Saturday morning, Paris McCurdy's calls finally made sense.
They had started earlier in the week. He was coming to Little Rock and we had to get together.
Without knowing why he was finally coming back it was agreed, yes, we had to get together.
Then Saturday morning, Troy Schulte had a great story on the UALR team that 30 years ago had knocked off Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Minneapolis.
The team was to be honored Saturday night, with rings, at halftime of UALR's game with South Alabama at the Jack Stephens Center.
A few hours earlier, most of that team and yours truly had our own reunion. My back ached from all the hugs.
Stories flew, and probably grew, and yet there were some obvious things about this team of special guys from all over the country. They still had a bond, a sense of what they had done -- the only UALR men's basketball team to win a game in the NCAA Tournament -- but a disappointment they didn't do a little more.
That group was as mentally tough and competitive as any this reporter has ever covered.
It started with Michael Clarke, an undersized center who used strength, will and a hint of ill-temper to offset the fact that he wasn't as tall as his opponents.
Everyone followed Clarke's lead. Everyone. Clarke died last year, but his memory was alive and well last weekend.
The team was surprised to learn Saturday that when it was 4-9, Coach Mike Newell invited Jerry Webster and yours truly to lunch. He wanted -- probably needed, but you would never know that with Newell -- two sets of ears to just listen.
Newell's favorite play was called 50-Z. He wasn't about to scrap it, because if run properly someone was going to get open. But by the end of the meeting, he decided to tweak one aspect of that play as well as change his lineup.
Newell installed freshman point guard Paul Springer and freshman forward Paris McCurdy into the lineup.
The tweak was simple: Newell wanted Myron Jackson, his shooting guard, to have the green light on every possession. If open, Jackson was to get the ball.
Jackson was from Hamburg; Clarke and Pete Myers from Mobile, Ala.; Springer from Fort Wayne, Ind.; and McCurdy was from Detroit.
Somehow Newell made them into a confident team that believed in one another.
UALR won 18 of its next 19 games, won the Trans America Athletic Conference tournament and were seeded No. 14 in the NCAA Tournament. The Trojans scoffed at the seeding and said don't call them a Cinderella.
No one did. They beat No. 3 seed Notre Dame 90-83, and it wasn't really that close. Jackson had 22 points, Clarke 27 and they played ruthless defense. In their next game they looked ready to beat North Carolina State, but Jim Valvano went to a zone in the second half and Jackson had to shoot over 6-11 Chris Washburn.
Listening to them Saturday, there was no doubt basketball, especially at UALR under Newell and assistant coach Jim Calvin, shaped their lives.
Almost all of them graduated. Four went into coaching, and one is now a high school athletic director; McCurdy, who played professionally overseas for several years, manages a string of assisted-living facilities in Detroit and is a volunteer coach; Curtis Kidd has worked for the U.S. Postal Service for more than 20 years; Jackson spent 24 years in the Navy before retiring four years ago.
The list goes on and on.
When the reunion ended so they could get ready to go to UALR, appreciation is what I felt. That I was part of an era when you got to know kids personally and watch them grow and develop.
It was also nice that the year the 1986 team was honored, UALR is back on the basketball map with a 21-2 record.
Sports on 02/10/2016