Elizabeth and J.J. Jumper

In March 2001, Catholic University won the national championship of Division III men's basketball. Cate and Elizabeth drove down from Reston, Va., on game day to see them play in the title game, which I was in Salem covering for D3hoops.com. They got there just before tipoff and cheered us on as the Cardinals beat William Paterson.

After the game, pyrotechnics blew from the ceiling and confetti poured down on the floor. There was jumping and celebrating, net cutting and the whole 94 feet. Or nine yards. Since I was working, I was there long after the game, and Cate and Elizabeth were, too, with Elizabeth walking around the floor, picking up the colored strips of paper and stuffing them in a popcorn box.

It's her only memory of the game. She was not quite 3-1/2.

The following November, the Harlem Globetrotters came to Catholic University for an exhibition game, part of the spoils of victory. It was a packed house, and I was sitting on the floor, taking pictures. Elizabeth, at times, was sitting next to me. So was Jack Lonergan.

Jack is the son of then-Catholic U. coach Mike Lonergan. He is a little over a year younger than Elizabeth. But of course, he's in the gym all the time. That's his second home.

J.J. Jumper, the official mascot of NCAA basketball, was there entertaining the crowd. At one point, he was tossing out shirts to the crowd. Elizabeth was just about to turn 4. She was dying for a shirt, and supplies were running low.

Jack, Elizabeth and I were sitting on the sidelines near center court and at one point J.J. turned his back and Jack bolted for a shirt. You know, as much as a 2-year-old can bolt.

Elizabeth turned to look at me and I told her, "Go ahead!"

I mean, she was running out there with the coach's son. Who was going to stop her?

She got back to our spot on the sidelines, beaming, before J.J. turned around. Jack got his too. The shirt was an XL, down to her feet.

She's had it ever since, and in fact, she's sleeping in it tonight.

And seven years later, it's still big.

Something even older

In the course of the move, we've uncovered many things that we haven't seen in ages, things we've moved many times but haven't opened.

This isn't one of them. It's a remnant of our very first move, when Cate and I moved out of dorms rooms in Ryan Hall at Catholic U. in 1993 and into half of a row house about four blocks from campus.

Cate and I were on campus an extra month working on the yearbook, and they let us stay in our dorm rooms. But eventually it was time to leave and get our crap out of there. Thankfully, we had other friends on campus that summer, including Rob Scotto-Lavino, who worked for the campus transportation services. So he had access to a truck.

We don't own a lot at this point in terms of furniture, me being 20 and Cate 19, but Rob was in the business of moving furniture. And in the back of the truck was this table, which came from neighboring Regan Hall, and has been ours since that night. (Rob was also my first color guy on college basketball broadcasts. Thanks, Rob.)

It got packed in the POD today, which, thanks to an assist from Sean and Claire, is now 99% done. (There are some cubby-type holes we can poke things into.) We (they) also got a ton knocked off the to-do list today, and the painters came back and nearly finished. Floors get worked on on Monday.