COLUMN: A night to remember
“That’s a nice kilt, man.”
That’s what he said to me. My friend Mike and I were walking on air, feeling similarly to what I’m sure Rachel Leigh Cook felt at the end of “She’s All That.” A week’s worth of hard work and creative stress all worth it when those words came from his mouth. Most people find triumph and accomplishment when they win something or fall in love. This was different. This was substantial, because tonight Mike and I finally met Brian Green.
I grew up a devout sports fan in northern Los Angeles. Amid all the frustration of growing up and the turmoil of being in an urban Southern California society there were at least three things that kept us SoCal kids happy: Arcade games at donut shops, “Alf” re-runs and basketball. Basketball has always been a deep-set part of my life; more a moral strength for me than a sport.
This, I suppose, is why my friend and I harbored immediate respect for Green, the hard-working, team-spirit multiplier with a 3-point shooting range of roughly 6.7 miles – the cross product of Jimmy Chitwood in “Hoosiers” and Scott Howard from “Teen Wolf” in the flesh.
In a state where we have people who treat a certain Utah county, weird-named player like a demigod, here in Logan we have our hometown hero in Green – the well-ambitioned neighbor’s son who you secretly wish had asked your daughter to prom. All this is why meeting him easily outperformed giving “Mean” Joe Greene a Coke (and a smile, mind you) and multiplied it by at least 27.
And to think that kilt made it all possible.
Though I do label myself a sports fan, as previously noted, I’ve never been one to act too die hard at a sporting event. I’d just as easily go as far as wearing the team’s colors without so much as thinking of strapping on a giant fan and lowering in through the ceiling – I guess I have my limits.
This should explain why I was hesitant at first when Mike called me up and said, “Hey, we should do something big for the last home game.”
I had no clue what he had in mind, which was good news because neither did he. We sat in his living room for hours working at something creative – all we could think of is doing something, anything really, with face paint or possibly kidnapping one of the opposing players just like Dan Akroyd and Daniel Stern did to Daman Wayans in “Celtic Pride.”
Then it hit us both like a lightning bolt, or an NBC “The More You Know” shooting star. We had something good, something outrageous, something we, surprisingly, could credit to Mel Gibson. Music almost began playing as we both said it aloud in unison.
“Let’s do a ‘Braveheart’ theme.”
What screams “pride” and “victory” to the hearts of two pale-skinned, blond Utahns like anything Scottish-themed? Outside of the Stanley Cup Playoffs or most Macauley Culkin movies, nothing.
Within seconds we found ourselves in a fabric store looking for, of all things, dark blue plaid sheets and measuring our waist sizes while doing our best William Wallace impressions. Deep inside we seemed to drink it in: standing courtside, screaming bloody murder and gaining mounds upon mounds of respect from an entire student body who now see us as much more than “those two guys who make fun of Bobcat Williams outside the Quickstop.”
Neither of us knew how to sew, but we managed to make it work with some thread, staples and more masking tape than anyone should ever need. We strapped on our smurf-colored placemats, painted our faces and stood tall. It was off to a hardwood-induced war. This was going to be a night to remember.
Things didn’t go as swiftly as planned, as we only made it to the 11th row (evidently people like to show up early if the game is preceded by a women’s game) and my kilt started to fall off. Luckily for me, and I assume, everyone within sight range of me, I had a belt and was able to at least keep thing strapped to my person, even though it made breathing a little rough for the time at hand.
We screamed in the loudest brute voices or Woody Allen vocals could summon, enjoyed a spectacular game with each wholehearted chest bump and even had a few pictures taken of us. At this point, we felt it a job well done.
This was when we stormed the court after the Aggie victory – jumping, screaming and attempting any form of singing with a throat that at this point felt about as exhausted as the Power Rangers do just before calling on their Zords. We walked around the hardwood for awhile as excited as most people around were, and that was when Mike saw Green out of the corner of his eye. Our time to pay our own personal Jimmy Chitwood some respect was finally at hand.
We ran over, shook his hand and thanked him for a great season. He smiled, laughed, looked down at what we were wearing and laughed some more. Then, without much hesitation upon my request, took the silver sharpie I had in my hand (though I can’t confirm where it came from), and signed my kilt. Looking at my face, you would’ve thought Superman just asked me to go to a party with him at Chuck-E-Cheese.
And there it was, my first experience as a paint-clad crazed fan. Who knew my newly labeled man-skirt became the beacon of a night that swiftly went from good, to great, to inexplicably magnificent. How sweet it was.
– steve.schwartzman@aggiemail.usu.edu