If you know me, you know that I eat, sleep, and breathe Duke basketball.
If you know my brother, ditto.
Last year, my buddy Rusty and I were able to have the experience of a lifetime!!!
We drove up to Durham for a practice/coaching clinic for Duke basketball.
We had no idea what kind of expectations to have or not have.
And oh was it the bomb!!! We were able to watch the future national champs get after each other in a real practice. We were able to get a basketball signed by every player on the future national championship team. And then to cap off the weekend, I was able to meet Coach K for the very first time, get an autograph (or 2..had to get Nate's) and get a picture made with him.
Reminded me a little bit of my first trip to Bristol!! (That's an inside joke for the Bristol crew!! Love you guys!)
Once we returned home and had a few weeks to come off of cloud 9, it was so awesome to watch them play and end up being national champs. Not just for the sake of saying that they won it all, but they did it on the year where we were able to come up and get the full experience!
So,we decided we had to do it again this year.
This year, Rusty and I also took my bro and our other buddy Keyon. Nate and I have been there before in 05, when we went to watch Duke play Valpo and had a wonderful experience meeting JJ Redick and company! But never really even got close to seeing Coach K. Keyon had never been at all, so this was his rookie experience.
The trip up was great, but I will say that things did not go as smoothly as hoped for once we got there.
We were hoping to all buy basketballs and get them signed by the team, like we did last year.
Problem #1: K and his crew bought every basketball on campus to sell the next day at the clinic. So there were no basketballs at all!!! Very frustrating!! So we had nothing to get signed by the players. Had we known what was to come, it probably wouldn't have mattered anyways.
Problem #2: When we got to practice, everybody and their brother showed up this year. The year before, it was me, Rusty, and maybe 20 other people if that. Once practice was over, we got to hang out with the guys and talk and get the basketballs signed. Very easy, very low key. This year, no way Jose!! It was like Jesus feeding the 5000. They were everywhere!!! We ended up standing through the whole practice and story of trip was me showing my butt.
----Sidebar (wouldn't be a good blog if I didn't share good stories...LOL)
So we get into the practice gym and there are chairs all down the side. The managers are bringing other chairs out to put on the wall. The 4 of us stand in the doorway to the weight room just scoping it out and seeing how many folks are going to come in. I am already ill that the million man march was in Duke's practice facility. Mind you as well, we don't have chairs. We are standing. About 5 or 10 minutes before practice starts, we decided that we wanted to sit. Across the gym were 4 empty chairs, so we walk across the floor to sit down. Remember, still not jolly be happy. As we sit down, a visitor/coach proceeds to tell me that somebody was sitting in that seat. Well, and I blame it on my father, genetics...LOL
I proceeded to look at the guy and say "Yeah, me." I think my brother and our other 2 buddies did everything they could to not just bust out laughing right there, but they know me and know that this was not a good situation. The dude was totally floored and had no idea how to handle this. He and I had a brief discussion and thank the Lord, a level head returned and I decided to go back to the original standing position in front of the weight room so that I did not make the news by getting kicked out of Duke's baskeball practice facility.
Practice came and went and the end of practice was all of the players being led to the lockerroom with not one player (except Kyle and Miles who went to the weightroom) staying to sign. Can't say I blame the coaches either. It was the right move, but so opposite from the year before. I guess that is what being National Champs will do and that's ok. Highlight of the day though was waiting by the players door, which not a lot of the folks knew where it was, and getting to meet and get a pic with Kyrie Irving. Kid's a playa, yet it breaks my heart that he is hurt and probably done for the season.
Saturday was a good day. Got to the clinic, got our basketballs, got our clothes, got good seats. When it was time, we jumped in line to see Coach K. I knew how crazy the day before was, so I wasn't taking any chances. Come to find out at the end, they actually had to shut the line down and turn people away. Hate that, but glad we were up front. It was cool to see Coach K again and very cool to see my bro and Keyon meet him for the first time. When the clinic was over, we went back and watched college football all night.
It was a very fun experience and hoping that we can make it an annual event. Curious to see if we repeat as well. Thanks for letting me share.
LET'S GO DUKE!!!!!
