It was that time of year again - The Summit League Basketball Championships!
This four day tournament in Sioux Falls allows a women's and men's basketball team to win an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Personally, I have worked the tournament for the past three years and love it! It is a chance to get away from Brookings and hang out with the co-workers in a fun, fast-pace, and competitive environment. Check out the link above of this year's men and women wins!!
The first year I had to drive back and forth with the cheerleaders from Brookings. While at the tournament I sat on press row and wrote the announcer's scripts.
My second year I received a much appreciated perk - SDSU paid for a hotel room! All the GA's and interns got to stay in Sioux Falls, so we were able to actually hang out each night at Buffalo Wild Wings. However, my duties changed. I sat on the edge of the court next to the ball boys, and I was in charge of telling the dance and cheer teams when to perform. Honestly it was the easiest job ever.
Everything was the same this year with the perk that all of the ball boys/girls were the same from last year! Weird. With that background here are a couple of stories from this year's tournament with the ball boys and girls.
Life at College
I have heard it and I have said it…. Kids look up to you. Kids watch you. You are a role model to kids.
I haven't really experienced this phenomenon until this tournament. Two sisters were ball girls and would always request to sit on my side, and when I switched sides they would follow me to the other side. It was cute and I just thought they didn't want to sit by Jon. However, when they started to ask about college life I realized how much they were actually listening.
I love this type of interaction because it brought me back to reality. I had experienced college life and I had the potential to mold minds. I was honest, but also censored some of the details of college. Personally, I think kids don't need to know everything from a stranger. They girls were super cute and I had to giggle because they were really concerned about talking with and being around boys. They asked questions about whether dances at SDSU were chaperoned, and whether boys were allowed in their rooms and if they were allowed in their rooms without a chaperone be present. Trust me, these were the two cutest, nicest girls I could have met in a while!
Rushing the Floor
During the championship men's game I sat with two younger boys who were siblings. These ball boys were HUGE Jackrabbit fans, especially to their cousin Tony.
However, as the game got more intense and the clocking started dwindling down, I knew the floor was going to get rushed. As the final minutes of the game started to tick by the SDSU student section started inching closer to the edge of the court and were getting more rowdy. I told the boys that these students were going to run past us, so they had to stay in their folding chairs. No matter how excited they got if the Jacks won, I wanted them to stay seated until I told them to stand up; otherwise, someone was going to run them over. I wasn't exaggerating either… these students were going CRAZY! The ball boys knew I wasn't lying and were actually pretty scared. The older brother asked me, "do you promise we won't get hurt?!" I promised. Then it was kind of neat to see the other brother talk to his little brother to calm him down and told him to hang onto his chair.
Ten seconds later a mob of students rushed the floor. It was insane!! I stayed seated as well because there was no way I was going to survive just standing there or running onto the floor with heels. Imagine fighting a rushing river's current... you just go with the current. Within seconds the students had flowed by and I told the kids they could go celebrate. It was kind of cute because their celebration was jumping up and down by their chairs. Oh how people change with age!
No comments:
Post a Comment