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By MARLENE SOKOL

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2001

Good sports make good marriages

Forty-four years.

How do two people stay married 44 years?

One a teenager, the other fresh from the Army. She throws the bouquet, they start having babies. Four decades of temptations and frustrations, pet peeves and shrill tones, interests and hobbies that rarely converge.

She fancies feminism and shopping.

He's a sports nut, in a way sports nuts are bred in industrial cities like Philadelphia, with a brewery on the corner and a criminal court in the football stadium. Played ball in the military. Rec ball after college, until a bum leg steered him to golf.

He carries his passion for sports to absurd extremes. Subjects the kids to hours of crackling radio broadcasts when the "big game" -- and it's always a big game -- brushes up against a family vacation.

People like him -- and others from Philadelphia -- will understand the significance of Game Seven. After years of heartache, basketball fans have followed their Sixers to the precipice of the Eastern Conference finals.

No, he's not terribly enthralled by this showboat Allen Iverson. No Dr. J, this one, with the cornrows and tattoos and crazy music.

Still, it's Game Seven, and the city is on fire.

So infectious is this Game Seven thing that the man's daughter, grown with little sports fans of her own, has traveled all the way from the Tampa suburbs to join her brother at First Union Center.

By all rights their father should be parked in his living room this Sunday afternoon in the City of Brotherly Love.

This is, after all, a man who broke a finger at a Phillies fantasy camp, who has filled the guest bedroom with baseball card collections and framed two-sentence letters from team managers polite enough to respond when he writes them. A 10-year-old, though technically past retirement age, when it comes to sports.

But alas, Mrs. Sports Fan has theater tickets. And she really needs a night out.

"Can't you take someone else?" he implores. "I've already seen A Chorus Line."

"We've been over this," the wife responds, largely for the benefit of the visiting daughter. "We bought these tickets with another couple. We're having dinner first."

"But it's Game Seven," says the daughter, incredulous.

"You stay out of this!" Mom snaps back.

The daughter, at this point, has no way of knowing Game Seven will end with a score of 88-87, the kind of match-up fans will relive for decades to come.

Sitting in the many-times-painted kitchen of her childhood, she hums the overture from A Chorus Line. Dum dum da da da da da dum dum da da da da da dum dum da da da da da da. . .

Dad is annoyed, so she does it again. Dum dum da da da da da . . . Seeing it burns him, she delivers a karaoke rendition of Everything Is Beautiful at the Ballet. She explains, "so you'll think of us when you hear these songs."

The daughter's husband suggests, long distance, that Dad tape the game and impose a news blackout. But Florida Son-in-law has never lived in Philadelphia, where post-game fans are likely to spill, riot-like, into the theater district streets.

Dad will tape the game, though he's sure to learn the outcome. "If they win, I'll watch it, I don't care if I have to stay up until midnight."

So the son and daughter leave for the arena, not knowing the showboat Iverson will distinguish himself tonight by setting up shots for his teammates instead of scoring 50-plus himself, never anticipating a final quarter so suspenseful that some in the audience will avert their eyes; they can't even watch the court.

They can't imagine, even in this city of shameless sports hype, that fans the next morning will flood sports radio lines to answer the question, "Where were you when (Vince) Carter missed that shot?"

The daughter will catch her flight home, and as she reads endless newspaper recountings of Iverson the hero, her thoughts will turn to a very different MVP. My dad was at A Chorus Line, she'll realize with a start. While lesser fans across America screamed themselves silly, Dad sat in the 15th row of the Walnut Street Theater.

Making a marriage last 44 years.

Marlene Sokol is the Times' Carrollwood bureau chief. This article previously appeared in the North of Tampa section.

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