Celtics = Love

I’m on a bit of an emotional high this morning. I dedicate this blog to my dad who taught me to love the Celtics beyond any sort of logical limits or reason.

The Celtics won. They beat the Lakers. They did it at home and won by almost 40 points. 39 to be exact. They killed Kobe Bryant – stopped him dead in his tracks. And Phil Jackson – the coaching master who was supposed to out coach Doc by a mile choked. Every single media expert picked the Lakers to win – even Bill Simmons the greatest Boston sports lover of them all. The last thing anyone expected was complete and utter domination, but that’s what we got.

When I was a kid in the 80’s, the Celtics and the Red Sox were our world. The Celtics played big playoff games on Sundays a lot and sadly, we weren’t allowed to watch TV on Sundays. Luckily, we understood that some things were bigger than rules – like Larry Legend. We had a small TV for video games up in my little brothers’ room, and one by one we would all sneak up there after church, crowd on to the bottom bunk and watch the Celtics. Not only on the tiniest TV ever invented, but also on mute so the TV police wouldn’t hear. My dad was the last one to sneak in, and because he agreed with the rule of no TV on Sundays, he would repeat to us periodically, with eyes glued to the screen, “You really need to turn the Television off.” We smiled and nodded and knew he didn’t mean a word of it. Of course, once my mom figured out she was the only one wandering around the house, and flung open the bedroom door, with a commanding more than questioning, “Bob?” you would suddenly hear my dad say in his most commanding voice, “I told you kids to turn that thing off!” And off it would go until we all filed back in 5 or 10 minutes later.

In 1987, when I was 16, we were playing the Detroit Bad Boys in the Eastern Conference playoffs, and we had moved to Michigan. All of our friends who came to watch the game with us were…well, Pistons fans. In Game 5, as we were watching the game (and eating the green and white cupcakes I decorated with the numbers of each player on the Celtics team) we saw the win trickle away before our very eyes. Our whole family sat stunned and depressed as Isaiah Thomas took the ball out of bounds with the lead and just seconds to play. My friends were jumping up and down, high fiving and celebrating, when all of a sudden they noticed we were jumping up and down and high fiving and celebrating too. They had no idea what happened because the game was so obviously over they had stopped watching. Larry Bird once again did the impossible by stealing the inbound pass and delivering a postage-paid bucket to DJ. I remember jumping up and down and hugging my dad and seeing the same elation in his eyes that I was feeling. It is probably one of the top 3 best sports moments I remember and it was just part of the life long love affair with Boston sports.

For years I had tried to get my dad to understand how important the Celtics were to me. With four brothers, I always felt he thought they cared more about “our teams” and engaged more with them in conversation around sports.

Our Christmas presents all came from mom and dad, but everyone knew mom did the selecting and buying and dad got his name slapped on the sticker. One year I got a present that had only his name on it. I was puzzled. When I opened it up I froze and I felt tears stinging my eyes. It was a framed autographed Sports Illustrated Cover of Larry Bird after they won a championship. It remains one of the most meaningful presents I’ve ever gotten from him. (Followed closely by a set of pictures he put together and framed of us with our tickets at the 2003 Yankees/Red Sox series when Pedro threw Zimmer to the ground.) I’m still not sure he can possibly understand exactly how much it meant to me that he understood how important the Celtics were to me, and in addition how tied that love was to my love for him. This was the first time I felt like he got it.

So this year has been a big year for our family. The Red Sox won the series AGAIN. The Celtics came back with the biggest one-year turnaround in the NBA to win the championship against our hated rival of yesteryear. And my dad isn’t here to see it or to be a part of it.

He’s in Australia serving a mission for our church for 3 years. Even if he had access to the games and the time zones weren’t ridiculously different, he wouldn’t have watched because of his commitment to what he is doing. Impossibly, he found something that he could commit to even more than his beloved Celtics or Red Sox. And while most people may believe that the reason we won is because Danny Ainge made an unbelievable set of acquisitions, and Doc Rivers put together a great coaching performance and the team played their hearts out and left it all on the floor, I know differently. I know they owe it all to my dad. This is his reward and even our reward for his ultimate sacrifice: giving up being part of the return of the Legend to serve. Giving up watching “The Truth” to live it.

OK, it’s a bit tongue in cheek, and even more hyperbole, but there is a small, small part of me that really believes that Boston sports could never have made this big and complete of a turnaround without a little nudge. So whether God cares about sports or not, I still believe that He, like me would dedicate this victory to my dad. I miss you dad.