A quick stroll down memory lane

2017-02-13 konza63 and HawkErrant in AFH celebrating the come from behind 84-80 OT win over WVU.



Selfie from our crow's nest seats in the NE corner of AFH (now sacrificed in the latest upgrades to The Barn)



The aftermess in Allen...


A little souvenir...

Rock CHALK! JAYhawk! KU!

Not in the mood for a stroll?

How about line dancing courtside with Bill Self instead?

That was such a fun and memorable night. One that I'll never, ever forget.

It's interesting, the last 2 occasions where I've had the good fortune of seeing KU play live were that game (in the Cathedral) and KU winning it all in New Orleans in April 2022. For the former, I attended with a great close friend; for the latter, I attended with my son in what was the best father-son road trip in my lifetime. (I also saw the KU win in the FF over Villanova with him, so technically it's my last 3 games, not 2)

What's interesting about both the WVU-KU game and the KU-UNC title game is that, in both, the Hawks literally got their arses handed to them in a blowout 1st half (and in the WVU game's case, a blowout that extended all the way to deep in the 2nd half). In both games, we were playing a team that was objectively far superior to us on that night, and they had been so dominant - and gotten the lead up so high - that it seemed truly impossible to hope for a comeback. I remember chalking up the WVU game as "just one of those nights" as we sat in the very-quite Barn while the Mountaineers took us to the woodshed. And I vividly remember slinking in my seat at the Superdome, saying "this thing is so over," while my son kept trying to pep-talk me into believing the Hawks could come back. (In what was a hilarious reversal of roles from the prior tournaments we had attended together, such as Omaha in 2012, when Purdue got up big on us and he - as a 7-year-old massive KU fan - had a couple tears running down his face, thinking of T-Rob and Tyshawn going down...and me comforting him, pep-talking him that it wasn't over, and indeed it wasn't)

My son turned out right, and what followed in the Big Easy was the thrill of a lifetime. (Still pinching myself) And what happened in Allen that night with Eric (HawkErrant) was beyond magical. It was like every ghost that could be summoned in the Old Barn was summoned, and we staged the most defensive-pressure-focused comeback I've ever witnessed. The roof practically blew off the place as KU came back, sent it to OT, and pulled off the huge win. Two grown men proceeded to hug each other like Yogi Berra and Don Larsen, lol. Hell of a night!

PS: it's crazy and random that we even got to go to that historical game. I just happened to be in town then because my dear Mom (RIP) had suffered a stroke. I had been tending to her at the hospital for days, reading her children's books for therapy to begin to reset her neurological paths so that she could begin to think more normally - and eventually speak again, a couple weeks later. The day of that game, I remember thinking, "Mom's in good shape tonight, with my sister coming to the hospital, so I wonder if there are any tickets left to the KU game?" Sure enough, there were nosebleed rafters seats left on StubHub, I gave Eric a ring, proposed the idea, and he accepted without hesitation. The rest is history, with incredible and enduring memories to be made.

If there's a moral to this rambling story (which I didn't intend to write, but just let it rip after seeing those great photos and reliving it all again), it's YOLO. Life is short, and when you get the chance to do something a bit anomalous that involves your passion, you might consider pulling the trigger and giving it a go. Sometimes you'll be richly rewarded - with the most intangible of gifts in life - for doing so.