It started at 10:30 Friday morning, when I received a text message from my friend Mike, who lives 2 doors down from us and has 2 boys the same ages as my 2 oldest. Mike’s text said, “3 open seats in our van for a 2:45 departure to Provo for the big game. U, Cam, and Ky?” This sent my wife & I into a flurry of activity to decide if the 3 of us could miss the rest of the weekend at home – including getting Camden & Kyler out of school early.
Mike’s use of the words “big game” was no exaggeration. The New Mexico Lobos, ranked #11 nationally, would be playing 12th-ranked Brigham Young University in a de facto conference championship game – one of the last regular season games of the year. Both teams would come in with records of 26-3 and hoping to receive a #3 or #4 seed in this month’s March Madness NCAA tournament. Then I remembered New Mexico is now coached by one of my boyhood heroes, Steve Alford, who was a deadly shooter on the Indiana Hoosiers’ 1987 national championship team. Suddenly, the old college basketball adrenaline and passion began flowing back into my veins. But this weekend would be the 1st time since Danny Ainge in 1981 (which I was too young to remember) that my basketball excitement would involve my alma mater.
I graduated from Brigham Young University in 1997. And even though I love sports and attended almost every home football and basketball game while I was there, I ironically never became a true fan of BYU Cougar sports teams! BYU’s basketball team won only 1 game during my senior year there. Besides, I’m a lifelong Oregon Duck fan, and now a Boise State Bronco fan along with my wife & kids. Since leaving Provo, we’ve never really even followed BYU sports. In fact, we weren’t even aware of BYU’s collision course with New Mexico’s team until a few days before the game.
My sons have big-time sports dreams of their own, none of which have ever involved BYU. My 11 year-old Kyler believes he’s destined for the NFL or Major League Baseball. And my 9 year-old Camden KNOWS he was born to become the greatest ever point guard in the NBA. When they dream of college sports glory, they have always envisioned themselves in the colors of national powerhouses like North Carolina, Michigan, Alabama,… or Oregon. After our memorable road trip last weekend to BYU, they would seriously entertain a scholarship offer to follow in their dad’s footsteps! Provo has now officially splash-landed on the college hoops map for Ky & Cam. They were so excited, I think the world now has a couple new BYU fans.
Our road trip truly was AWESOME baby! The kids had an absolute blast. I picked them up from school, and they had no idea what was going on. I said, “Have you guys ever seen a Top 25 basketball team play in person?”
“No.”
“How about 2 Top 25 teams?”
“No.”
Then I held up a printout of an article from the Internet that had the headline "Number 11 New Mexico vs. Number 12 BYU," and said, “Wanna go?”
They looked at me as if to ask “Are you crazy? What are you talking about?” then said, “We’re going?”
I said, “Yep, we leave in 5 minutes. Let’s go.”
We ate at In N’ Out Burger in Provo and stayed at Nathan & Danny’s great-grandma’s house near the BYU football stadium Friday night (she was on a trip to Seattle, so we had the place to ourselves… but we were good). Tip-off was Saturday at 2 PM, so spent most of the morning exploring BYU’s campus. The kids loved the science building, which has a huge pendulum that moves with the earth’s rotation, as well as science and geologic exhibits, kind of like the Discovery Center of Idaho. We probably spent an hour there. We showed them the huge library, which has one wing that is underground. We explored the famous BYU bookstore, walked all over campus, saw the apartment where I lived when I met their mom, and saw the apartment where Mike lived when he met Nathan & Danny’s mom. At about 1 PM, we met my sister and her husband, who live about 10 minutes away, for a lunch of gourmet hot dogs just off campus, then we walked up to the Marriott Center for the moment we had all been waiting for – the BIG GAME.
The atmosphere was electric, like nothing I had ever seen before at BYU. I thought we were in Cameron Indoor for a Duke-North Carolina game. Well, almost. It WAS awesome! The game was tight the whole way. BYU fell behind by 8 going into halftime, then took the lead again less than 5 minutes into the 2nd half. We were being treated to one heck of a barnburner! In the final, fateful seconds of the game, New Mexico pulled ahead and won, 83-81. Interestingly, the outcome of the game barely mattered as far as our experience was concerned.
After the game, we toured some more areas of campus, including the brand new BYU Sports Hall of Fame, where we saw Ty Detmer’s actual Heisman Trophy, Steve Young’s actual Super Bowl MVP trophy and NFL MVP trophy, Jack Morris’ World Series MVP trophy, and Danny Ainge’s jerseys from both the Boston Celtics and Toronto Blue Jays. Needless to say, all of that made quite an impression!Finally, as you can tell, we got to know our friends, Mike, Nathan, and Danny a lot better. And the trip was good bonding time for Kyler, Camden, and me. When you travel 12 hours with someone in a weekend, you get to know them on a level you didn’t know them before. I must say we are blessed to have neighbors and friends like Mike, Nathan, and Danny, whom we have only known for about 2 years. I hope we get to stay close friends throughout our kids’ years growing up, through Eagle Middle School and Eagle High School, and then… who knows? BYU? And then maybe the Portland Trail Blazers?
As you can tell, our basketball road trip this weekend certainly did open up the kids eyes to what a great university lies just 6 hours down the interstate, helped build friendships and family bonds, and was totally awesome and fun!
.jpg)
Go Cougars!
ReplyDelete