Recently, a friend asked me what NCAA March Madness moment was my most memorable. For me it was an easy question. But the strange thing is, my moment had very little to do with basketball.

It was the March of 1996 and my life was about to totally change for the better. In less than three weeks I was getting married, and for the first time in my photojournalism career, I was lucky enough to get assigned to cover the NCAA Tournament.

You’d think I’d be ecstatic, but in truth I was freaking out because I’m Catholic, and as any Catholic knows, there are a lot of rules involved with being a Catholic … a lot. And one of those rules is you can’t get married until you participate in a marriage counseling seminar.

This didn’t seem to be a big problem at the time my future wife, Julie, and I scheduled the seminar for mid-March. But then both Michigan and Eastern Michigan University made the NCAA Tournament, and the first round of the tournament was the same weekend as our seminar.

Rather than call Father Burke (the priest who would marry us) and inform him of my situation, I opted to try and do both the tournament and the seminar.

Michigan was in Milwaukee playing a Friday - Sunday schedule, so that was out of the question. But Eastern was in Indianapolis on a Thursday-Saturday slot, and their first round game was against the Duke Blue Devils.

I figured there was no way Eastern stood a chance against mighty Duke, so my plan was to drive to Indy, shoot EMU getting creamed by the Blue Devils, then head back to Ann Arbor in time to go to my pre-marital seminar.

Of course, things don’t always go as planned.

The night before I was set to leave for Indy the glands in my throat began to swell and I started to get the chills. An hour later I was busting the thermometer with a 104-degree fever.

I had Julie call my boss to tell her I couldn’t go to Indy. My boss told me not to worry; she’d get someone else on staff to take the slot. An hour later, my boss called to inform me there was no one else who could go.

Julie pleaded with me not to make the trip, but I told her if I was going to be miserable anyway, why not be miserable in a car headed south down I-69?

After a sleepless, feverish night, I got up, packed my car and headed for Indianapolis, fully expecting to be back in Ann Arbor in less than two days.

When I rolled into town after the four-hour trip, I tried to get out of my car only to find my legs didn’t work so well. I was extremely weak and dizzy, but somehow I managed to heave my gear out of my car and up to the front desk of the hotel.

By the next morning, my fever had passed. I even managed to eat something for the first time in two days and I began feeling hopeful I wouldn’t pass out on the floor of the RCA Dome in the first half of that afternoon’s game.

What I didn’t expect was how delusional I was from the fevers, because it sure looked like little Earl Boykins, all 5’ 5” of him, and the rest of the EMU team was blowing out Duke.

But I wasn’t seeing things; EMU was, in fact, kicking Duke’s butt.

I started to sweat again; only this time it had nothing to do with a virus -- I was sunk. Eastern would play again on Saturday, the same day as my pre-marital seminar -- and I was stuck in Indy!

I called Julie to inform her of Eastern’s victory - she wasn’t happy. I called Father Burke to inform him of Eastern’s victory -- he was pretty happy … until he found out I was in Indy and I couldn’t get back for the seminar -- then he wasn’t happy at all.

For three hours, I played phone tag with Father Burke from my hotel room. I pleaded with him to let me get married without attending the seminar. He called the higher-ups but they wouldn’t budge. No seminar, no marriage.

This wasn’t good. We had the church booked. We had the reception hall booked. We had the caterer booked. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Eastern was supposed to lose!

Finally, we struck a bargain. I would stay in Indianapolis and shoot EMU’s second game, but I promised Father Burke that Julie and I would attend the very next pre-marital seminar held at St. Francis in mid-May - a month and a half after we already were married!

What Father Burke didn’t know was that Julie was three months pregnant when we got married (Hey, give me a break, we already had the wedding planned four months before I got her pregnant). This wasn’t a huge problem, but come mid-May it was definitely a tad awkward strolling into our “pre-marriage” seminar very much “post-marriage” with the glow of pregnancy showering around us.

But a promise is a promise, and I kept my word to Father Burke and became, perhaps, the only Catholic in the history of Catholicism to be married to a pregnant woman without the benefit of either pre-marriage counseling or the blessing of the church. As for Father Burke? Well, he could only scratch his head in confusion when my daughter Olivia was born later that September.

Madness!!!