I don’t care about basketball as such. I’m not adamantly opposed to it - that would be odd - but rather indifferent. However, my older daughter has been playing on a girls team of a weekend, so I’ve been going to games and making enthusiastic noises (in lieu of my actual reaction to the thuggish prep school kids who compose most of the league).
Yesterday as a way of getting our collective mind off having just got power back after over 60 hours, we set out en famille to see American University take on Lafayette College at home. And it was a good laugh, aside from the unfortunate cheerleader who took a bad landing and probably wrecked her knee. There was some atmosphere, the pep band had a bagpiper, and as an old fart I found all the student volunteers to be cuddly and adorable… even the ones who weren’t in the low-cut-blouse-skinny-jeans-and-boots uniform. Plus AU has a player called Vlad from Romania. I mean, what else could you ask for?
Contrast that with the assault on the senses that was a Washington Mystics game (10 seconds of inaction = opportunity to play crap music at 145 decibels!), and it was a welcome reminder that even when it’s a sport I’m not that much interested in, the college version is probably better.*
*Generalization does not apply to contrasting a game at Camp Nou versus an ACC match up at the University of Maryland.
