The Calm Before the Attendee's Mental Storm
It was a Saturday morning as I woke up shivering at 9:30 am because URI housing is not a big proponent of turning on heat in the "Sophomore Slums". Then, I relooked at the time on my cellular device. IT WAS 9:30 AM, I NEEDED TO GET IN THE LINE AT THE RYAN CENTER FOR A TICKET TO THE PC-URI game that would be aired later that night on ESPNU.
While making the voyage to the Ryan Center, I turned around the corner of Aldrich Hall and thought that I was in the clear, until I saw the line ........ I guess this is what attending a public university with an above average basketball team entailed. URI better not of just beaten PC in the game that would be taking place in roughly 9 hours, I hope the University was going to provide treatment for myself and the thousands of students who would receive frostbite and pneumonia. Much to no one's surprise, we all received zero physical support but we received plenty of emotional encouragement.
Mr. Bjorn came through the line of at least 3,000 freezing students to give all of us a high five. High fives are cool but why didn't he come through the line of students and hand off a wristband to each of us? The world may never know. Meanwhile, throughout this 3-6 hour wait for a highlighter yellow wristband (the "ticket" to the PC-URI game), we had one dude go streaking because he was THAT COOL and one of the females who dresses up as the URI mascot clearly under some sort of influence. Every one of the thousand times she screamed "RHODY RHODY RHODY!", you just heard the volume of everyone's groans gradually increasing.
I guess I failed to mentioned all of the people who were at the front of the line that got their wristband around 11 am and were already trying to resell them. All I could think was "fool, these aren't Super Bowl tickets, I'll pay you a quarter for your wristband. "
I give a lot of props to the University however for providing all of the freezing students in the line with a wristband. Unfortunately, the extremely long wait was not worth it. A 2 point loss with 0:00 remaining on the clock to the biggest rivals in the Ocean State? I could've watched that on TV while drinking hot chocolate and not losing my voice. Sighhhhh, just another day as a dedicated URI basketball fan.
