I had Valentine’s Dinner with Coach K. Well, sort of.

Hope you all had a nice Valentine’s Day. I did, until we went to dinner with some friends. We picked a nice, quiet place to eat. Not a sports bar, if you can believe that, and certainly not one with any distractions once you got away from the bar and TV.

Everyone sat down and got comfortable. I chose a seat by the window with nothing happening in the way of decorations. Until I looked up and almost chucked my dinner before I had even ordered. Right next to me on the wall was a big picture of Coach K, giving me the fist.

I laughed at my own bad luck, at a restaurant in Chapel Hill, miles from the Durham line. Then I looked at him again more closely. He wasn’t giving ME the fist, he was giving it to someone in the front of him, out of the picture. When I realized he was holding a net in his other hand, he was obviously raising a triumphant fist to either Duke fans or Americans after a championship at either the Final Four or the Olympics.

I laughed again and began looking around for another wall with a picture of Roy Williams with his own fist and his own net. Nope. I wanted to find the manager and ask him who did his interior decorating. Instead, I ordered a second glass of mild champagne because I had already thrown back my first, trying not to be bothered by our uninvited dinner guest.

We ordered, ate and actually had a very nice meal. Every once in a while, I glanced at the wall and hoped he had moved into more of an expression like last Thursday night at about 10 o’clock in the Smith Center. But there he was, right fist still up in the air, left hand still clutching another net.

Maybe I had a little too much to eat and drink, so I excused myself and said I had to go the bathroom. I passed the bar area and heard some loud comments coming from inside. I walked in and looked at the TVs; both had the Virginia Tech-Duke game on and the score was, well, you know what the final was better than I do. But it wasn’t close.

Now, these were the Hokies who had given top-ranked Virginia its first ACC loss Saturday night. And these were the Dukies who looked very average against us and Georgia Tech Sunday night. I went back to my table and winked at the guy with the fist and the net — for showing up just for me… twice.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Related Stories
None