Celtics 131, Lakers 92
In 1986, I was a senior at a parochial boarding high school in Virgina. A couple of years earlier, a Boston school in the same system had closed and a number of its students from around New England had come south and had enrolled at the Virginia school. Two of those students in particular, sisters, seemed to go absolutely nuts each year when NBA championship time rolled around. To someone who had grown up in a city and state with no major league sports teams1, and who, frankly, wasn't a huge sports fan anyway, their behavior was more than a little mysterious.
Having now lived in Boston for 14 years2, during what may turn out to be one of the city's golden eras, sportswise, I think I'm starting to understand what all the excitement was about. So to Dawn and Traci and the other Celtics fans of that time and place (who can't have changed team loyalties in the intervening years), I offer my congratulations.
1. Durham, N.C. Well, OK, Duke basketball under Coach K. was not exactly sleepy at the time, and was on its way to a national championship of its own a few years later. Michael Jordan had been playing college ball at a school down the road a couple of years earlier. So there is some familiarity with the excitement...
2. And despite being about to depart the area, strangely enough, to return to Virginia.