Boston College Football and Basketball: I Used To Care

Growing up in Mass and Southern NH in the late 70s and early 80s, Boston College sports was the fifth professional franchise in the area. Memories of Doug Flutie's Hail Mary and Michael Adams dribbling through the legs of that Depaul defender will drift into my mind from time to time even today. I lived and died with BC sports. My heart was broken when, in 1984, with my ear pressed to the radio speaker, Pearl Washington threw one in from halfcourt against the Eagles. And when Nashua's Skip Barry fumbled the ball away against Memphis State in the regionals in 1985, likely preventing what would have been an all Big East Final Four, I was crushed. Painful but memorable.

Today I just don't care about the school. It comes down to the BC administration's decision to join the ACC eight years ago, leaving the Big East Conference, of which BC was a charter member. Who in New England cares about Virginia Tech and Clemson and Florida State and North Carolina State? I sure don't. BC belongs in the Big East, not the ACC, which plays on fields seemingly a world away.

What's done is done, but the move to the Atlantic Coast Conference has destroyed this former Eagle fan's passion. Last night, down in Blacksburg, the men's basketball team, fighting for an at large berth in the NCAAs, beat up a Virginia Tech team coming off one of the biggest win's in Hokie history, and I didn't watch a minute of it. I watched the Kentucky game instead. Unthinkable twenty years ago.