Blake Roberts lives in Bethesda, Maryland.
Eight weeks ago, the night before he died, my dad watched the UConn men take on Providence from his hospital bed. The game was close. With two minutes left, the channel he was watching cut away; its affiliate would continue the game. My dad could not physically change the channel. A nurse would probably not come in time. So, he called my mom at home.
She put the game on, let him listen to the play-by-play and filled in the gaps. The game ended. They talked, said “I love you” and hung up. It would be their last conversation.
Overnight, my dad’s heart stopped twice. Hartford Hospital resuscitated him twice. My mom got there in time to be with him when his heart stopped the final time.
What made my father care enough about the game to make that call?
He wasn’t an alumnus. He didn’t know the players or coaches personally. But it mattered to him who won.
Sports create entertainment, money and meaning. The greatest of these is meaning.
I still remember being asked on the first-grade bus whether I was rooting for the Boston Red Sox or New York Mets in the 1986 World Series. I picked the Red Sox, got my first taste of heartbreak and stuck with it. Dad joined me.
As Red Sox fans, we suffered. But then, in 2004, we saw the Sox climb out of a historic hole to beat the Yankees and break the Curse. That journey — full of pain and hope and fear and joy — mattered to my dad and me, because we picked a team.
Steve Roberts was also a UConn fan by choice, not birth. In 1978, my dad moved from New Orleans to Manchester, Connecticut, for a promotion and a four-year rotation at the home office of Travelers Insurance. He stayed.
He was there for the parallel rise of the UConn men and women under coaches Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma. (And it was a big rise: The state celebrated the men’s team winning the National Invitation Tournament in 1988.) We spent hours watching Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton, Rebecca Lobo and Jen Rizzotti, and countless others.
In that sense, UConn meant something to my dad because he chose to pay attention to it. He was pretty good with attention. Little League and dance recitals? All over it. He served on the school foundation for decades. He wasn’t preoccupied with his own status, but he would spend hours smoking meat in a steel-drum smoker he built himself, sourcing and soaking wood, preparing cuts and babysitting the temperature.
That is not to say he was above pride. The rear windows of our family cars displayed the schools my sister and I attended like banners in a gym. But prestige was never the focus. He and Mom raised us to be good people who tried hard. Our achievements were a delightful side effect. And he took pride in UConn: The triumphs brought him joy, all because he had chosen to care.
As he aged, and my sister and I moved out, UConn became even more important to my dad. He would often say that the holidays and UConn basketball got him through the long Connecticut winter.
The Huskies brought more drama than the Hallmark movies he also loved. One time, in this last hospital stay, he called my mom to tell her he had passed a heart test. She got her notepad, and he said he would spell out the name of the test: “U … C … O … N … I can’t believe you didn’t get it yet.” They cracked up. It had been a nerve-racking overtime win against Villanova.
Relationships and stories drove meaning for Dad, in both life and sports. Seeing the UConn women win it all last year meant more because he had watched Paige Bueckers for five years. Her struggles through injury and adversity, and the weight of expectations, made the championship a vindication of persistence.
My dad embraced craft, from grilling to golf. Excellence drew him to sports. The clockwork teamwork of the 2024 UConn men was beautiful to watch, even in a blowout.
Dad played life hard and got into medical foul trouble late in his life. A stroke right before the pandemic limited him physically. But he never gave up. He survived and advanced. Get through one health scare, live to meet another grandchild. Gather for another holiday. Watch another season.
Those were the fundamentals that created meaning for my dad. Sports have their fundamentals, too. That night against Providence, I’m sure coach Dan Hurley and the UConn men looked to play excellent basketball and win the game in front of them. It was another test, another step on the road to crafting a national champion.
What they didn’t know was that they were playing the last game my dad would watch on this Earth. They let him go out on a win. An ending narrated by the love of his life.
At his funeral, the priest said that, in heaven, my dad could watch UConn games. I hope he’s right. Dad’s heart stopped in January, but it carried dreams of March.
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