Editor’s note: We’re excited to announce that we’ve hired a new writer, William McDermott, to the Inside the Hall staff. William is a junior at Indiana University at the media school. William’s work will begin appearing on Inside the Hall later this month.
My night on April 5, 2016 consisted of damp grass, crickets and tissues.
The damp grass led to wet clothes and a restless itch. The crickets led to a consistent chirping that when I hear today when I flash back to that moment. The tissues led to cried out, red, puffy eyes that I had hidden in school the next morning.
After Kris Jenkins of Villanova hit the game-winning three-pointer to beat my North Carolina Tar Heels in the National Championship game, my dad and I ran out into the backyard and lay in the grass without saying a word to each other.
The wave of emotions was difficult for eighth grade me to handle. I was heartbroken. From the elation of watching Marcus Paige heave an off-balance three-pointer to tie the game, to misery in a 77-74 finish, it was all too much.
In the week after the game, I would think of that moment and how I felt and my chest would ache. I remember specifically in my elective art class as we started to begin our self-portraits I just couldn’t keep focus. Maybe it was my poor attention span, but my mind kept coming back to that moment in the grass. I couldn’t shake it.
Years later, and one North Carolina national championship later I thought, how naive and privileged am I to have my first heartbreak over a basketball game in eighth grade?
I was right. It is naive and privileged. But since then, that moment has served me a memory, and albeit bad, a memory of why I love college basketball.
It just makes you feel things. And isn’t that all we really want?
I didn’t come to Indiana all the way from my home of Richmond, Virginia with the intention of being a sports writer. I wanted to broadcast sports and I still do. But, after coming to IU as a freshman it was preached the need to broaden my skills in all forms of media and be versatile.
From there I joined The Hoosier Network in the spring of my freshman year in Bloomington and covered IU baseball. It was my first experience writing journalistically or AP style and while it wasn’t something I loved yet, I kept trying. Alex McCarthy, The Hoosier Network’s writing advisor, really helped me hit the ground running and gave me the support to continue trying.
I didn’t really start enjoying writing…