Epic-ness

So unless you've been taking refuge in some hole somewhere, you're aware that Duke won the NCAA Championship game and that I was there!! The whole trip was so worth it, the ridiculous standing marathons, sleeping in a hotel room with 10 grad students, "sleeping" on the concrete outside Lucas Oil Stadium (in a thunderstorm, under a tarp, huddling under the ticket sales overhang area), driving 10 hours a day, a variety of cramped situations, everything. ALL worth it! I'm so glad I went with a super-hardcore group because that resulted in my being able to sit front row of the student section for both the West Virginia and Butler games, best seats in the house! Also the folks I went with were really nice and funny, and it was good to spend time with some students that weren't in BME. But I got to visit plenty with the BME-ers while we were all in line :-)

Indy is a pretty cool town, not that I got to see much of it, but what I did see was neat. Maybe some day I can go back when I'm not entirely focused on basketball and the city isn't overrun with fans. Of course, this made the trip even better because we were constantly hugged, high fived, and cheered at by strangers who were also Duke fans. (Of course on the way to the liquor store while we were waiting in line one of the guys in the group said in the 10 minute walk to the store he got 3 "Duke SUCKS!!" and a water bottle thrown at him so not everyone was so welcoming)

Funny stories:
-On the way there we took an unintentional detour; we were waiting to pass into Ohio so we could switch highways so as the exit numbers start counting down to one, we're getting excited about being closer to Indy and making it there in time to see the team practice. We pass exit 1, go over the top of a hill, and see a "Welcome to Kentucky!" sign. Us: "What the hell?! I didn't think we were driving through Kentucky..." Only to realize that we missed the turn like 100 miles ago. Luckily all we did was drive north, west for awhile, then north again instead of driving really north then west. It didn't take us much additional time and I was able to cross another state off of my list of states to visit!

-During Hurricane Lucas Oil Stadium we were forced to sleep under the awnings for the ticket sales areas because we weren't allowed to put up "structures" like tents because they were against Indy city ordinance. Major storm -- crazy lightning, thunder, terrifying winds that caused gigantic metal oil drum trashcans to be thrown across the parking lot, etc. There were two overly full port-a-potties near the lines for students which were disgustingly full from the previous day's students waiting to get in to the Final Four and we could hear someone yell, "DON'T GO IN THERE, IT'S OVERFLOWING!!!", but we couldn't see them because we were bundled under our tarp fortress so we had no idea what was really going on.

-Related to that previous story: there was a gigantic trash wheelbarrow-type thing that was used to collect like 200 trashbags from around the stadium. It was empty so the undergrads near us decided to turn it on it's side and drag it by us to use it to block the wind/sideways rain. I remember sitting straight up and yelling, "What the hell is that?!" thinking that perhaps the toilets were falling over or something. Ahh, awesome.

-One of the guys in the group in front of us was giving an interview the day of the championship and when asked what he did during the storm he said that we went to take refuge under the ticket roofs while the Butler kids went home crying to their moms (or something along those lines)

I'm so looking forward to campout this fall and basketball next season! I can't believe that the season is already over, boo. I'm so glad I went on this trip this year because I think if they go back in the time I'm here it'll be a lot more difficult to get tickets because students will have this victory fresh in their minds. I think not as many people entered the lottery this year because they didn't think Duke would actually make it there. But they did! And I saw it!! From the front row! I think that if Singler and Smith both stay with the team they'll have a good chance at doing well in the tournament next year too. Especially with Seth Curry, the leading freshman scorer in the nation and the player Coach K calls the best shooter on the team, and Kyrie Irving... repeat baby! '91 & '92, '10 & '11!! Let's hope next year I go to Houston ;-)

Today I'm presenting at the Kewaunee event at Duke, so it'll be good practice for Seattle in less than two weeks! Ahh! 4 new states all in one month :-)