My dad called me last week with a surprise - he was going to some of the first and second round NCAA men's basketball games in San Jose, and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him. Um, yes please!He is friends with a guy who's on the athletic director's committee for San Jose State, so we got the tickets through him - center court, 16th row. They were incredible seats. We were with my dad's friend, his many sons and sons-in-law, and some guys that my dad's friend lovingly refers to as "my three Jewish friends from Syracuse." We saw four games on Thursday and two on Saturday. We had the best venue of the eight by far: we saw Murray State upset Vandy with a buzzer beater and Washington upset Marquette with another last second shot. Four of the six games were close. I yelled myself sick at the Washington game.
Notes from San Jose:
- Four games in one day is not too much.
- No matter how great nachos look, they're not worth $6.50.
- We went into this fabulous place at the arena called "the clubhouse" to watch Kansas go down against Northern Iowa on T.V. (sometimes it really pays to know people - it was a room for the president of the university and his friends). At one point I looked around, and there were about 100 people crammed into this small area, trying to watch the game. It was then that I noticed that I was the only woman there.
- You can still be a superfan when you're in your eighties. There was an awesome New Mexico fan in the row in front of us. She was really old, but totally into the game. She kept meticulous stats, and continually informed her husband of things throughout the game ("That's four on him, honey. One more and he's out of there!") There were some fun Montana fans sitting a few rows behind us, and one time we heard one say to another, "Man, those New Mexico cheerleaders are really ugly." Superfan Granny whipped her head around fast and gave them a dirty look. The next time New Mexico scored, she stood up, turned around, and shook her fist at them.
- You could tell which fans were which whether they were wearing their school colors or not. All Montana fans had cowboy hats. New Mexico fans had a weather-beaten look to them. I can't describe it. Maybe too much sun? Butler fans look just like BYU fans. Polo shirts and jeans, clean cut. Washington fans = holey tee shirts.
- I'm sorry to say that the Montana fans weren't exaggerating about the New Mexico cheerleaders. They had that fake bump thing going on with their hair, and they had a Tammy Faye Bakker thing going on with their make-up. Sad.
- There is a little cafe in San Jose called Hobee's that has the best breakfasts ever. We ate there twice.
- Some people just shouldn't drive. We didn't rent a car, so we just walked everywhere or bummed rides off of people. There were multiple times that weekend that I was afraid for my life.
- The Murray State band was terrible. Mostly they just played their annoying fight song over and over, which I'd had enough of after the first time. By the end I was plotting ingenious ways to get them to stop. The Butler band was incredible, especially their drummer. I wanted to bring him home and bake him brownies.
