As many of you could probably tell from previous posts (as in the last two) . . . Jimmer Fredette is sort of a big deal around BYU campus, and apparently the nation.
Last night I finally got to see that guy in the ZONE!
Last night BYU (ranked no. 9) played SDSU (ranked no. 4) at the Marriott, and there was this HUGE ordeal about how to get into the game as a student. They had people skipping classes, work, and devotional in order to line up to wristbands on Thursday. They said that they were only letting in 5,000 students, so the fanatics lined up in the cold and the wet snow in order to get the wristbands. Students waited in these conditions for almost three hours.
(I could go on a rant about the rights of student, and how impossible it is to fight the system when they have something we so desperately want and need, like basketball tickets... But I won't be ranting that way today.....)
But I was not one of those students.
I instead got a text from Miss Chelsea Akin at 5:30 on Wednesday night informing me that the stand-by line was relatively short so I could still get in that way. So I got off the bus at 5:28 and got right back on 5: 43. I then jogged to the stand-by line, and after a short 20 minute wait -- I was inside the Marriott Center.
We got settled into our temporary seats (we eventually left to seat with Stacey's family, because they have much better seats!), and the game clock countdown read:
TJ Fredette (yep its Jimmer's older brother) came out and a performed a
song for us, which was actually pretty good if you like rap at all. It had an accompanying Jimmer music video, so that was cool too.
Then they trickily upped the time a few short minutes later
(the picture above shows the time at 88:41... tricky buggers . . )
but that didn't matter -- because again
WE WERE IN THE MARRIOTT!
Then tip-off happened. Everything was so exciting. Everyone was so loud.
There was so much energy and so much excitement.
The crowd was awesome. The team was awesome. The game was awesome.
Its really hard to write about a whole game, but here's a few things that happened:
Jimmer scored.
The crowd went wild. Even the old people stood up sometimes.
(repeat above, add 28 points by supporting cast at random intervals).
That was basically the whole game.
FINAL SCORE: Jimmer 43
BYU 71 -- SDSU 58
and an ending chant that went something like: "You got Jimmered!"
As for the fan experience...
The newspaper did this thing were starting on Monday quartered Jimmer up, and by Wednesday you had a life size Jimmer poster if you taped all the pieces together. There were quite a few lifesize Jimmers in the stands. Before the game there was this lady in a motorized wheelchair, she was had a life-size Jimmer taped to a cane taped to her wheelchair. It was so cute, and so cool!
The signs were so funny! Some of my favs:
"Shimmer for Jimmer"
"Fredette about it"
"Jim Jimmery Jim Jimmery Jim Jim Jaroo"
(or something like that)
"Jimmered"
"The REAL King James"
"Aztecs are ancient history."
"20-1: Your past, Our Future"
and other such amazingingness.
At half time the Cougarettes did an amazing new dance!
It was hip-hop and legit.
The Cougarettes were followed by BYU's acapella group, Vocal Point.
Some of you from the Powell/Cody area might recognize this guy:
(for those that don't know him his name is Ross Welch from my stake back home...)
The crowd was amazing let me just say that again. They filled maximum capacity, I'm pretty sure. There were very few if any empty seats. It was so loud the entire time. My ears were buzzing for a couple of hour after the game. You had to yell to hear the people next to you.
The end of the game was also amazing. For the first time that many many people can remember the crowd rushed the court.
Here's it all going down:
The final result:
It was so exciting, and although I was with the old folks . . .
I still felt the rush, and I was able to capture that neat video.
Jimmer was actually trying to get an interview done, and the camera people got pushed out the way by the crowd. So they had to move Jimmer and the interviewer to the other side of the scoring table. As he made his way to the locker room you could see the crowd sort of following him. The mob got bigger where he passed. It was amazing.
The hype started after the game.
Kevin Durant (who apparently is really good in the NBA . . . ?) put on twitter:
"Jimmer Fredette is the best scorer in the world!!"
Actually up until this morning Jimmer was trending on Twitter, internationally.. meaning that worldwide he was one of the top 10 people/things mentioned on people's tweets
(for those not Twitter savvy . . . that's a big deal!)
Urban dictionary has Jimmer as an entry:
(this was just one of some other pretty great definitions)
So basically, every person on the face of the earth at BYU is excited and hyped for the next couple of months. I myself am turning into a sports fan ... watching ESPN snippets, learning that there were TWO rankings for college teams, and finding out everything possible about Jimmer and Co.!!!
Pretty crazy, but its worth it!
