"We're goin' to overtime!"
Hm, perhaps I ought to write in the brief intermission before the basketball game restarts. I could do one of those "how did I end up here" montages, right? Or just a quick recap, which is more my style. Our Rotary polio prevention fundraiser went very well. We raised just over $10,000, a generous (and anonymous) club member matched that, and the Gates Foundation did a 2 to 1 match. That works out to 20,000 inoculations against polio from our corner of the world. I made it well-known that if a set of CU basketball tickets ended up in one of our auctions, I was gonna thrown down against anyone who got between me and them. I need not have made such a threat. The week they appeared in the silent auction, no one had bid on them until the end of the meeting, and the only person who did was me. I got them for the suggested opening bid, a mere 100 dollar donation to the Polio Plus campaign. A bargain.
The season tickets that these came from belong to the guy I supported for mayor. (He didn't win, but that is beside the point.) These are fantastic seats. We are 12 rows behind the officials table, with a clear view of Coach Boyle pacing next to them. One of my fellow Rotarians told me today that this team we were facing was a serious contender, and this would be a great game. They were so right! Montana State is no pushover team. If we pull out this overtime win, which we just might, this will be a quality, satisfying accomplishment.
There were no in-person games last year. This is the first time in a long time this crowd has gotten to be together. Masks were required, but there were several people around us not complying by the end of the game. Granted, food and beverages were sold, and thus consumed. For the most part people tried to be safe. It wasn't a sold-out crowd, but they had a decent turnout. We arrived very early (so I could be assured of good parking.) For the longest time, there were maybe 40 kids in the student section. Then, as the players were announced, suddenly there were hundreds of them.
Sometime between last season and tonight, the crowd favorite player Evan Battey went from a slightly goofy, always smiling, big kid to a (to use the vernacular) grown-ass man. Still the fan favorite.
Oh, and we won. Woohoo! Sko Buffs!
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