Though I come from a family of athletic people, sports were never my thing. Sure, I’d gone to a Braves game here, a youth soccer game there, but I’d always somehow managed to avoid the basketball courts. When I was accepted to Davidson, I knew that was bound to change. At a school as notoriously good at basketball as ours is, it’s impossible to avoid the courts for too long.
Still, I shied away for as long as I could. Basketball was just another sport. I’d heard it was stinky and loud. And most importantly, I figured nothing could ever live up to the infamous Looney Tunes vs. Monstars game that I had grown up watching over and over.
Despite my best efforts to stay loyal to Bugs Bunny, good old-fashioned peer pressure eventually beat him out. Last Tuesday night I found myself sitting in the stands of Belk Arena, getting ready to watch Davidson play Dayton in the high profile Blackout Belk game.
At first, I used it as an opportunity to take shameless selfies.
Then I moved on to making fun of how the players looked as they warmed up.
But even amid my mockery I couldn’t resist (space) jamming to the pep band.
Any sense of skepticism I had about basketball evaporated when the crowd started counting down to playtime (showtime? opening night?).
And suddenly, the game was on. Having grown up on sports like soccer and baseball, where no one ever scores (and when they do you miss it!), I was not at all prepared for the fast pace of the Game of Baskets.
Every time I blinked, there were 10 more points on that scoreboard! I didn’t understand a single thing that was happening, but I knew we were winning, and that felt hella rad.
After a while, though, I decided it was time to learn whether our side was the people in the red jerseys or the people in the white jerseys. I relocated to stand next to a guy who was yelling at the referee, figuring I could soak up some B-Ball knowledge. I ain’t slick though, so he quickly realized what I was up to. But instead of brushing me off, Justin made it his personal goal to teach me a thing or two about the game.
By half-time, I’d figured out that the Wildcats were in white, and that we were on top. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, the Chair-Man arrived.
Stacking his own personal Chair-way to Heaven, Chair-Man struck terror and excitement in the hearts of all who surrounded him.
I mean, seriously?!?
Luckily for the Senior Citizens section, Chair-Man completed his trial with the grace and finesse that only Chair-Man could posess, and the game resumed. Justin and I continued to scream as Davidson continued to win. Then the Swim Team threw off their clothes for good measure, distracting the opposition (enemies? bad guys?) with their exposed and dancing bodies.
And finally, it happened. Though I lost my voice and my lifetime streak of never seeing a basketball game, though I betrayed not only Bugs Bunny, but Michael Jordan, Bill Murray, Danny DeVito, and countless other stars of the classic 90s flick that’s fun for the whole family…
We won.