...actually, you'll have to ask MFRONE about the hookers.
I'm home. In Tampa. And while I can appreciate the weather and air and hot coeds in town for Spring Break, I'd rather be sprawled out on the floor of some cute Louisville fan's room. Or my own room. It would mean we'd won. We didn't. But shit. We tasted it. I looked up to the sky, raised my fists, and saw 60-60. And I tasted it.
There's a reason they use that metaphor. Because it's not really a metaphor. You really do sense it. It's something special. It's something I'll always have. It's something you'll always have. Very few people ever get it. We got it. And we'll get it again.
Other things I'll always have
our wonderful, sweet, delicate, unblemished Ohio cheerleaders dancing on the bar at the dance club
a sore neck from talking to d-lowe
the red UL-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns shirt I traded my green Ohio shirt to the cute blonde from LOOZIANA. I cannot think of a better way to get a girl to take off her shirt. Also, the shirt has an angry pepper on it. I don't know how many other teams have perturbed vegetables as their mascots.
Eddie George stealing my bracket printout. If he did it to steal my mathematical formula, i'm totally getting his ass in court.
shaking hands with Tim O'Shea a few hours after the game, at Mr. George's larcenious establishment, and putting to rest the years of criticism I've leveled at the man. Catholic guilt sucks.
the memory of having seats in section 302 but actually sitting in row 5 of section 105, right next to Dr. McDavis and his wife. I should try that with the Super Bowl.
windows that will forever read "GO OHIO" and "BEAT UF" which causes problems when I-75 suddenly closes all lanes and they don't give you a detour requiring you to go into Gainesville to ask for directions. well, the window problem will be taken care of as soon as i find some razor blades. for the windows, not me.
the telephone number of Jeanna, the brunette from the Florida development office
nick lachey's autograph (still trying to figure out how i ended up with that)
and most importantly
memories of the hundreds of people i met this weekend, many of them board members here, and the numbers of which are too great to name individually, but you know who you are. you guys make this community what it is; awesome. yeah, things have changed since the tcom days, but, hell, everything changes, and the fact that we have like 100000x more members than we did back then says that Ohio's doing something right. From the dozens of fans I met who had no interest in any of the eight teams, but just enjoyed coming to see some good basketball, to a girl I grew up down the street from and haven't seen in 15 years, to Ted Thompson, who accurately referred to me as a pain in the ass...
to all the girls i've loved before,
i will quote the great Beau Boughamer, whose name I mangled in my early years far more than anyone should ever have their name mangled, in an email he sent moments after the game ended.
"Our alma mater is the greatest university ever."
