“It is only a game” is a common saying I have heard several times in my life. However, it does not explain the crazy actions and immense passion I experience on the PIT floor for basketball games. These feelings reached a pinnacle point during my freshman year basketball game against our arch-rivals, the Bettendorf Bulldogs.
“If we can keep Bear from posting up and scoring, we should be win the game,” my friend Bryce analyzed.
I responded, “We will need to shoot the three ball to have a chance, Bettendorf is a really good team”. Conversations about the Bettendorf vs North Scott basketball game, like the one Bryce and I had, were debated, discussed and argued ever since the high school basketball season had started. The vaunted Bettendorf
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The doors opened and floods upon floods of people sprinted into the PIT like their lives depended on it. A huge surge of red, the theme for the game, flooded into the PIT like a glass of spilled wine. Entire sections of seats were taken in seconds, until not a single bench remained visible. The top row, standing room only, filled with people packed closer than elevator shafts, extended 8 or 9 people back. “Oh my goodness,” Bryce stuttered out, as his jaw fell almost the ground. “This has got to be a freshman game attendance record,” my teammates said. Our coach was even astonished, “I have never seen this building so packed.” I immediately stopped the drill I was doing and just watched. My eyes lit up wider than a kid in a candy shop who just received his allowance. Then the noise began to rattle the PIT into an environment of bedlam. I could no longer hear Bryce, who remained right next to me. The crowd brought life, a new feeling of excitement and anticipation, never before seen or experienced at the freshman basketball level. Our coach called us into the locker room, but I could not hear him, for the crowd was too loud and excited for me to focus on anything but them. As a result, I just stood and stared, amazed like a kid at Christmas or family seeing a skyscraper in a big city for the first