Koza's Take: 52 Years of Misery Erased
By VINCE KOZA
It is so hard to accurately describe how great I feel about the Cavaliers winning the NBA Championship Sunday night.
But I am going to try.
This column has been a long time coming. I have written about “Waiting for Next Year,” for a couple of years now. I have lived “Waiting for Next Year,” since 1964.
But I am waiting no more, the Cleveland pro sports championship drought is over.
52 years of hell, really!
I still wonder if I am dreaming that the drought is over.
Of course, I thought it would be possible once LeBron James decided to return “home” nearly two years ago now. And remember the Cavs came oh so close to winning the NBA Championship last year, before losing in game six of the finals to Golden State.
But how many people picked the Cavaliers this June, after they lost the first two games of this year’s finals or after they had fallen down three games to one in the series?
Certainly not me.
How could anyone believe the Cavs could rebound after what we had seen in the first two games, or even how game four finished?
But LeBron pulled off the unthinkable.
No team had ever rallied from a three games to one deficit in an NBA Final before!
And LeBron led his Cavaliers to a game seven victory on the road?
And had to rally from behind in the finale to do it?
Man, that was sweet!
I certainly was nervous about game seven, but just glad the Cavaliers still had the opportunity to win the Championship.
You know I picked the Warriors to win.
Koza jinx was my hope here.
Be right or be happy. I would rather be happy. I wasn’t happy while watching the game. Talk about nerve-wracking.
Down at the half by seven, and I wasn’t feeling good. But as usual, wife Holly was trying to be positive.
“Hey, it could be worse,” she yelled out.
She was right.
The Cavs were only 1-14 from three point range, yet trailed by just seven at intermission.
And the second half was back and forth. I was pacing like a mad man. Even when the Cavaliers had a four point lead with 10 seconds left, I was still thinking something crazy would happen to prevent them from winning.
Unfortunately, that is a Cleveland pro sports fan’s mentality.
But then the Cavaliers won the game, won the NBA Championship, the city of Cleveland with its first pro sports championship since 1964.
I got down on my knees and started screaming at the television.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” I yelled. Then I got up and hugged my wife as hard as I could. And I cried like a baby. I cried a lot Sunday night. All of the text messages, and the tweets, and the phone calls-it was so awesome!
I cried more Monday. But these are happy tears. 52 years worth of happy tears.
I will never forget sitting in front of my dad’s big black radio and listening to the Browns win the NFL Championship back in 1964. I was five years old then. Little did I know at the time, that it would be 52 years later before another Cleveland pro sports championship would come my way.
There’s been a lot of misery and heartache along the way.
But Sunday night made up for a lot of that.
I will never forget where I was June 19th, 2016.
That was awesome!
And it still is awesome today!