I didn’t follow professional or college sports until I moved to Buffalo after college. Much to the chagrin of my athletic mother, who grew up watching world cup soccer in Brazil, I simply couldn’t be bothered with sports. Part of this disaffinity was a (perhaps inaccurate) assessment of my own lack of athleticism. Chronic digestive issues meant that I felt unwell often, making intense physical effort more difficult, and my perfectionism made me averse to things I wasn’t good at on the first try. Couple that with our placement in the tri-state area of northwestern Pennsylvania, where professional franchise loyalties are diluted between three major metropolitan areas and you can see how I ended up missing this part of the human experience.

When I moved to Buffalo, I was met with a kind of fandom I had not yet experienced: I swear they put something in the drinking water. After a couple of seasons not really understanding the depth or significance of the community I had been adopted into, I finally relented and allowed myself to be baptized into Bills Mafia. I learned to love the way that a city could move together, united by a shared hope and a shared journey to have that hope realized or dashed. Even when victory Monday became commiseration Monday, I felt the beauty of living that disappointment together. When I explained all of this to my mom, she smiled and said, “This is what I always told you about sports: their magic is the way they bring people together.”

When I moved to Rochester, I was delighted to find that Bills Mafia was alive and well and thought I could continue with this neatly packaged love of my one sports team. What I didn’t account for in my plan was falling in love with Patrick. Our first date was mountain biking at Dryer Road, and after we finished chasing each other through the woods, we perched on a grassy hillside where we could watch a kids soccer game on the field below. There, he told me about soccer, and how his love of the sport and hardwired athleticism eventually led him to playing D1 soccer in college. I was of course, both impressed and intrigued, and I knew even on that hillside that if we chose to build a life together, we would bring different but complementary views on sports: he, born into the love, and I, who learned to love them in my own time.

A few weeks later, after another evening spent getting impossibly sweaty on our bikes, Patrick invited me back to the cabin to meet his pup and have a couple beers on the back deck. When Cameron—a sweet tempered, super smart Lagotto Romagnolo—came out to greet us, I asked about her name, and through that, learned that Patrick’s first love in sports wasn’t soccer, it was Duke basketball.

Cameron is named after Cameron Indoor Stadium, the famed colosseum where Duke’s legendary home games are played. Born in North Carolina while his parents were completing fellowships at Duke, Pat likes to say that the first air he breathed was Duke basketball air. He loves the history of the team, reveres Coach K, and dutifully tracks each recruitment prospect, fully invested in the future of the team.

We continued to date through late summer and into the fall, enjoying Bills games together, including one on a brilliantly sunny September afternoon that we were fortunate to attend in person. The season ended in heartbreak (the continuation of a well-worn legacy of grief) but now, instead of settling into a winter respite, I had a new team and a new schedule of games to track.

College basketball games are scheduled at an erratic tempo, placed throughout the week, often very late at night, and I quickly realized that to be a supportive partner, I needed better awareness of when and where these games were unfolding. I created a new Outlook category and added all of Duke’s games to my work calendar. We watched many of them together, and I learned to identify the players and understand their unique contributions to the team. I learned to love Cooper Flagg’s mom, and Kon Knueppel’s familiar midwestern presence. I marveled at Tyrese Proctor’s superhuman three-point shooting ability and studied Jon Scheyer’s calm, intense presence on the sideline: a masterclass in leadership under pressure. During breaks in the action, Patrick patiently explained how fouls work and the different types of defenses. I nurtured a new hatred of Carolina blue.

Things were mostly calm and fun, especially considering that I have only seen Duke lose three games out of the thirty-eight they’ve played this season. And then March came crashing in, and I began to understand why they call it madness.

We watched much of the ACC Tournament while we were on vacation, including the breath-catching moment when Cooper Flagg rolled his ankle and had to be helped off the court. I identified on a much smaller scale with his devastation as I was sitting at my bucket-list resort in Utah with a torn ACL, unable to ski. We were traveling with Pat’s parents who are equally passionate in their fandom and who deftly moved dinner reservations around game times, helping me to understand the priority of tipoff.

When we got back from that trip, it was time to fill out my very first bracket. I was reminded of a time many years ago in elementary school when my older brother Nathan tried to get me to complete a bracket. He was a Duke fan at the time (the universe with its foreshadowing again) and tried, with at least some patience, to explain the tournament to my less-than-enthused self. Needless to say, my first completed bracket would have to wait nearly twenty years. True to form, I completed it in less than five minutes, surprised by acquired knowledge of these teams and their performance. It turns out that if you watch all of any one team’s games in a season, you’ll get a pretty good lay of the college basketball landscape.

The first few rounds of the tournament brought sufficient stress, but it was the Arizona game that started at 10pm (on a Thursday night no less!) where I realized how much this team and their success meant to Patrick. It was a little hard for me at first if I’m honest. I naturally carry a lot of intensity and stress, and on that Thursday night I just couldn’t bear the weight of these young men’s dreams. It was too easy for me to imagine their devastation at having years of their boyhood come to a defeated end. I resented the emotional investment the game asked of me, wary of its invitation to what so often feels like a coin flip of grief or jubilation. I gave into sleep, choosing disengagement.

I talked to my mom the next day. In her patient, gentle, playful way, she encouraged me to see the pain, the glory, the triumph, and the anxiety not as a burden, but as an invitation into some of the very best stories of humanity. Khaman Maluach and Sion James give me a gift in their example of remarkable courage as they publicly and vulnerably devote themselves to the process, reminding people like me to find joy in the ninety-eight percent of experience, even as we chase the elusive two percent highlight reels.

So this Saturday, I’ll don the oversized Duke sweatshirt Patrick gifted me from his collection and I will surrender to the emotions of this remarkable game. I will let these teenage boys inspire me with the courage to hope as generations of Duke fans chant…let’s go Duke…let’s go Duke…let’s go Duke!

Photo by flickr user adamglanzman (CC BY 2.0)

Ansley Kelly

Ansley Kelly (’16) makes her home in Rochester, NY, where she delights in short, sweet summers spent sailing and long winters spent skiing at her favorite mountain. Between outdoor adventures, you can find her buying books more quickly than she can read them and indulging in mid-morning naps. She works for Wegmans Food Markets where she finds purpose and joy in feeding her community and the wider world.