Beef O’Brady’s Family Sports Pub.

Yes. You read it right. Read it again.

Beef O’Brady’s Family Sports Pub.

With a name like that, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot of company Saturday night. Plus, this is football town.

But NC is a basketball state. Not only did Beef O’Brady’s have a special UNC-Duke themed menu, but the place was absolutely packed. Most sports bars have several channels playing simultaneously. Not a screen could I see with anything other than the battle of the blues. There was a TV in the bathroom. Just so you didn’t miss anything.

As I went by myself (other than a textbook for commercial breaks) I uncertain as to where I’d end up sitting. I wound up tucked around the corner of a tiny table with a single chair. Pitying looks from the sweet waitress notwithstanding, there was something enjoyable in being able to concentrate solely on the game. Well, and the people watching it with me.

At the corner table was a bunch of college guys and a few girls…clearly more interested in the contents of a couple of pitchers than the contents of the game. In the booth across from me was a mother-son double date. The moms, one in baby blue and one in royal, sat across from each other and talked mothering. The boys sat across from each other and talked basketball trash or, later in the night, affected nonchalance. It was glorious.

Oh, it was a nail-biter. Against any other team in the country, it wouldn’t have been. I spent the night of Feb. 8th in the back seat of my car in the parking lot shivering to the radio. Haunted by flashbacks, “14 is not a big enough lead,” I couldn’t stop fidgeting. You could practically choke on the tension in the room when the Blue Devils cut the lead to nine.
I find it fascinating how everyone suddenly discovers their inner Dean Smith about halfway through the second half. “Naw, Roy’s got it” only holds true for the first thirty minutes. For the last ten, every living room couch or bar turns into Carolina’s bench, with guys reeling off questionable stats and girls who probably never played a game in their life (e.g. me) talking strategy and technique. “Hold ON to the ball! Gaaaaa…what’s wrong with them?” “Can’t hit a free throw to save his life, can he?” “Don’t foul HIM!!! Of all the…for goodness sake.” “Man to MAN?!? NOOOO!”

But with a very pretty Harrison Barnes jumper, a butchered Duke layup, and an ever-ticking clock, all was right with the world again. Somebody on the other side of the restaurant shouted “TAAAAAAR!” Everybody (well, everybody wearing the right color blue, that is) screamed back: “HEEEEEEELS!”

But I don’t think anybody really heaved a sigh of relief and exultation until the buzzer.

Because good rivalries mean that sometimes you lose. That you can never really sit back and just “enjoy the game.” That sometimes you go home hungry. But you come back starving and wrench that win from your opponents clutches. The boys in (light) blue played with more heart last night than they have all season, and it was beautiful.

Let’s keep it up. March has only just begun.