The most triumphant day of my adult life began, quite appropriately, with a middle-aged woman in a pink sweat suit flipping me the bird and mouthing (I can only assume) the initials to Fairfield University.

This was followed minutes later by a maintenance worker in the bathroom suggesting, in so many words, that I "get bent" and later by a pair of teenagers glaring at me from beneath downturned baseball caps with "I dare you to look at me" eyes.

OK, so maybe I was walking around Los Angeles International Airport wearing a "Beat L.A." T-shirt. Was it really necessary for those brie-baking, Botox-deformed, celebri-philic, pansy dirtbags that are the L.A. Laker fan base to be so ungracious?

It hardly mattered. By that afternoon, I would be back home in Hawai'i, my voice Johnny Most raw from screaming at the TV, watching in profound awe the achievement of Green 17 — the Boston Celtics' 17th NBA championship.

The term "fan," of course, is derived from the word "fanatic" — and perhaps no derivative has so closely retained its root meaning.

I understand those who argue that the value men place on sports and sports teams is unreasonable. I see where those who say sports ultimately mean nothing are coming from.

But for my best friend Mark and I, the Celtics have always been about more than basketball, more than simple sport. Like other Boston faithful who bleed green and scab Red, we grew up identifying closely with the team's throwback ethic of hard-fought, no-excuses competition. We immersed ourselves in the legacy of Hondo and Cousey and Russell and chafed at the glitz and glamour represented by Lakers Showtime.

The Celtics won their last championship just as Mark and I were graduating from high school. It seemed, at the time, a most auspicious coincidence.

But what followed was a test of faith that mirrored our confrontation with the adult world. The deaths of Len Bias and Reggie Lewis. The infuriating Rick Pitino experiment. The introduction of Celtic Dancers.

By the end of last season's 24-58 tanking disaster, I had become resigned to the fact that I was in love with the wrong franchise.

But then, in the course of one improbable season, the world regained its equilibrium. We had a new Big 3. The Celts were again a franchise to be envied. My inner fanatic was reborn.

I spent the last month of the spring semester lecturing my English 100 students in the same faded Celtics T-shirt I wore as a (much skinnier) high school senior. I DVRed each playoff game and moaned like a dog with each temporary setback.

When the championship moment finally arrived, Kevin Garnett babbling incoherently into Michelle Tafoya's microphone, Mark on the phone riffing uncharitably on Magic Johnson's 1987 baby sky hook, I was an emotional wreck.

Sports means nothing?

Get bent.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.