Dec. 10, 2003: The last time I set foot in KU’s Allen Fieldhouse. The banner above reads “Pay heed all who enter, Beware of the Phog.”
That’s my dad, answering the home phone as I call at 11pm last night. No “hello” this time. The University of Kansas had just won their first NCAA basketball championship in 20 years and even a sports greenhorn like my dad was in on the action.
But let me back up a bit… instead of glued to the television like millions of Americans, I was spending my Monday night at O’Brien Field. The Peoria Chiefs had their home opener against the Beloit Snappers under a cloudy sky and chilly wind, with Tom and I stuck covering the game. Only 2300 fans deemed it important enough, barely making a dent in the 6500 capacity.
To borrow a cliché, the deck was stacked against us. Bundled baseball spectators and yawning fans were our obsession, each of us working hopelessly to capture some sort of “opening day” sentiment. A ghastly seven errors committed by the Chiefs and a 8-0 shutout final score spelled doom for us. As Chiefs skipper Ryne Sandberg said after the game, “We have to improve on the fundamentals of throwing the ball and catching the ball.” Genious.
I missed an incredible 8th inning, three outs filled with comedic plays rivaling a Three Stooges or Marx Brothers sketch. Instead of gunning the camera, I typed out names in my BlackBerry and watched with my mouth agape. My actual notebook filled with cutline information disappeared around the 5th inning, and the absolutely wonderful evening was finished: we may or may not have even made deadline.
What about those Jayhawks, though? Seconds after the last photo was placed on the page, I heard a tremendous sound emanating from the newsroom. “WhoooOOOOAAAAAA!!!!” doesn’t quite cut it; a closer approximation would be “ohhhhmygodhhhhhooolySHIT!” I looked across the computer screen at Tom, checking to see if I wasn’t the only one hearing things, and I bolted for the newsroom.
The rest, as they say, is history.