Saved By the Bell: I'm Gettin' Old

“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams,” John Barrymore once opined.

Thanks to the NCAA tournament, I’m ready for Social Security.

I actually have few regrets in life. My refusal to pick Kent State in the opening round aside, I enjoy a charmed existence.

But this year’s tourney has made me realize that I can no longer watch games and dream of the day when I’m hoisting up the big three with 30 seconds left. I’m 20 years old. If I were meant to, I’d already be doing it.

I’d be doing it like Pete Anderer did it last week. Pete, a guard for 13th-seeded Davidson, took and made that shot a week ago today, nailing a trey to pull the Wildcats within one and put the fear of God into fourth-seeded Ohio State.

A few years earlier, Pete played varsity basketball for Regis High School in New York. He averaged 18.6 points a night. And, in art class, he once suggested that “Flemish baroque” was something that “came out your throat.” Somewhere in the back of the room, a skinny kid named Martin laughed and laughed.

Now, thanks to CBS’ Gus Johnson, everyone knows a little bit about Pete. How he got into Columbia, but chose to go to Davidson for a far-from-guaranteed spot on the team. How he joined the ’Cats as a walk-on, turned into their top outside threat and hit 45 percent of his threes during the season. How he knocked down five threes in the Southern Conference title game against Furman to propel Davidson into the tourney.

After the Furman game, ESPN’s 1 a.m. SportsCenter aired a montage of Anderer threes. Anchor Stuart Scott proclaimed that “Peter Anderer is like butta, ’cause he’s on a roll.” That kicked off a week of Anderermania—an appearance in the “Leading Off” section of the Mar. 11 Sports Illustrated, ESPN.com designating him Davidson’s “Player to Watch” and, of course, his role in the Ohio State near-upset.

And somewhere in the middle of this it occurred to me: Pete’s my age and I’m sitting on my butt watching TV and eating Tostitos. My childhood dreams of basketball superstardom will never come true. I’d had a similar insight while watching the Little League World Series at 16. Once I hit 40, I’ll probably realize that even a future with the ever-graying New York Knicks is out of the question.

It’s surprisingly difficult, getting old. So much of my being a fan has been putting myself in the game, thinking that it could be me some day. But now, the incredibly miniscule window of opportunity I had (I must have had it at some point, right?) is slamming shut. Pete jumped through. I never will.

Neither will Pat Heffernan, but it won’t be for lack of jumping. “Heff” was Regis’ co-MVP with Pete in 1999. He was one of the more unselfish players I’ve ever seen on a court. He took about a dozen charges a game and threw up far fewer shots than befitted a player of his talent. Heff went to Boston College and managed the basketball team with the goal of eventually joining the squad himself as a walk-on.

One day, one of his practice dunks went horribly awry in mid-air and he ended up flat on his back. The pain lingers, and now Pat has already gotten as close as he’ll get to playing in the NCAAs—watching from the sidelines as his Eagles lost to Texas last week.

I talked to Heff after Pete’s game about suddenly realizing that it was all over, that the stubborn part of me that still aspired to be Christian Laettner or Grant Hill had died with the realization that Pete was already doing it. He replied, “Well, I guess that’s me, too.”

But Heff was still part of the action. He still got to sit courtside, stay in the NCAA hotels and mingle with luscious Texas cheerleaders. He felt every victory and sweated out the NCAA selection show. He was part of a team. As a fan, you envy that almost as much as you do the dunks.

Oddly enough, I’ve never felt quite this way about Harvard teams. The junior who whines when her country-club sport doesn’t make the front page never really did much for me. And even the most exciting moments—like Tyler Kolarik’s wrister on Saturday that ended an epic ECAC Championship game—thrill me but never make me wish I were in the thick of the action.

But the NCAAs are distant enough to allow you to dream, for a time, that it could be you out there one day. And guys who you do know out there—the Petes and Heffs of the world—are close enough that you feel like you are.

Harvard athletics fall into an interesting middle ground that never gave me that depth of feeling. I pulled for Harvard football as hard as anyone did in the fall, but it’s a different kind of support. It’s not the same as watching Pete Anderer on TV—dropping an F-bomb after a late Buckeye score or calmly sinking the clutch rainbow—and shaking your head, smiling and saying, “Man! That right there is living!”