More from the lobby

From my journal on March 29, 2008:

4:40 PM hotel lobby AKA Davidson transplanted

I can’t even begin to say how awesome the last 24 hours have been. I just start giggling when I think about how I am sitting on the floor of the lobby in the Doubletree Hotel in Dearborn, Michigan, with a couple hundred of my Davidson family doing homework and talking and soaking on our 25th straight win that has made OUR BOYS one of the 8 best teams in the country. WOW.

We were tied at 36 at the half—seriously the shortest hour/20 minutes of basketball ever. And then in the 2nd …

It was like a SoCon game.

I am not kidding.

This is the Big 10 Champion we are talking about here.

We beat them DOWN.

I know it wasn’t easy. But oh my lord it looked like it.

We were just — perfect. I can’t even help saying it. Just — wow.

Steph scored 33. That’s 103 points in a week (has it only been a week?).

We beat Wisconsin by 17 POINTS.

At a couple of points I just thought — this cannot be happening. After all of this hype, it cannot be this easy. We shrieked and screamed and jumped up and down and cheered and I was just surrounded by immense Davidson joy, it’s indescribable. Our Sweet Caroline was fantastic. And when it actually happened—when we actually BEAT WISCONSIN TO BECOME ONE OF THE BEST 8 TEAMS IN THE COUNTRY (with Dan, MIKE! And CI-VI! coming in during the final minutes) — we screamed and hugged and cell phones were buzzing and we sang and our guys turned around to face us and jumped up and down and we all roared “THANK YOU TRUSTEES!” and just kept hugging and talking and soaking in the amazing surrealness of it all. It was seriously like Belk Arena inside a huge football stadium. And then we stayed for half of the Villanova/Kansas game and got food and kept grinning and repeating how happy we are to BE HERE FOR FREE TO SEE US GET TO TE ELITE 8. WOW. WOW. AHHHH! And we get to watch us play again tomorrow!

1. No matter what happens, this season’s perfection cannot be put into words.

2. I think we can do it.

Then we went cheerily and exhaustedly back to the buses and drove 15-20 minutes to the hotel. The hotel is SO nice but it took us an hour and a half to find rooms/get settled because it was a logistical nightmare fitting 300 + people into one hotel. It felt amazing to go to sleep, finally—we slept from 2 AM to 12 PM! Ahhh.

So we woke up and showered etc. and walked to the Chili’s next door. It was Davidson Central and the servers were so nice and complimentary and the food was AMAZING. We were there for about 3 hours! The entire place was filled with Davidson students since we all woke up so late. We read Davidson basketball articles aloud while we waited (and there were a lot of them). I love these people.

Then we brought down work to the lobby—EVERYONE had taken it over with homework! Hilarious and so Davidson. I've been reading basketball articles with a couple of guys. This trip has just brought Davidson people together—that I don’t even know by name but have spoken to like good friends. We learned that:

1. They are bringing more buses of students up starting at 3 a.m.!

2. Good Morning America is coming here for a pep rally at 7 a.m.! Ahhh!

And at one point our boys were on TV and we all crowded around! Yay. And then I spent a long time on the public computer looking at Facebook and blogs and DavidsonCats.

WE ARE SO BIG Y’ALL. SO BIG. THIS IS INSANE.

Then we had a pizza party, then more work, and now bed for an early peppy rising.

I can’t believe we are here. On the first page of this journal, no matter how well we played UNC…. Elite 8? What??

These boys are incredible. I love them so much and I am unspeakably proud of them. These past 4 ½ months will always be some of the best of my life. Getting to watch them play together and enjoy each other and enjoy us and just get better and more trustworthy and confident… and to project our community love and spirit as they play, on the court and off, has just been remarkable. To be able to support them in person at every game with a group of people I love so much means the world, and watching the world start to watch us is utterly surreal.

But the best part is this:

In an article today, the author said (paraphrasing):

“But it’s not about these 12 players who go out and play basketball. It’s the community and ideals that these 12 players represent.”

My heart will overflow (is overflowing!) if the world understands what we are about. I am immeasurably grateful to be a part of it.

SO GOOD
SO GOOD
SO FREAKING GOOD.

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