One Shining Moment
Luther Vandross
My dad probably didn’t think anything of it that night. But on Monday, March 30, 1987, he let his 7 year old son stay up to watch the NCAA men’s basketball national championship game between Syracuse and Indiana. I had a vested interest in this game because the movie “Hoosiers” had just come out and my little rec league basketball team was also named the Hoosiers that year. Needless to say - I was ALL. IN. on Indiana during that tournament. It’s funny what you remember and what you don’t throughout your life. I can’t remember last Tuesday for the life of me but for as long as I live, I will remember jumping out of my skin when Keith Smart hit the game winning (and championship winning) basket for the Hoosiers with 3 seconds to play. With so much adrenaline pumping, there was no way I was going to bed any time soon (even though it HAD to be late on the east coast where we were living at the time), so dad let me stay up to watch the postgame interviews and trophy presentation and Indiana celebration. The CBS credits started rolling as Indiana was cutting down the nets and I’m sure dad was trying to get me to turn off the TV to go to bed. But I was going to milk this baby until the broadcast officially went all the way off the air. Then an unexpected thing happened. The music changed and all of a sudden a video montage of that year’s NCAA tournament started playing with a song behind it. Dad even sat back down and we watched together. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were watching the very first edition of what has now become the official anthem of March Madness: “One Shining Moment.” I don’t know why but Dad had the awareness to record the game on a VHS tape (I really have the best dad) and I remember wearing that tape out, watching “One Shining Moment” over and over. The next year, I made us stay until the end of the credits again to see if the montage had just been a one-off or if they were going to play it again. Sure enough, as Kansas was cutting down the nets, the music changed and I think I was more excited about “One Shining Moment” than the rest of that game. It was officially a tradition and was my favorite thing to look forward to at the end of the championship game as the years went on. In 1993, I introduced “One Shining Moment” to a good new friend Kevin. He was as instantly hooked as I had been. For the next stretch of years, Kev and I would get together to watch the title game together and we always stuck around to watch the anthem at the end.
Little did we realize that “One Shining Moment” had become SUCH an institution that the Georgia Dome played it on the big screen in the stadium so that (then) champions, Louisville, could watch and enjoy it as a team. That’s become another annual tradition now. Now that we live across the country, Kev and I haven’t been able to see the champ game together as much as we used to but we always text each other that “One Shining Moment” is about to come on at the end. A couple of months ago, Kevin reached out about coming to Denver to hang out this spring and gave us the dates of when he was going to be here. I can’t even begin to describe how excited I was when I realized that we would be together tonight. For the NCAA Championship game. For “One Shining Moment.” Now that my son is about to be 6 years old, I’m getting way more aware that he’s starting to enter this phase of being able to develop life long memories. Maybe it won’t be basketball and maybe it won’t be “One Shining Moment” but he will have his own little shining moments that I may not even realize. Just gotta let him stay up a little bit later from time to time. Thanks again, dad. Here are some other notes about “One Shining Moment” that no one cares about other than me:
The song was originally supposed to be used after the 1987 Super Bowl between the Giants and Broncos but the game ran long, so they scrapped it and saved it for the NCAA tournament a few months later
Luther Vandross took over the vocals on the song in 2003 and his version has been used ever since (other than one ill-fated year in 2010 when Jennifer Hudson did a critically panned cover)
I have no idea how it would or could ever happen at this point but being in "One Shining Moment" is my #1 remaining life Bucket List item. Obviously I'm never going to play college basketball in the NCAA tournament so that road is closed. I'm not a team cheerleader, I don't play in a school band, and I'm not a celebrity fan so my options are getting very limited. My one and ONLY chance of appearing in "One Shining Moment" comes down to this: attending a tournament game (or better yet, a string of games) and getting noticed by the cameras as a fun/funny fan in the stands. That's it. That's the path for me at this point. The first round of the tourney is back in Denver in 2023 so I'm going to be working on my strategy until then. Any ideas?
While We’re Here:
Here are my Top 5 All Time Favorite March Madness Memories:
5. UNC Tarheels with Kev - Sheed, Stack, Carter, Jamison. Growing up where we did in southeast Virginia, you had to choose between Duke or UNC. Kevin and I went with UNC and we would have some epic parties where 30 people would show up and half would be rooting for the Tarheels and half would be pulling for the Blue Devils. Some epic matchups and great hangs.
3. Kris Jenkins buzzer beater - UNC and ACC basketball just isn’t as much of a thing for me now that I live in Colorado so over the past decade, I’ve gravitated to all things Philadelphia and have been following Villanova hoops a lot more intently. My loyalties were tested for real in 2016 when the Wildcats faced UNC in the championship game and even though I felt like I was cheating on Kevin and UNC, I couldn’t help myself as I felt the pull towards Nova. It was an all time, heavyweight bout that we thought was going to overtime after Marcus Paige’s incredible three to tie but Kris Jenkins hit the winner at the buzzer and I couldn’t help but celebrate.
2. Duke Blue Devils - Every story has to have an antagonist, right? I know this is absurd but it feels like Duke basketball has been trolling ME, personally for the majority of my life. Here is a quick rundown of all the shenanigans they have pulled over the past 30 years:
Defeated my all time favorite team (and undefeated at the time) UNLV in the 1991 Final Four (more on the Runnin’ Rebels in a minute). That’s when our rivalry was born.
Because they beat UNLV in ‘91, I was hardcore anti-Duke during their title run in 1992. Then Christian Laettner hit the game winner vs Kentucky (IN Philadelphia of all places) and I cried angry tears for hours that night. My poor parents had no clue what to do with me after a while. I legit went to Dark Side hatred of Duke for the rest of my life that night and I remember all of it as if it was happening right now.
Participated in the “Late Show” large dollar pool while interning in 2001. Of all the staff members at the show, it came down to me and another guy at the championship game. I had Arizona winning it all, the other guy had, you guessed it, Duke. Of course Duke won and cost me a lot of money. That’s when it started to feel directly personal towards me.
Gordon Hayward half-court shot goes in and out in 2010, Kentucky loses its first game of the season to Wisconsin in 2015, giving Duke a free/cheap title, on and on and on it goes. It’s actually gotten to an unhealthy place where I enjoy watching Duke lose more than I celebrate anyone else winning. I was initially so excited that the Blue Devils didn’t even make the tournament this year but then was ultimately disappointed that I (1) didn’t get to root against them and (2) didn’t get to be happy when they finally lost. That’s completely healthy and normal, right?
Oh, and UNLV just happened to win their championship in Denver, Colorado that year and if you think that's not at least 12% of the reason why I live here today, then you do not know me at all.
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