am a sports fan in the true sense of the word\u2014a \u201cfanatic.\u201d This is not easily accounted for. I am not an athlete\u2014the only sports I ever have been decent at are skiing and tennis. I grew up in northern New England, hundreds of miles from any sports beyond high school. But I was a fan of all sports from an early age, a fanaticism that has distilled, as an adult, to the I\u2019m a different person entirely at a basketball game. It\u2019s a great place for my inner beast to come out\u2014even introverts have one of those\u2014in ways that sometimes even I am surprised by. Once during our second year at Providence, when my season tickets were still in an upper deck nosebleed section, we were given two seats on the court by the Admissions Director Jeanne worked for. It was not a pretty game\u2014we were being beaten by Iona. Providence should never<\/strong> be beaten by Iona, so obviously it was the referees\u2019 fault. After a particularly horrendous call, one of the zebras went trotting by our seats I have had two season tickets in Section 104 for the past nineteen years. Section 104 is a family section I knew something special was up two weeks ago, at the final home game of the season. Our opponent, as it turns out, was my alma mater Marquette Warriors who had defeated us nine straight times over the past few years. It was Senior Night, with a pre-game ceremony honoring the five seniors on what has<\/p>\n turned out to be my favorite Friars team of the nineteen I have followed since showing up in Providence. During the first timeout, my seat was chosen, out of 11,000 plus fans, as the \u201clucky seat\u201d of the night. I was interviewed briefly, was on the Jumbotron for half a minute, and got a signed basketball. We then proceeded to win a double-overtime game that I pronounced to be the best basketball game I had ever seen. And it was. Until last Saturday night. We were, against all expectations and predictions, playing in the championship game of the Big East tournament for the first time in twenty years. We were playing Creighton University, the twelfth-ranked team in the country who had beaten the crap out of us by fifteen points just a week earlier. ![\"go](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/766\/2014\/03\/go-friars.png\")
<\/a>I looked up as Bruce lowered the cup to me. \u201cGo Friars!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>It was the ticket for my family of misplaced Northerners out of Memphis, the South, and the little college that was my first teaching job out of graduate school. Since it was March, it was also March Madness\u2014the best sports month of the year. The final game of the Big East tournament was on\u2014underdog Providence College playing the evil and strongly favored Georgetown Hoyas. A few minutes later Jeanne returned from grocery shopping\u2014\u201cCome watch your new basketball team on TV!\u201d I yelled out the door toward the driveway. The Friars pulled off the big upset\u2014their only Big East tournament championship in the thirty-five year history of the Big East conference. Until last Saturday, that is. Up well past midnight watching their victory, up early to read as many articles about it on the Internet as I could find\u2014no wonder I was bleary-eyed at the altar rail.<\/p>\n<\/a> Boston Red Sox and the Providence Friars. My passion for college basketball in general, and the Friars in particular, surprised my students and colleagues when I first arrived on campus, although it should not have surprised my colleagues. During a lunch with the philosophy faculty that was part of my on-campus interview in February 1994, someone asked \u201cwhy do you want to teach at Providence College?\u2019 The honest answer was that I wanted a tenure track job somewhere other than Tennessee. I think the continuation of my marriage depended on it. The answer I actually gave included some making some noise about wanting to teach at a place that takes philosophy seriously, focuses on the history of philosophy, and so on. On a more personal level, I continued, my wife and I badly want to return to our native Northeast (she\u2019s from Brooklyn, I\u2019m from Vermont). I concluded my response by mentioning that Division One basketball was also a very attractive feature of working at Providence College. There were a few snickers and smiles\u2014but I wasn\u2019t kidding.<\/p>\n<\/a>, just a few feet away, causing me to scream in his direction, along with several thousand other fans, just what was on my mind. A few seconds later I asked Jeanne \u201cDid I just call the ref a fucking asshole?\u201d \u201cYes you did,\u201d she replied. That\u2019s why I love basketball games\u2014they provide the opportunity for unfiltered expression of what I really am feeling and thinking. Later in the game I looked up toward our usual seats where my son Justin was sitting. As he screamed with a beet-red face and veins popping out of his neck, I wondered \u201cWhy is he getting so upset? It\u2019s just a game. Where does he get that from?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>\u2014if your family has a \u201cSons of Anarchy\u201d disposition. Once several years ago a young man a couple of rows in front of me, the son of one of the season ticket holders, was telling a story to a friend during a timeout with all the energy, volume, and foul language that a half-inebriated twenty-something male can muster. \u201cHE SAID BLAH BLAH BLAH SO I SAID GO F%&K YOURSELF!<\/b>\u00a0THEN HE SAID BLAH BLAH BLAH SO I SAID \u00a0GO F%&K YOURSELF!!<\/b>\u201d After a few more GFYs, a guy in the front row of the section turned around and yelled \u201cHey! Knock it off! I\u2019ve got my wife with me!\u201d The young guy apologized\u2014\u201csorry, man\u201d\u2014but front row guy wouldn\u2019t let it go and kept complaining. Before long, GFY guy goes \u201cI SAID I WAS SORRY!! GO F%&K YOURSELF!!<\/b>\u201d <\/a>I love Section 104.<\/p>\n<\/a>But it was one of those magical nights that happens every once in a while in college basketball. The Friars flawlessly executed a brilliant game plan concocted by the coaching staff, led the whole way, and won the championship. As they celebrated and cut down the Madison Square Garden nets in front of a national television audience, I had tears in my eyes.<\/p>\n