Let The Basketball Begin!

There is nothing quite like the ACC Tournament. Over the years, other conferences have bad mouth the tournament, but in the end, every major conference except one has a tournament.

Back in 1991, I was sitting home one Saturday afternoon and the phone rings. It was at halftime of the second semifinal of the day at the Charlotte Coliseum. Duke was already in and Carolina was about to join them in the finals that following Sunday.

My boss at the time was C.T. Spruill of Windsor. He was a major contributor at Carolina. He has his name on the wall at the Dean Dome for his part in helping pay off the Dean Dome before they ever played a game there. He also had eight seats about eight rows up across the floor from Dean Smith at the time.

C. T. and I had many a good argument about Carolina and State over the years and I had used those eight seats many times.

He ask me what I was doing. Please note that I am paraphrasing here. I said I hope I'm watching Carolina lose. After some more paraphrasing, he ask me if I wanted to come to the game on Sunday. Without hesitation, of course, I said yes.

He said that he been there since Tuesday night and he didn't want to watch Duke beat UNC the next day.

He said he'd leave his four tickets with the concierge at the Marriott, and for me and Pat come on up tonight and stay in his suite.

Now, this is like 5:30 on a Saturday afternoon. I was getting ready to go Hertford County's gym to call a sectional basketball finals on the radio. I tell Pat to pack our bags when I get back from the ball game, we are going to drive to Charlotte to go to the ACC finals.

Around 9.15 that night, I am back home and I throw a few bags in the car and off we go - Pat and my daughter Stephanie, who was in the back seat. By the way, Morgan was not born yet, so she was still 18 years from making the A-B Honor roll (yes, it is official. Morgan has made her first A-B honor roll at RMHS).

We slipped into Charlotte around 1.30 in the morning. After parking, I go prancing up to the checkin desk at the Marriott and ask for a package for me. Sure enough, I get a yellow envelope which looks like an envelope interoffice mail would be put in.

I open the package and there are four tickets, the room key and a pass for four people to eat breakfast with the Rams Club at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Can you believe that this Wolfpacker is going to get a free breakfast off the Rams Club?

We head up to our room, or should I say suite, and sack out until about 8 a.m. We get ready and I did wear the only blue shirt I had at the time. It was closer to Duke blue than Carolina blue, but at least I tried.

We entered this room full of UNC heavyweights. The Bill Fridays, the Skipper Bowles and the likes. I would have to say that this was the most high-class breakfast I have ever had. We got a lot of half- smiles and curious looks as nobody there knew who we were, but we didn't get kicked out.

We had four tickets to the game and only three people. The very first college-looking kid we saw with a sign "need a ticket" we stopped and I gave him one of our tickets.

Our seats are on the second row underneath one of the baskets right beside the Carolina Pep Band. Just about five minutes before the game starts, the kid who we had given the ticket to comes walking to his seat and he is in Heaven. You could just tell he had never had a seat that good in his life.

I really had a good time at the game and about halfway-pulled for Carolina, even though Duke won by 20 on its way to the national championship.

I think I'll call C.T. to see what he is doing this weekend!