February 14, 2004

     NEW HAVEN - Alex Gamboa might have used the worst line of all time during a pick-up basketball game in his first week at Yale University.
     The women's basketball team had just finished playing a pick-up game. Gamboa and his men's basketball teammates started to walk on the court when Brynn Gingras said she wanted to continue to play in the men's game.
     "You're a solider, Gamboa said.
     Said Gingras, "It caught me by surprise. I was thinking, 'What did this freshman just say to me?'"
     More than three years later, the two still laugh about their first meeting.
     Now the 6-foot Gamboa, the starting junior point guard for the men, and Gingras, the 5-7 starting senior point guard for the women, are one of the happiest couples at Yale, often seen walking hand-in-hand across campus.
     "For me, basketball was definitely a part of it," said Gamboa, an intense competitor from Reno, Nev. "I had never really met anybody who was as attractive as she was and played the same sport as me. And the same position. So there was a natural attraction, just because I was interested in the way she felt about the game."
     Contrary to the belief of Gamboa's teammates, the two didn't start dating until December of his freshman year, after a trip to celebrate his birthday in New York City.
     "He's very ambitious and driven and has the biggest heart of anyone I know," said Gingras, Yale's captain from Wallingford with eyes as hypnotic as the Princeton offense.
     But as Gamboa found out quickly, beneath the girl-next-door looks is a competitive spirit rivaling his own.
     Whether it's tennis, video games or board games, the two are quite competitive.
     "He wins mostly, but I win the board games," said Gingras, who hopes to work as an on-camera producer for a television news program.
     So they're at a movie theater and there's a conflict between what movie to see...
     "I do," Gingras said, before the question of who gets to choose is complete.
     "I guess that answers that," Gamboa said.
     While basketball is far from the only thing they discuss, it is a key part of their relationship.
     "He's a very good sounding board for me," Gingras said. "We can talk about a lot of things that happen in games because we play point guard."
     The Ivy League schedules for men's and women's basketball are opposite (when Yale's men are at Harvard, Harvard's women are at Yale), so the two don't see each other play often.
     "It's definitely tough," Gingras said. "I wish I could have seen him play more. And he saw my last college game a few weeks ago."
     Said Gamboa, "It would have been nice to see more of her games." In the past three years, they might have seen a dozen of the other's games.
     But they are usually on their cell phones soon after they leave the locker room.
     They played on the same team this summer for the first time, at a gym in Reno with Alex's father, during a 5-on-5 pick-up game.
     "I definitely look forward to being able to play on the same team in more pick-up games in the future," Gamboa said.