Hoosier Hysteria

Ok, I’ve talked a zillion other times about my love for Indiana sports, specifically football and college basketball. Not gonna rehash that.

I will take a second to mention that the basketball Hoosiers? They’re supposed to be pretty good this year. Lots of preseason #1 rankings.

So, this weekend. We had our official basketball season kickoff Saturday. It was a free event, people were lining up 36 hours before it started, and it was going to be awesome. I was going. The Mr. wasn’t feeling well, so he stayed home and the children and I loaded up and headed to Assembly Hall. We did NOT go 36 hours before it started.

We went at 3pm. Doors were to open at 4. When we got there, we found a line, and then we followed it until we found the end. We didn’t even know what door it was going to take us in.

I took this from our spot in line. The big building on the left, for those not familiar with Assembly Hall, is where we were going. The line we waited in snaked from doors that are directly behind that cute little tree right there up front, down the side of the building, back up the side of the building, out into this parking lot, and then you can see it wrapping through the lot. Behind us, it was back down the side of the building again. It was nutso long.

But! We got in! (This is important. They had to close the doors with an hour and a half to go before the event technically started.) Now, mind you, I am desperately trying to keep track of all three of my kids in a building jammed full of 20,000 people who are mad-rushing to score the best seats that they can and lining the hallways to get autographs. I was stressing. We ended up one row from the very top of the balcony in the building. We were WAAAAY up there. (We actually gave up seats that were a bit lower because we couldn’t see the scoreboard well, and we were trying to watch the end of the IU football game. It was worth it.)

The energy in that building? It was amazing. Moments that brought us to our feet, brought tears to our eyes.

This guy? He is the women’s program strength coach. His neck was broken in a freak bicycle accident, and his recovery so far? Nothing short of amazing. When he was introduced?

No words. #TomsTeam

 

And she’s hard to see here (let me remind you – I’m like a million rows up, and I have a point and shoot, so be gentle with the photos here, k?) but our emcee for the night? ESPN’s Sage Steele. Why? Because she’s a Hoosier.

Listening to  her speak, so many of her words could have been mine. She was here in the years that were so formative in my love for this program.

Plus? What a great role model for me to share with my own daughter.

Then? Our guys came out and did a little showing off. (And gentlemen? This is a friendly mom-based reminder : Your showing off in this venue, under these circumstances, that was ok. It was expected. But remember, we’ve not won a single game yet. So don’t get cocky, k? Let’s PROVE it.)

Dunk contest. Scrimmage. My favorite Hoosier fans.

There are some other fun things that have come up this week as well, and I can’t wait to share them with you, BUT, this is long enough for now. Just know, there’s more. And it’s amazing.