By MONTE DUTTON

On Sunday night, I watched a healthy portion of Believers: Boston Red Sox, a documentary that centers on the 2004 World Series. At the same time, I was switching to a basketball game between Charleston and UNC Wilmington. The Cougars came from 15 points behind and won.

I watched Miami of Ohio barely beat Western Michigan, and it destroyed any sympathy for the undefeated RedHawks because their head coach, one Travis Steele, put on a hissy fit that would have drawn the admiration of the late Bob Knight.

I have a selfish viewpoint. If I like a coach, it causes me sorrow if he loses his (or her) job. I’m relatively confident, because I wasn’t born yesterday, that Lamont Paris is going to lose his job at South Carolina. I enjoyed interactions with Paris when he was at Chattanooga. It wasn’t his fault that David Jean-Baptiste hit a 30-foot miracle to beat Furman in overtime at the SoCon tournament finals of 2022.

I’m fortunate that I get the opportunity to write about Quinton Ferrell and Tiffany Sardin at Presbyterian, John Gardner and Dontavius Glenn at Clinton High School, Pierre Curtis and Bob Richey at Furman, and many others.

Ferrell has never had a winning record. Sardin’s women are 3-26.

I was driving home from Furman last week and heard radio talkers yapping about UCLA’s Mick Cronin, who went berserk after a reporter asked him about the Michigan State student section, and I thought that could not happen at Furman.

Richey answers questions comprehensively. If someone asked Bob a question about the crowd, he might know all the names and discuss the personalities. The trick is to turn the book he recites into a snappy quotation. I use a lot of ellipses but try to get the gist of what he says. I’ve never seen him get overwrought at a question. Then again, I’ve never asked him about a student section.

I once worked with a basketball coach who threw fits for effect. Deep down, I thought he was a decent guy. When under pressure, however, he went into a cheap Knight imitation. When times went bad, he went crazy.

Bear with me. I’m going tournament hopping in Johnson City, Tenn., and Asheville, N.C., this week.

My top three holidays are Thanksgiving, Fourth of July and the Southern Conference basketball tournament. I’m pumped. First it’s the Big South. The teams from PC and Furman may not win a game. I’ve decided to stay for as much as the schedules allow. I love the pep bands, cheerleaders, fans and teams. I want to write about it all.

Two times I’ve written about an event and barely remembered, a day later, what I wrote. The former was Dale Earnhardt’s final Daytona 500. The latter was Jean-Baptiste’s miracle shot that beat the Paladins. I went back and read my stories. I did all right. My fingers had AI.

It’s fine with me if I never go on autopilot again.

I’m probably going to be playing catch-up when I get back. Once I traveled the country writing about NASCAR. Now I rarely leave the Upstate.

As the late Dudley Moore once said in a movie, “Isn’t fun the greatest thing you can have?”

By the way, I love baseball. Soon I’ll be ready for it.

The world is changing, always rearranging. From birth to the end, with my Facebook friends.

Many thanks to the advertisers who keep wellpilgrim.com going. If you’d like to join that number, contact me. Supplies are limited. The site is also supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address is: Monte Dutton, P.O. 221, Clinton, S.C.  29325 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions.

Remember, if you punch in the same number over and over, odds are a lawyer is going to answer.