Glory Days: I Was Paul Pierce's Nightmare (In A Game We Lost By 58 Points)

Sports greatness takes place all the time, all over the country. Sometimes, as with our own Tommy Craggs, those moments of triumph are preserved forever, even if it's on a crappy videotape that's been forgotten about and no one's watched it for years. In this occasional series, we'll show the videos and share the stories of the fantastic feats of our readers. If you've got a video of your own brush with athletic heroism to share, send it to [email protected], subject: Glory Days.

This story comes from Dan Forbes:

In 1997, my awful Brown Bears basketball team took on the #1 Kansas Jayhawks. I was a seldom-used reserve, but I got 9 minutes that night. My father's side of the family lives in Kansas and my brothers flew out to the game. I was 1 for 3 in the game, the lone make included in the video I've provided. For the last 15 years, I've shown the clip to just about everyone I can. I refer to it as "The Curse of Paul Pierce" or "Paul Pierce's Nightmare." Whenever Pierce isn't playing well, I blame in on the flashback of that shot (despite our 58-point loss and the fact that he's not even on the floor). Periodically, I send it out so those close to me so they can enjoy it all over again.

Dan had sent so many reminders of his big shot to friends and family, his brother, Matt, felt compelled to send this email to Celtics GM Danny Ainge:

From: Matt (my brother) Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 10:48 AM To: Danny Ainge Cc: Dan; John, Dad, Kate; Subject: Paul Pierce

Dear Mr. Ainge,

I understand that you have more pressing issues at the moment, but perhaps after the season is over and you have hopefully won another title, you could address an issue very important to our family. Essentially, more than a decade ago, my idiot younger brother scored what many would describe as "an otherwise completely and utterly useless" basket for Brown against Kansas (Kansas was up by roughly 128 points when this basket was made). A clip of the bucket is attached. My brother feels like this basket is on, or near, the same level of the basket you made to beat UCLA. We all beg to differ (by "we all", I am referring to the others on this distribution chain that have to deal with constant memory of this basket, namely his tortured family). Moreover, as you can see from his email below, he believes that Paul Pierce still battles daily with the lingering image of this basket being shot in his face (although, as you will notice if you actually decide to waste 30 seconds of your life by watching the clip, Pierce is not even on the court when the shot is taken). Accordingly, if you could find the time to respond to this email on Paul Pierce's behalf, or better yet, forward this email to Paul so he can respond directly in a manner that makes it perfectly clear Paul would not recognize my brother if he crapped on Paul's yard and that Brown is nothing more to him than a primary color, then a number of life-long Celtic, Danny Ainge, and Paul Pierce fans would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you for your time.

Matt

The following morning, much to Matt's and Dan's surprise, Ainge replied:

From: Danny Ainge Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 10:03 AM To: Matt Subject: RE: Paul Pierce

Paul said they must have taken him out at 24-2 in hopes of keeping the final spread under 60.