Don Owen: Christmas Eve a time for memorable gifts, including biggest upset in college hoops history
(This column was originally published on Dec. 23, 2019) Christmas Eve is always my favorite day of the year. For many reasons. For several decades. From trying to figure out how Santa Claus and his reindeer would land on the rooftop, to driving around the area looking at the various holiday displays. Sneaking down the steps to see my parents putting gifts underneath the tree. Spending time with family and friends. Christmas Eve is a special time, then and now. My all-time favorite college basketball memory also occurred on a Christmas Eve. Of course, it depends on if you go by the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone or Eastern Time, because that moment occurred around 2 a.m. (EST) on Dec. 24, 1982. That’s the night Chaminade stunned the college basketball world by defeating top-ranked Virginia in Honolulu. Technically, the game tipped off on Dec. 23, 1982, in Hawaii. But by the time Chaminade — then an NAIA program — had pulled off the gargantuan upset of previously unbeaten Virginia and All-Ame