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Tuesday, July 2
I put my golf shoes on at 7:30 a.m. and took them off 15
hours later at 10:30 p.m. For John Michael Buccigross, THAT is a good day. The occasion was the seventh annual Travis Roy benefit golf
tournament in Orange, Conn. Roy, as most of you know, was a Boston University
freshman in October of 1995 when he was paralyzed eleven seconds into his
collegiate career. Roy fell head first into the boards after delivering a check
and shattered his fourth cervical vertebra, severely damaging his spinal cord.
He tells his story in "Eleven Seconds," a book co-written by the
great writer E.M. Swift, and which many of you recommended when I asked you to
send in summer reading book requests. For seven years this golf tournament has taken place to
help raise funds for Travis and the fight to find a cure for spinal cord
injuries so he and those like him might some day walk again. Avalanche forward
Chris Drury, a teammate of Roy's at BU, has been there since the
beginning, along with his brother Ted. Michael Ferguson, a friend of all three
men who helps run the event, called me Sunday to ask if I would play in the
morning as well as the afternoon. I said, "No problem," and Monday
morning I headed down to Racebrook Country Club. I arrived at 7:30 and headed to the carts for the 8 a.m.
shotgun start. It was a perfect Connecticut day -- 80 degrees, no humidity and
little wind. My ideal day. I played with a great group of guys that included
Brendan Sheehy, the supervisor of officials for Hockey East, and we blistered
the course with a 15-under par. The afternoon shotgun got underway as we were
finishing our last hole of the morning round. I carted in, grabbed a burger,
jumped back in the cart and headed out to find my afternoon teammates. By the time I found them, they had already hit their first
drive. I jumped out, grabbed a lob wedge and hit one to three feet. We birdied
the first three holes, but faded late. However, the afternoon round ended well
when we finished up on one of the closest to the pin holes. In the morning, I
had hit one to four feet and when we got to the green, I discovered it had held
up. I hardly ever win a closest to the pin, since I'm not a great ball striker.
My strength is driving and putting, so it was a pleasant surprise to end the
day seeing my name still on the stake. I got a U.S Open Bethpage golf shirt. At the dinner and awards presentation, we learned our
morning round held up as the winning score. The day kept getting better. The
sun was dropping and the evening was turning into one of those June nights you
wish could last forever. Tom Poti of the Rangers was there, and it was so obvious
how much the trade to the Rangers pleased him. He is the kind of person who
likes to be near home and family. That fact alone will result him in having a
better season next year. I guarantee it. I walked out to the parking lot to put my prizes in my car
and to get out of my golf shirt. I put on the Travis Roy t-shirt that was in
our goody bag and headed back to the outdoor dinner of steak, chicken and all
the fixins. As I got there, I saw Chris Drury was about to leave. He was
heading back to Boston where he hangs out for the summer. I had him sign my
tournament hat -- it's a great-looking yellow hat with the Travis Roy Golf
Tournament logo on it. When I try to qualify for the U.S. Amateur in August, I
will be wearing that hat with Drury's signature on the bill. On the side of my
golf ball will be TRAVIS ROY 24. I chatted briefly with Drury as he exited. We both share
that inability to carry a conversation, so our chats are usually brief. I have
talked with him once on the telephone and spoken briefly with him in person
twice. I know nothing about him and have been unable to get a good read on him.
I think in some ways he is like me. He'll accommodate at any time yet prefers
to be out of the limelight, on the perimeter of social events, but in the
middle of athletic ones. I think it is NOT surprising that shy, introverted
people like Drury and say, Larry Bird, embrace the athletic spotlight. It is
there they can express themselves and what is truly inside them, without using
words. Their actions say "I care. I'm a good teammate. I'm smart. I'm
aware. I'll sacrifice." Bird and Drury are uncomfortable in suits and
prefer to be among friends. They play because it's fun and for the money. NOT
THE FAME. I'm the same way. I didn't get into this business to be famous. I got
in it for the fun and because they give out money to do it. That's why I work.
It's a job. We work for money. One of perhaps numerous areas where Drury and I
differ is that I am much more likely to end up in my underwear lip-syncing a
KISS song as I did during last call at the bar "Shenanigans" while
attending Heidelberg College in 1985. The song was "Heaven's on
Fire." You don't forget those things. As the sun began to set in the orange sky, the live
auction was taking place. There was a large batch of autographed items and I
had my eye on a couple things. A HUGE pet peeve of mine is athletes who
sloppily sign their names. What makes Ted Williams even more of a baseball
legend is the impeccable penmanship he had in signing his prime. Joe DiMaggio,
too. Beautiful. We all can't all have such penmanship, but we can try to at
least MAKE IT READABLE. So I narrowed my wish list to one. A framed,
autographed jersey of Larry Bird. Bird entered the NBA when I was 13, and left
when I was 26. I cared a little about the NBA before he arrived and not at all
after he left. His signature was done with a silver pen on the right
"3" on the back of his uniform. It was perfect. I knew the bidding
would be high, but I wanted to give something significant to the cause and have
something to remember this great day by. Plus Travis wore No. 24 and Bird
averaged 24 points for his career. It was destiny, right? My cutoff was $1,000.
Someone went to $1,100. "Going once, going twice..."
"$1,200!!!" I screamed. My "opponent" crumbled like the Washington
Capitals. I'll be paying off my donation until 2006. Night was coming
fast, and it was time to head home. I had yet to introduce myself to Travis. He
had been busy all day and night. I walked over and touched his arm. We chatted
for a while and I bought a copy of his book, "Eleven Seconds." He
asked me if I wanted him to sign it. I said, "Absolutely." He took a
pen, put it in his mouth, and while John Drury, Chris and Ted's dad, held the
book, Travis signed it. "TO JOHN BEST WISHES TRAVIS ROY." I headed home, still with my golf shoes on. I pulled into
my driveway and the earth's nightlight was in full glow. A full moon. I sat on
my front steps and stared up at the sky and thought about Travis Roy and how
his days on earth are likely forever stuck in that wheelchair, dependent on
those around him. How sad that must be. And frightening. Whenever I have the
"Is there a God?" debate with my agnostic friends, I cite these
moments of natural beauty as MY argument for visual proof . However, at that
moment my mind was also dealing with the image of a young man in a wheel chair
and why he is there. And how can this be the end of the road for him? Is that
not also a sign that there must be more somewhere? I mean it is so unfair. My
December 10th column mentioned how I always thought my church and NHL hockey
arenas gave off the same vibe in my pre-teen days, and here I was again,
thinking about God and hockey at the same time. I decided to look for the answer on the basketball court in
my backyard. The one that I freeze in the winter for backyard ice hockey.
(Actually, one afternoon last winter I was shooting hoops on skates.) I decided
to grab a basketball and head to the court. After all, I had just got the Bird
jersey as an emblem for a perfect day and both basketball and hockey share
steel and netting as it's target. Here I would find my answer! The light of the
moon lit the court like it lit my ice during my New Year's Eve skate. No lights
needed. I went to the far corner of the court and stood there with the ball. I
said I would take one shot from 18 feet (Drury's number). Just one. If it goes
in, Travis Roy will one day run and skate and do whatever one does in what most
people call heaven. Maybe he'll even sing KISS in his underwear. If it doesn't
go in, this all doesn't mean anything and it doesn't matter how we live or how
well we treat each other. Just one big insignificant cosmic thing that has no
soul or value. I never claimed to be Einstein or St. Thomas Aquinas. I began dribbling. I looked at the moon lighting up the sky
at it sat above my house. A thin swath of cloud giving the sky texture. Still
dribbling, I looked at the rim, thinking about Travis in that wheel chair and
how it all sucks. And it how it makes me angry that he can't skate and play
golf and just mindlessly shoot hoops on a warm summer night. One shot. For an
answer. Or at least a temporary reprieve from my confusion and doubt. Still with my golf shoes on, I took one last look at the
moon, the sky, and the stars. I looked at the rim, stopped dribbling, and shot. Swish. John Buccigross is the host of NHL 2Night, which
airs Tuesday-Saturday on ESPN2
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By John Buccigross -