BYU (9) vs. SDSU (4)

We had been hearing about this game for a while. The weekend before Dane received an e-mail outlining the procedure for getting into this game. The directions weren't very clear, and there was a lot of room for interpretation. So every time we hung out with James and Tracy for the next several days that was the topic of conversation. James would speculate, and Dane would counter with some other fact. As thrilled as Tracy and I were to talk about this every waking moment, we were glad when ticketing day arrived. Well... mostly. The plan was Dane, the Heiners, and Jake (our house guest at the time) were going to go that morning at about 8 to get in line. They did so. Unfortunately that morning it was cold, windy, and it snowed. I had to go to work so I'm looking out my office window watching the blustery weather and just feeling so bad for my sweet husband! The game plan was for me to come down to the Marriott Center at about 11:30 because they were going to start handing out wristbands at 12. At about 11:15 Dane called me and said don't bother, it's crazy down here. It was nuts. There was a lady that was power tripping and said that there wasn't supposed to be a line formed before noon, so she "disbanned" the line. Which meant that everyone just crowded around the entrance. Dane seeing that things were going to be ciaos stood up on a chair and got EVERYONE'S attention and said, "We all know this is a joke. So if you're all ok, let's just get back in line, you know who you were by." Surprisingly everyone listened to him and got back in line. Power-trip lady saw that order had been restored and she came out AGAIN and disbanded the line. Then things got too crazy for the people organizing it, so they had to call in campus police to put everyone back in a line again. There were girls crying because they were so upset, everyone was mad. People that had been waiting for 6-7 hours were in line next to people that had just shown up.

Getting these wristbands only guaranteed a spot in line, and you had to show up 4 hours early to the game to get in line, then be let in to the arena in the order of your numbered wristband. Lame. So as it turned out I would have had to leave work super early, to get in line and wait. No one ever came and checked the wristbands like they said they would. After thinking about it for about 2 minutes Dane and I decided it was probably best if I bought a ticket and then just went down and sat with him. So I got onto stubhub found myself a ticket and paid 11.5x the face value of the ticket. We were on the 6th row, almost center court. So we justify it by saying we would pay 30 bucks a seat to have that good of a spot. And after all that........ It was worth it!

This was the best game I have ever been to. I have never seen the Marriott Center so alive and involved. In the first couple minutes of the game I was surprised how how loud it was. I should have taken that as a sign that this game was going to be different. I was so proud looking over and seeing the "old people" section getting on their feet and yelling along with us in the student section. We also had some "unique" experiences. We had someone jump on us from a few rows up, diving for a free t-shirt. He landed on Tracy and me. Our husbands weren't too pleased. Things like this happen when emotions are so high, and everyone is stressed over the game. We also had the annoying guy who sounds like a police siren during free-throws sitting right behind us. So we literally had to plug our ears every time someone went to the line. Dane's right ear was hurting after the game.After the score being back and forth in the first half, and being down by one at the half I think I aged myself by about 10 years and gave myself an ulcer. And being a Red Sox fan, for me nothing is over until it's over. I was stressing the whole time. My voice was gone, my ears were ringing, my hand were chapped from wringing them so much and once that final buzzer sounded we rushed the court!!!! I fulfilled one of my life's dreams. It was an experience that we'll tell our kids about. We all were so proud of Jimmer, and Jackson!!! We'll be sad to see them go.
And check out this hilarious story!
http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/22753/jimmer-mania-gives-us-epic-facebook-thread