Bill Buckner threw out the 1st pitch at the Red Sox home opener on Tuesday to a tremendous ovation. As most people know Buckner is remembered for his error in Game 6 of the ‘86 World Series. This error has overshadowed what was a very decent career, .289 lifetime average, 2715 hits, 1208 RBI. That is not a bad career and is probably borderline Hall of Fame but he will always be remembered for that error. On Tuesday when he got the ovation from Red Sox Nation I felt happy for him but it also brought back memories of 1986 which to date has been my worst year as a sports fan.
In April of 1985, my family moved from St. Joesph, MI to my Mom’s hometown of Springfield, OH, we moved the day after Villanova upset Georgetown.
I completed the rest of the school year and spent the summer playing baseball. When the new school year started my brother and I would be going to the same school for the first time, he would be in kindergarten and I would be in 3rd grade. As the school year went on a new college basketball season was set to start. This meant I could watch Duke play for the first time since they lost to Boston College in the 1985 tournament. To commemorate the beginning of the new season my Dad bought me the Street and Smith’s College Basketball preview and I must have read the profile on Duke about 1000 times. The team was returning their entire starting lineup which included my favorite player Johnny Dawkins, who was being mentioned as a player of the year candidate.
Johnny Dawkins was my first sports hero and he is still my favorite Duke player ever. I tried to run like him, shoot like him, his number 24 was my favorite number, he was my hero. Duke’s season started with the pre-season NIT, which they won by beating Kansas in the final, which would not have happened if Johnny Dawkins had not hit a last second shot against St. John’s in the semifinal. Duke would ring in 1986 undefeated and one of the top ranked teams in the country along with ACC rivals Georgia Tech and North Carolina. Duke’s only losses of the regular season would be at Georgia Tech and at UNC, they exacted revenge by beating both schools at Cameron. Duke had a couple of close calls during the season, a 2 point win against NC State, 2 tough games against Len Bias and Maryland and a 1 point win against Notre Dame that took a Johnny Dawkins block in the last second to ensure the win. Duke went on to win the ACC tournament by beating Georgia Tech by one and this gave them the number 1 seed in the East region when the NCAA tournament started.
Back in ‘85-’86, ESPN would broadcast the first couple of rounds and then CBS would broadcast the regional rounds. Duke’s 1st round opponent was Mississippi Valley St. and they gave Duke all they could handle, Duke won by 7 but it was a tough contest and if the 3 pointer had been around that year it could have been a monumental upset. Duke made it to the regional final where they played Navy, who had David Robinson. The game went back and forth for the first few minutes but Duke pulled away and beat Navy 71-50 and went on to the Final Four which was in Dallas that year. The Final Four teams were Duke, Kansas, Louisville and 11th seeded LSU. Louisville beat LSU by 11 in the first game and in the 2nd game Duke played Kansas in an extremely tight game that could have gone either way until Danny Manning fouled out. Duke ended up winning 71-67 but had to expend a lot of energy to do so. My team was playing for the title and I could not wait to for them to win it.
School that Monday could not get over quick enough and when it was finally over and I had made it home I watched all of the previews before the game started. For an impartial observer it was a great game, Duke had the lead most of the game but their shots started coming up a little short during the 2nd half and Louisville was able to get back in the game. My hero, Johnny Dawkins did everything he could to will Duke to victory but in the end Louisville and their freshman Pervis Ellison proved to much for Duke and they won 72-69.
I was crushed and thought I was going to be sick, my favorite team and player had just lost the title, I did not want to talk to anyone and asked my Mom if I could miss school the next day. Of course I had to go to school but I was still in a funk that lasted a couple of days. As a fan I had never experienced losing that broke your heart like this, in 6 months it would happen again.
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