FanPost

Tripping with the Daughters at Jerry's World

I previously mentioned the Houston daughter suggested we go to the Final Four. I said yes as did the Santa Clara daughter who will move to Dallas this summer.

Bullet Holes in The Windshield, Albuquerque described my trip through the Albuquerque airport and the great SD UK fan I met. This describes the rest of the trip:

  • When I got to Love field I wandered over to the cab stand and there was one cab. The SD UK Cat Fan was standing there talking to the driver so I walked over and asked what is going on. The driver was waiting for a no show pick up and I said, well I'm here he is here and you are the only cab around, let's go. He said ok, the SDUKCF agreed to a metered ride. I agreed to a $40 ride from his drop off. Yes, I think it high, but you don't argue too hard at 2ish in the morning.
  • On the drive I asked SKUKCF what his connection was. None other than in high school twenty years ago, he loved RP's 96 team and has followed them since. We talked about the beauty of SD and I told my story about my first trip there in 1980 and subsequent phone call to father asking why he didn't stay there after getting out of the navy.
  • Next morning we went to a local restaurant recommended by Yelp. Food was ok, but everyone but us seemed to know everyone else there. Good times explaining why we were there. Always a surprise when folks don't follow bball.
  • After breakfast we went back to hotel and took off to Jerry's World. 2.2 mile walk was fun. Around Six Flags and the BaseBall park and there it was. Not as big as I thought, but it is big. Checked into the Infiniti Pre Game TailGate Party, wandered around, ate some junk food and killed time in the rain. I never watch TV news, but did that morning and once again they lied. Very little chance of rain and if so it will be brief light showers. The showers were not brief nor light, but a nice drizzle. Nice, if I were farming and working in the barn or sitting on the porch, but at the Tail Gate Party it was soaking.
  • Let into the stadium at 3:10 pm. Finally out of the rain and found a place to sit down and have another snack. We filled three seats at a table of four, next to a table of blonde UK coeds that also filled three of four. Shortly after sitting down a guy walked up and asked if he could sit down. We said sure and his buddy asked the same thing of the UK blonde coeds. The buddy took the chair from the coeds table and turned it around to our table. I looked him. His buddy looked at him. I finally said, you must have gone to a Big Ten school. He said, I did, OSU, why? I said, only a Big Ten graduate would not be sharp enough to sit down with three UK coeds when given a chance. He laughed, buddy laughed, I laughed. The daughters looked on wide eyed once again wondering how father gets away with what he gets away with.
  • The first guy and I start talking He now lives in Phoenix, but coached HS in Dayton started talking about attending Adolph Rupp practices. He said, I got to attend a couple of his practices and they were amazingly precise. Two hours of perfect passes, perfect cuts, perfect shots run for exactly the predetermined period of time with no one talking. Dayton man also mentioned the first time he attended a Rupp clinic, and when it was over Coach Rupp asked for help to walk down from the stage. Dayton man said he crawled over people to get to Coach Rupp saying I will help, yes sir, let me help you. Got there to help Coach Rupp down and then found himself sitting on the front row for the rest of the clinic.
  • I meant to ask if he ever met Big House Gaines at these clinics, because Big House mentioned many times how Rupp helped him. A story you don't hear too often because Rupp was a racist, you know.
  • Time to move on, so we walked around a corner and a stopped and looked at the TV screen. said to the girls, that is big, but not as big as I thought it would be. Then we turned another corner and I saw the BIG screen and stopped in complete shock. Words don't do it justice. It caused several minutes of vertigo as I looked at the screen and then back to the people around me....my old brain couldn't process the change fast enough.
  • Then I bumped into my SW Airlines seatmate from Albuquerque to Dallas, Chris. He was with his dad. Guy coaches high school football in Mesa, AZ after a four year stint in Bullhead City. Chris is a Hoosier from Washington and an IU grad and football player. Couldn't find a job in that part of the world and eventually migrated west. Oh, Chris knew of the Washington doctor who was best man at my only wedding so far.
  • We made our seats by climbing the stairs. I love climbing stairs, but did wonder why there wasn't an escalator. Turns out there are a couple very fast and effective escalators, but they are easy to miss. If you go to At&T sometime, and don't like climbing stairs find the escalators, lots of folks were falling out along the way.
  • Watched the Florida UCONN game in shock. Floridia picked a bad time to play a bad game and they didn't adapt very well on offense or defense. I later heard Scottie had cramps, but something was off because Boatwright and Napier seemed deep into his head. I remained surprised as the game unfolded.
  • Did you know UCONN does not have a dance team? Seems odd, but they don't. Of course, after putting the glasses on their cheerleaders I guess they didn't want to go any further down the attractiveness scale.
  • Jerry's World is not a good place to watch a bball game. Or at least the fourth level isn't. The big screen is fantastic, but they have a football mentality of replaying every score even if doing so causes you to miss the next possession.
  • The only shot clocks in the place are on the baskets, so as a possession winds down, you have to shift from the big screen to the the clock on the basket way down below.
  • What you didn't get on the big screen was a replay of a close decision or any explanation of the call, however, I noticed there was a suite about 100 feet from us filled with TV screens with the CBS broadcast. So I developed the habit of checking what was going on by watching the replays on a TV screen 100 feet away through my binoculars.
  • Which means I was watching a game by looking at a huge screen, looking at a court a long way away and using my binoculars to look at a TV screen 100 feet away. Very strange.
  • I was surrounded by UK and Badger fans. One guy was a 1984 UK grad from Richmond living in San Antonio with over 20 years in the AF. Good guy. On the other side were some very heavy UK students that need to get outside more and eat less. Still we had a good time.
  • In front were a bunch of Badgers. Great think about Badgers is you just call them Bucky without knowing their name. As in, hey Bucky, how you doing? Bucky, you ok?
  • The UK game was stressful and tough to watch. The lack of an announcer or replay meant you sometimes didn't know what was going on. E.G. we didn't know what was wrong with Randle. I watched the Johnson Kaminsky tangle through my binoculars on the large TVs to my left and didn't have a clue. At half time I wondered out loud how UK was going to stop UW, then for a few minutes at the start of the half UK did. To my complete amazement.
  • With two minutes to go, I told the Badgers in front of me you win great, we win great. This has been a great great game. They agreed.
  • We didn't get a replay of the three point attempt foul that occurred at the end of the game. Saw a replay the next day and wondered how that call was made.
  • Watched all three free throws on the big screen with a shot above the basket. I thought he had missed all three. Fortunately one did come back out.
  • Aaron's shot resulted in screaming and slapping and dancing that one couldn't believe.
  • After the UW miss I hugged the Badgers in front of me. I did feel bad for them.
  • UL has their L. UW has their W. During the game it occurred to me, why doesn't UK have a K? It is easy to make, hold the index finger up and use the index and middle finger of the opposite hand to make a sideways V behind it. I will give it a go going forward.
  • I've gone on to long, but a couple more points. After the UF game we hustled down to level one to try to buy some improved seats from departing Gators. We didn't bring enough money to do that. While standing there a woman said to me, you looking forward to playing UCONN? I said not after what I just saw. She said, our strength is free throws. I said, that showed in the MSU game. She said, no she meant the St Joe's game. A game they had no business winning. Suddenly I had no idea what was going on. Why was this UCONN woman sitting with the Gators? Why was she talking to me so intently? Why was she so close to me? I retreated. Don't know and don't want to know, but if she joined the UCONN cheer team, she would have improved its appearance.
  • We all flew back Sunday to our different homes. Girls had work and projects. I had stuff that needed doing, but agreed we would do it again sometime. Hopefully.