01/31/08: NCAA Basketball – Stanford Cardinal @ Washington Huskies (Pac-10) + Cleveland (NBA)
Hotels / Bank of America Arena - Seattle, WA
This college basketball outing was full of curveballs but ended up being fairly productive. I found out that Stanford was staying in downtown Seattle instead of Bellevue, at a hotel that NBA teams sometimes use. This wasn't really a bad thing - the bus parks on the curb. My goal was to hit up the Cardinal first, then get UW after the game. The LeBron show was also in town, and the Cavs were staying five blocks away at the normal NBA hotel. Since I had practically nothing for the Cavs and didn't want to sit there and get nothing, I stuck to the Stanford hotel.
Surprisingly, I didn't do so well before the game. Players were coming out in groups so I had to pick and choose who to get. I was able to get Drew Shiller, Fred Washington, Landry Fields, coach Trent Johnson on the 8x10, and Brook Lopez on two magazines. Brook politely said he had to get going after doing the two mags. Trent Johnson thought my composite photo was a cool idea. Now the weird stuff... Nick Robinson, a former Stanford player most notable for hitting a ridiculous buzzer beater against Arizona in 2004 (
YouTube - Stanford vs Arizona, 2004), is now an assistant coach with Stanford. He came out with Mitch Johnson and I asked him to sign a 4x6 I had made showing him hitting that buzzer beater. He looked at it and said "Nah, I'm good" and continued on. Definitely not what I expected. (More on this later...)
After the Stanford bus pulled away, I walked down to the Cavs hotel just to see what was going on. The second bus was there, awaiting the last of the team. I was told that LeBron had walked onto the bus, giving nothing more than a wave; Z. Ilgauskas had signed though. All I had were blank index cards (please try not to laugh), since I didn't really plan on seeing this team today. Coach Brown came out and signed nicely, even answering a couple questions from some fan who had a video camera. Devin Brown signed for everyone, and surprisingly Eric Snow did too after putting his bags under the bus. Damon Jones muttered something like "get you later" to us when he came out. Overall it was fairly uneventful given how poor my item selection was for this segment of the afternoon.
Now my attention turned to the three hours of time I had to kill before the end of the sold-out UW-Stanford game. Comedian Joe Rogan was doing a surprise show (one of those MySpace Secret Show dealy-o's) at a B-list comedy club around the same time the UW game would be ending... timing wasn't great, and neither was the weather. The northwest rain kicked in as I reached the comedy club, and with no shelter from this I quickly nixed this idea and headed up to UW. (I had also found out about this show earlier in the day so I had nothing of value to get signed beyond an index card; also, the comedy club was in an area of downtown that is kind of sketch. Blah!).
After putting in a few hours of what I thought was merely okay hounding, I hoped that the rain would let up so I could finish off Stanford after the game. It didn't, and I grew more restless. I made the decision to head into the arena after the game and get whichever players come back out onto the court after the game. Usually a few from the visiting team will come out and talk with family and friends, as will a good chunk of the home team. The arena is incredibly friendly - they will oftentimes let people in a few minutes before the end of the game, and let fans walk around the perimeter of the court when players are signing instead of having to go around the tunnels. My decision to stay dry paid off - most of Stanford came out to the court! The 14th-ranked Cardinal had won 65-51 in a game that was consistently lopsided, so the team in red was in a good mood afterwards. The Lopez twins signed everything for everyone - I finished off my Brook stuff, and Robin was awesome. Anthony Goods and Lawrence Hill thought the cards I made were neat - though Goods commented "Man, you couldn't have picked an uglier picture [of me]!" Nick Robinson came out and I finally got him to sign the 4x6. I'm not sure whether it was shyness or something else, but he was very reserved and seemed surprised that I asked him to sign. He wasn't mean-spirited or anything, just a bit hesitant for some reason - no complaints really as I ended up with the autograph. While the Stanford players were hanging out by the tunnel, a few Washington players were on the other side of the court, and I was able to finish off two multi-player magazine covers. Justin Dentmon signed the Athlon from last year also picturing Malik Hairston and Derek Raivio; Quincy Pondexter finished off this year's Athlon magazine that I had also gotten Derrick Low and Bryce Taylor to sign. Both players also had some good things to say about my custom cards. This was a great way to end the evening and I am looking forward to the next team coming in (Cal). Thanks for bearing with this unusually, randomly long post.
Stanford
Landry Fields 1/1 card
Anthony Goods 3/3 cards, 4x6
(BaadN10tionzz 1, luckydog 1)
Lawrence Hill 2/2 card, 4x6
(luckydog 1)
Mitch Johnson 2/2 card, 4x6
(luckydog 1)
Brook Lopez 2/5, 3/3 magazines, cards, 4x6
(BaadN10tionzz 1, luckydog 1)
Robin Lopez 4/4 magazine, cards, 4x6
(BaadN10tionzz 1, luckydog 1)
Drew Shiller 1/1 card
Fred Washington 1/1 card
Trent Johnson 1/1 Pac-10 coaches 8x10
Nick Robinson 0/1
, 1/1 4x6
Washington
Justin Dentmon 5/5 magazine, gameday inserts, cards
(BaadN10tionzz 1)
Tim Morris 2/2 gameday inserts
Quincy Pondexter 3/3 magazine, cards
(BaadN10tionzz 1)
Cleveland
Mike Brown (coach) 1/1 index
Devin Brown 1/1 index
Eric Snow 1/1 index
