“The Shot” that changed everything
San Diego State’s Lamont Butler planting and rising high above the NRG Stadium floor and — only a split second later — draining what will forever be known as “The Shot,” is burned into my mind. It will never fade.
Like the throng of Aztec faithful who made the trek to Houston, I saw it live at NRG during the semifinals of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this past March. Seconds after the shot found the bottom of the net I leapt high in the air and then collapsed in my seat. March Madness had never been so mad for me. I was clearly suffering from a case of utter delirium.
My wife — also an Aztec alum — came running down the stairs from her self-imposed exile to the club bar where she spent the entire second half warding off evil spirits. We embraced and screamed who knows what to each other, shocked and amazed at what had transpired. The woman next to me was weeping. The guy in front of me had his hands on his head, maybe trying to keep his brain from exploding. He removed them long enough to exchange a high-five for the ages. His head did not explode. My hand was a different story. Euphoria ensued.
I would like to say was the stuff of dreams, but I never dreamed that big before.
The scene in the concourse where a tidal wave of Aztec fans came streaming in from all directions, I would like to say was the stuff of dreams, but I never dreamed that big before. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The amazement on everyone’s face. The joy. The pride. It was universal. It was real. It was as if a dormant volcano had finally cracked the seal, unleashing a torrent of legitimacy — and a whole lot high fives, fist bumps and bro hugs. We collectively danced and chanted and were living in the moment, one that happened to be the biggest in school history. The “wooo-wooo-wooos” that echoed throughout the stadium could loosely be translated to “I told you so.”
Even after the Crimson Tide had been rolled, we still couldn’t get any respect.
Double negatives be damned, nobody not wearing red and black seemed to be taking SDSU serious the entire tournament up to that point. It seemed all the prognosticators and pundits in the national media had been giving our team no chance throughout the tournament. It started with talk of SDSU being over-seeded, as if its Mountain West Championship, № 15 Net Rating, and № 20 AP Ranking were somehow not worthy of the № 5 seed it received. It continued with most experts denying our strength in spite of a diabolical, soul-crushing defense and positive results that were piling up throughout the run to the title game. That includes pummeling lower seeds who the pundits all picked to upset us in the first two rounds, and then shocking Alabama, the №1 seed in the tournament in the Sweet 16. Even after the Crimson Tide had been rolled, we still couldn’t get any respect. If Rodney Dangerfield were still alive, he woulda been Dutch’s wingman.
After squeaking by Creighton in the Elite 8, my phone was blowing up. Congratulations were flowing and, more importantly, there was an invitation to use a friend’s vacation home in the Houston area so that my wife and I could be there for the monumental occasion. After suffering through decades of, well, suffering, we had to go. In our day (circa 1988) a big game was a crowd of two thousand at the San Diego Sports Arena. This was not going to be that. This was our moment. It’s a moment that should have been in March 2020 when we were likely going to be a № 1 or 2 seed with our gaudy 30–2 record. COVID-19 did us in that year, so this felt like we were carrying the weight of two squads.
When we arrived outside NRG and started wandering around the Final Four Experience, it was easy to see that we were not alone. Aztec fans were everywhere. It felt like we outnumbered the other fan bases two-to-one. Delirium was in the air. Beers were flowing like any given Friday afternoon at Monty’s Den. Monty Montezuma was dancing around, blowing his conch shell horn. Wooo-wooo-wooos everywhere.
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We followed wooo-wooo-wooos all the way to the official pre-game event in one of the NRG convention halls. At $100 a head, it was predominately an over-50 crowd. But still it was food, drink, cheerleaders, the band, stilt walkers, music spinning…you name it. And then finally a speech from the SDSU Athletic Director, or maybe it was the President. Didn’t matter. It was a great us-against-the-world oration that kept the fire stoked.
Even when that fire was smoldering under the weight of a 14-point second-half deficit against a feisty Florida Atlantic team, the Aztec faithful stayed the course. We’d come too far and waited too long to give up without a fight. So many years of ineptitude followed by a rise to respectability and dare I say — greatness — that wasn’t really being respected. We had to prove to the college basketball world that we belonged. “The Shot” — decades in the making — did just that.
