I get it that it's far too common in America to romanticize athletes. We get nuts about our balls. For the love of everything inspirational, can we come up with something that isn't a sports metaphor? In 1994 North Park won the state Knowledge Bowl tournament. But I wasn't there so cannot douse you with memories. I'd do music but I gave up the trumpet in sixth grade. So I'm left with the never-ending spiral of sports. But trust me. This one's awesome. Plus, I bring you the lesser known perspective in the team game: the bench. I had the best seat in the house for one of the greatest stories the high desert plains ever blew into town: the scrappy Wildcats of North Park going in as the lowest seed of the state tournament, and coming away with the title.
Before I get too preachy, I need to thank Chad Carlstrom. He put together the September 30th event to celebrate the 1992 Class 2A Basketball State Title. He had no reason to except he knows something we all should remember. That's at least according to me, a romantic sap who’d give a stranger his last ten bucks just for the rainbow tingles of a special connection. I’m not saying Chad will fork over cash. I'm just saying he gets the moment. He gets right now. The dude was as smooth getting us together and hosting the evening as I remember him on the court.
I’ll pause here to thank the bowling alley. Danny, Kathy, Sequoia, and that entire crew are so good at juggling beer, burgers, bowling and, in this case, a firehose of basketball nostalgia. Matt & Michele should be thanked. Or mostly Michele. Jodi. Joie. And all those families who tolerated aching older men trying to figure out what happened to the 90s, 2000s and their car keys.
I’ll get there; more about the evening and the moment. But I struggle with stolen valor. I didn’t play a lick at the state tournament but I didn’t expect to. I was ready at a moment’s notice to shoot a three from anywhere in the gym, but I was way too insecure to be out there in that uniform. The person who had it before me was much smaller. And I’m a drinker. I drink things in. Lights, sound, thoughts. I’m not saying I remember everything, but just like that distant three I was ready to huck, I am prepared to serve up an emotional casserole. And now, dear reader, I’ve prepared a meal. If it leaves you hungry, you’ll know what to do: go devour the day
I look back on the tourney and that season and I feel warmth. I feel this community waking up in late winter. Headlights flickering on. A Conga line of cars winding itself over mountain passes to Colorado Springs. You'd walk into the Air Force Academy gym and it was big. Small by arena standards but downright swole by our NPHS gymnasium upbringing. We wandered agog among chiseled cadets. Men and women carved out of their background. They were just a couple years older than us but light years away in discipline and wisdom. That hardened adult that you get when the kid is ripped out of you to make room for something bigger. I think that perspective may have helped what you're about to hear.
At first there was some tottering. Like maybe we were out there in our underwear. But we were emboldened by every break. By every pause. Pregame. Halftime. Timeouts. Whenever you'd pop your head out from the huddle and look around and think, Holy Sheep. This is happening. This is me. Wear it. Own it. Live it. Every time you took that in, you realized what was possible. Because, quite simply, you were there. Now not to be too romantic because this is just a few high school basketball games—rural boys on some wood planks dangled above new depths. All new risks with every step. Hearts and minds and spines and spleens. Organs merging with dreams. Pale whiteness taking the ball down the court. Playground games all grown up with real-world consequences. A loss seemed as plausible as it was impossible. We were propelled to this point with head-high parenting of years gone by. Mom and dad waking up every day to insurmountable to-dos. It wasn't a rock n' roll Great Wide Open but more like a we-got-stuff-to-do alleyway squeezing out this opportunity to take a shot at something big.
Hang onto this image, if you will, about life and how it operates in general: you're winning with every step towards something. Each little line: oblivious gym stripes for various games and sadistic coaches to dissect their conditioning. Once you cross each one, that's progress. Little launch pads sending you stratospheric. One line at. a. time. New opportunity. New confidence. In life it might be a career goal. Maybe some kind of personal best. And in this Air Force arena, one that seemed like the only place in the universe, a shiny floor sent back a muraled message of what seemed like optimism.
The coach composed himself in a shirt and tie that might have held him together like a cinch sack. Could he even believe it? Is this even real life? I don't want to obliterate other possibilities. I don't want to make people think the winning it all has got to be the end result. The thought has to be that you can. The takeaway has to be that you prepared in such a way that it was always in the cards, no matter how they were dealt. And if you do that, then you're lined up for the shot. A knife-like jab at a keyhole that only shows up every so often. And dang you'll be mad if you didn't think you could do it.
There we were with the combination. The wrist. The backspin. The glass. The rebound. The hustle. The realization rising. We lost our lead to Caliche. There were overtimes. I had one job. Well, two. First, to go in when we were at least twenty points ahead with twenty seconds left and, secondly, break any close game tension with jokes for our traveling fans. When asked by, I think, Jim Murinko during that semifinal overtime game what I had for them for laughs, I simply replied, "I got nothing unless you think soiled shorts is funny." It wasn't.
Spoiler alert: we'd win. And then we'd win again. I didn't even know there was a town called Springfield in Colorado, but there is and in their gym they have a 1992 runners up banner. Nothing like that shiny new championship flag at NPHS.
But I'm not sure how many of us on the team or in the stands have ever been that vested in a spectacle. That steeped in the right now.
There's never gonna be a better right now than right now. I say that thirty years removed. There's never gonna be a better right now than right now. I learned that watching the needle get threaded by a bunch of kids from, of all places, North Park, CO. Because why the Hell not.