My throat is killing me. It's so swollen I can barely swallow. My voice sounds like that of a teenaged frog.

I sat courtside at the Missouri-Duke NCAA tournament game on Saturday in Greensboro, N.C.

When I say courtside, I mean row AA, the first row of ticketed seating behind four rows of press tables. As courtside as it gets for non-NCAA insiders. Close enough to see the seams in the wood floor (including one that tripped up players all game long). I was right there.

We (that would be Missouri) lost, but the game was great. I'd never been so close to the action. And I certainly didn't expect to be sitting in such a prime spot. My wife, Barbara, secured three tickets for Thursday night's game against Georga through the MU alumni association. If we won our first round game, we'd have tickets (automatically charged to a credit card) for Saturday's game. On Thursday night, we sat in the upper deck. Not bad seats (much better than any spot I ever had at MU's home floor, the Hearnes Center), but nothing spectacular. Missouri beat Georgia 70-68 on a Clarence Gilbert jumper with .9 seconds left. A truly exciting, invigorating game. We were pumped for our second-round date with Duke. When we picked up our tickets on Saturday we saw the lower-level section number, but figured that AA sat somewhere higher than row Z.

An incorrect assumption, to be sure.

All of the rows in the lower rim of the Greensboro Coliseum are designated with double letters (AA, BB, etc.). All of the rows in the upper deck use single letters. I don't know why. Somewhat counterintuitive on a number of levels, really, but the important thing is that we sat in seats 1-3 in row AA of secton 127. We could see the beads of sweat build up on Coach K's face as Duke failed again and again to put Mizzou away (until the final minutes, anyway).

Here's the thing: Courtside is actually the best way to watch a basketball game. This is not true of most major sports. I've watched baseball at every level of the sport, in old and rickety stands and grand, stately stadiums. At just the major-league level, I've been right behind home plate, right behind the visitor's dugout (the roof over the Indians supported an almost continuous stream nachos and Boulevard beer), down the lines, in the outfield and way up in the upper (sometimes upper upper, if possible) deck. Last year I finally caught a foul ball sitting in the upper lower section (if that makes sense--it was about 40 feet from the foul line) about 75 feet down the line from third base at a Durham Bulls AAA game. That's a good distance to see just about everything in the game, though I'd have preferred to be a little closer to home plate to see the pitcher better. Still, right behind home plate or the dugout isn't the best way to catch all the nuances of baseball.

Same goes for football. I've always wanted to be about 20 rows up in the lower deck. You can see clearly over the guys on the sideline, you can still hear the calls barked out and you have a pretty clear field of vision for the whole field. When I'm watching soccer, I like to be even higher. When two soccer teams are playing well, all 10 players on each side (I'm not counting the goalies) are in motion, setting up plays or constructing defenses. The only way to get a complete understanding of the game is to be able to see the whole game, and that means sitting a good distance up in the stands (maybe 30-40 rows from the field). As for hockey, I simply like to sit high enough that the glass doesn't obstruct my view. I've never had a board rat seat, so I don't know if that might be preferable, though I do think pounding on the glass might be an awful lot of fun.

I had no glass to pound, but I did yell throughout the MU-Duke game. If you were watching and you heard a hoarse voice exhorting the Tigers to "get a stop here" or "get a good shot," it was probably me. At times, my voice almost seemed to echo. It was so cool. I know the players occasionally heard what I said. And no, I didn't get on any players' cases. I hollered at the refs from time to time, but I don't get into character assassination. I left that to the guy behind me, who kept screaming at Shane Battier the whole game. And, in fact, right after the guy yelled "William Avery! He washed out in the NBA! So will you!," Battier missed the front end of a one-and-one. Next time up, my lusty-voiced friend issued a similar pronouncement about another former Duke star, Trajan Langdon. Battier swished both shots. That's why I don't scream insults.

But I stood up. I shook my black and gold pom-pon (thoughtfully provided by the MU Alumni Association) and yelled myself silly. With ten minutes to go, we were down 1. With five minutes to go, we were down 15. With two minutes to go, we were down 18. We lost by 13. Even after we lost, I kept yelling, trying to show the guys we appreciated their effort. Duke played one of its best games of the year on Saturday, and our boys didn't quit. They stayed in the game. They didn't embarrass themselves. When the game was done, I congratulated the Duke fans around us and went to find some ice cream for my throat. It tasted good, but didn't help much.

When you're courtside, you've got responsibility. You've got to support your boys (or girls, depending on the sport). You've got to shout encouragement. You'd got to stand up, wave your arms and generally make a fool of yourself. If you don't, then you're shirking.

I didn't shirk. I didn't shrink away from my duties as a courtside fan. I didn't play the game, but I was in the game. My voice and possibly my face (a secondary camera did swing in the direction of our section a couple of times) were broadcast to the nation. I was part of the big spectacle, the game that drives all of the corporate junk surrounding the NCAA tournament. Quite simply, I had a blast. I'll take courtside seats any time.

Jon Worley wrecked what was left of his voice trying to cheer while watching the 10th-seeded MU women blast No. 2 seed Georgia on ESPN on Sunday afternoon.