Coach K had announced his retirement from Duke University ahead of the 2022 season, so Lin and I thought it would be cool to watch him coach his final game of his career. It’s harder than you think because of the unknown factor of when will it end in the NCAA tournament ?
We were in Greenville, South Carolina, for the opening two games as we were driving back from the desert. We finished the drive back to Laurel Fork, unpacked the car, and then flew out to San Francisco for the next two games that put Duke into the Final Four. At this point, Lin was pre-commited to visiting her mother in Missouri, so she needed to tag out.
This is when my cousin, on my mother’s side, Douglas Owens, slid into the second chair as the show headed down to New Orleans for the Final Four. The Superdome was rocking that night when UNC ended the run for Coach K.
All of a sudden, we had 48 hours to fill and sticking around the Big Easy wasn’t all that appealing to me. So I asked Doug if he was up for an adventure ?
In order, we drove over to South Alabama for a softball game in Sunday afternoon.
Stop 2 – Missouri for a quick hello with Lin on Monday. We did watch Kansas upend UNC on Monday night in a hotel room.
Stop 3 – South Bend, Indiana, for our second softball game. This time, it was to introduce Doug to Rob Sisk, and the venue was on the campus of Notre Dame.
Stop 4 – we had to go quite rapidly down to West Virginia immediately after the game as John Culp was going in for a procedure at the crack of dawn. The battle with cancer had pretty much run its course, and this was going to be my final shot at a goodbye, and we made it with a few minutes to spare.
Stop 5 – Arby’s in Tom’s Brook, Virginia, where we pulled in after failing in our attempt to contact Jay Neal. The timing aspect of both John Culp and Jay Neal are part of a final book story.
Stop 6 – Page County High School Softball complex to catch up with Alan and show Doug the sign with my parents’ name on it.
Stop 7 – Waynesboro, Virginia, where we met up with Chris Graham at his house, and while there, we recorded one of our podcasts together. Life was getting blurry by this point, but we still had to make it back to Charlotte to get my car as CLT was the airport where I had originally parked.
We just missed connecting with Lawrence Nesselrodt up in Beckley, but that was my next stop after we headed our separate ways.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and finally, Wednesday is unscripted reality TV. None of which would have taken place if Duke had defeated North Carolina on Saturday.
John Culp, in one of the photos used at his Memorial service.
