Into The Final Four

 

I flew my Purdue flag on game day last weekend, a flagrant violation of HOA rules, devil take them.

As a graduate and fan of Purdue University sports, I nearly lost my mind when our men's basketball team finally advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament. It's the first time since 1980¹, despite Purdue having one of the best basketball programs in the NCAA during that time. We nearly missed out four times in the interim, during which we've had only two head coaches, the second being a protege of the first.

What I didn't expect was that it would bring back feelings of grief for my late father, who died in 2018. Like many fathers who didn't graduate college, Dad seemed to relate to his children's college experience through the athletic teams. College sports have a weird cultural significance in the United States compared to most other countries, and people who have only the most tenuous ties to college sports teams often become true fanatics. Dad was a Purdue fan through and through.

I actually broke down and cried. I promise I normally do not cry over sports but it was about the loss of my father rather than sports. He would have been overjoyed that Purdue finally made it through the 68 team playoff. He just didn't live long enough.

Footnotes

1 The Purdue Women's basketball team made the Final Four in 1994, 1999, and 2001 and won the National Championship in 1999. However in that era women's basketball had not yet achieved the prestige it has now. Also Dad didn't care about women's sports. He was a product of the mid-1900s.