Thursday, March 11, 2010

An Honor I Can Do Without

Have you ever looked around the room for the mark and, not seeing it, realized it was you?

I had that experience last year in Atlanta when a bunch of us scribes got to wondering who had been to the most ACC Tournaments in a row and the more we asked around, the more it started looking like the honor belonged to me. And I didn’t want it. I’m old, but not that old. But through the recent wave of downsizing and retirements and people wising up and finding honest work and one generation passing into another, we couldn’t find anyone with a longer streak than mine.

There were many who had seen tournament since the 1960s, but as it turned out a Caulton Tudor had missed a tournament this season or a Bill Brill had missed one that season and no one had that long of an uninterrupted streak.

I’ve been to at least one session of every tournament since 1974. I was still a student at that state university in the general vicinity of the geographical center of the state when I saw my first ACC Tournament game. It was the championship of 1974, N.C. State’s 103-100 victory over Maryland that is still widely considered the greatest game in conference history. No wonder the hook sank in so deep.

Finally we ran into Al Featherston, the venerable scribe who after writing for decades for the Durham Herald and Durham Herald-Sun now covers ACC basketball for Basketball Times. Al, to my great relief, said he had made every tournament since 1968. So Al, best we can tell, gets the prize. Good for Al. Good for me.