[teejers1]

I’m sitting in the Minneapolis-St Paul Airport this morning reflecting on the season, the tournament, and the game…
Throughout my life, the game of basketball has provided me with challenges, joys, and and some insight at personal meaning.
Last night I sat in an arena with 18,000 people watching the national championship. That was more people than the entire population of my home town when I was growing up in Helena, Montana. There we used to line up in freezing cold temperatures so we could get into our little 1500 capacity gym and watch our brawny Bengals play a slate of competitors for the best in the state from small cities from as far away as 250 miles.
As a young teen I got to experience the joy of winning, since our team was gifted and won the state championship during my first three years in HS. Aside from a season of packed houses, our townspeople rewarded the coach with a brand new ‘54 Ford and approved a bond measure to build a new high school, which included a state of the art basketball court. One year after we moved into the new facility, I got to experience the agony of losing as I sat in that gym after we had been beaten in the state regionals. I remember sitting in the quiet gym after that final game trying to extract meaning from this game of win and lose. As a young teen I wondered what was the quality that could be extracted from the elusive duality of winning and losing. I had no answer but it informed my thinking.
I had a similar existential moment after sitting in the Target Arena Friday night after the Stanford loss. I could get angry at the players or the coach. I could look for someone to blame—the refs or the seeding committee. I could regret having invested myself in following the team’s season — attending all their home games, traveling to the Bahamas, Spokane, and now, to Minneapolis. None of those reactions seemed fruitful. If I was to embrace the lessons of my teenage self decades ago and honor the adult psyche that emerged from a lifetime of experiences, I had to find a more satisfying, all inclusive means of internalizing the dilemma of winning and losing.
As I sat in the arena on Sunday night watching the two teams play who had survived the tournament to play for the championship, I found solace in honoring each moment of the game. And yes, once again the nature of the external game produced winners and losers, but from my current perspective, which was not attached to outcome, I was able to transcend winning and losing and embrace the playing of the game.
And this morning in the airport waiting to return home, as I reflect on the lessons learned, the lesson from a basketball game became a metaphor for life itself. Finding meaning in the parts require me to bridge the whole, and in so-doing, it opens the way to accept the nature of dualities in life itself.

I aspire to have your road-trip abilities!  And yes, absolutely enjoy the experience in each setting (we always make sure to do golf, restaurants, or whatever draws at our more limited road trip schedule).  

BTW, I disagree with the notion that this place is too negative . . . goodness, there are few sites that are so civil.  People are, for whatever reason, ultra protective of TvD and the women's hoops program.  They're great; it's been fun to support them; etc.  But that doesn't (and shouldn't) preclude folks from expressing disappointment and frustration.

And on that front, it wasn't the winning versus the losing, per se, that stings (though winning is almost always more enjoyable).  I think what bummed fans out was that for whatever reason Stanford did not come close to playing a good game against UConn.  You play well or reasonably well and get beat . . . so be it.  But that's not what happened against UConn.

P.S.  I agree that the "woe is UConn" narrative is a false on, as pointed out by a poster.  However, I also think that this was a year that Stanford clearly was "on par" with UConn, and thus was a very winnable game.  And that is not always the case.

[teejers1]

I’m sitting in the Minneapolis-St Paul Airport this morning reflecting on the season, the tournament, and the game…
Throughout my life, the game of basketball has provided me with challenges, joys, and and some insight at personal meaning.
Last night I sat in an arena with 18,000 people watching the national championship. That was more people than the entire population of my home town when I was growing up in Helena, Montana. There we used to line up in freezing cold temperatures so we could get into our little 1500 capacity gym and watch our brawny Bengals play a slate of competitors for the best in the state from small cities from as far away as 250 miles.
As a young teen I got to experience the joy of winning, since our team was gifted and won the state championship during my first three years in HS. Aside from a season of packed houses, our townspeople rewarded the coach with a brand new ‘54 Ford and approved a bond measure to build a new high school, which included a state of the art basketball court. One year after we moved into the new facility, I got to experience the agony of losing as I sat in that gym after we had been beaten in the state regionals. I remember sitting in the quiet gym after that final game trying to extract meaning from this game of win and lose. As a young teen I wondered what was the quality that could be extracted from the elusive duality of winning and losing. I had no answer but it informed my thinking.
I had a similar existential moment after sitting in the Target Arena Friday night after the Stanford loss. I could get angry at the players or the coach. I could look for someone to blame—the refs or the seeding committee. I could regret having invested myself in following the team’s season — attending all their home games, traveling to the Bahamas, Spokane, and now, to Minneapolis. None of those reactions seemed fruitful. If I was to embrace the lessons of my teenage self decades ago and honor the adult psyche that emerged from a lifetime of experiences, I had to find a more satisfying, all inclusive means of internalizing the dilemma of winning and losing.
As I sat in the arena on Sunday night watching the two teams play who had survived the tournament to play for the championship, I found solace in honoring each moment of the game. And yes, once again the nature of the external game produced winners and losers, but from my current perspective, which was not attached to outcome, I was able to transcend winning and losing and embrace the playing of the game.
And this morning in the airport waiting to return home, as I reflect on the lessons learned, the lesson from a basketball game became a metaphor for life itself. Finding meaning in the parts require me to bridge the whole, and in so-doing, it opens the way to accept the nature of dualities in life itself.

I aspire to have your road-trip abilities!  And yes, absolutely enjoy the experience in each setting (we always make sure to do golf, restaurants, or whatever draws at our more limited road trip schedule).  

BTW, I disagree with the notion that this place is too negative . . . goodness, there are few sites that are so civil.  People are, for whatever reason, ultra protective of TvD and the women's hoops program.  They're great; it's been fun to support them; etc.  But that doesn't (and shouldn't) preclude folks from expressing disappointment and frustration.

And on that front, it wasn't the winning versus the losing, per se, that stings (though winning is almost always more enjoyable).  I think what bummed fans out was that for whatever reason Stanford did not come close to playing a good game against UConn.  You play well or reasonably well and get beat . . . so be it.  But that's not what happened against UConn.

P.S.  I agree that the "woe is UConn" narrative is a false on, as pointed out by a poster.  However, I also think that this was a year that Stanford clearly was "on par" with UConn, and thus was a very winnable game.  And that is not always the case.