Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Kansas defeated Missouri, 90-71. The “Orange Out” was a moderate success. And I had the pleasure of sitting in the middle of the reserved seats, section 115, row 5, seat 5, with some rabid nonstudent KU fans.
“No one ever sits here,” said Lori Porter, a Wichita resident sitting in seat 6. How did I end up here?
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So orange was scattered throughout the arena, but that from my comfy reserved seat, only one group of solid orange stood out.
It all started when the overflow media section, 13A, was full. So what would any seatless journalist do? Try to find a way to avoid going back to the media room.
It took awhile, but luckily, I found J.D. Loudabanger, an employee with the Athletics Department who tipped me off to something called an “overflow ticket.” I nestled into my comfy seat.
Now, for the first time ever, I was at a KU game in the reserved section. From the student section, the rest of the crowd seems so tame. But in reality, they love to yell just as much, just not stand, at least unless there’s a terrible call or a rare moment of genius that deserves a standing ovation. Like when Darnell Jackson blocked a shot with 42.9 seconds remaining in the first half.
“Woooo! There you go, baby!” one screamed.
“Hey, hey! All right Darnell!” came from another.
Lori Porter, who has been coming to games with her husband, Mike, thinks this is the best team she’s seen since the 1996-1997 squad, one that included five future NBA draft picks.
To my right was 17-year-old Tom Fehr, a Leawood resident and future Jayhawk, perhaps. He wore a Jayhawk hat, you know, the kind that makes you look like the mascot.
“My mom told me, ‘If you wear this hat, I will buy it for you,’ ” he said. “I was like, all right.”
And to my pleasure, I even met a KU fan from my neck of the woods: Daney Reed from Austin, Texas.
“BOOOO!” he screamed as Darrell Arthur was called for a blocking foul, which Reed obviously thought was a charge. By far, he was the loudest voice of dissent. “He was just standing there!”
“So do you like the Hawks or the Horns?” I asked
“The Jayhawks,” he replied without hesitation.
Are you going to the game next Monday?
“Oh yeah,” he said.
His brother in law, Greg Michels from Emporia, said “For him, only Jayhawk stuff for Christmas.”
It’s needless to say at this point, but I was impressed by the passion of the nonstudents.
But then, there were the students, the original topic of my column until I got so sidetracked. I wondered what the “Orange Out” would be like. Considering that it’s hard just to get everyone to wear blue, I’d say it went pretty well.
“I think I wore orange because they had something in the UDK,” said Garret Prather, a Wichita sophomore.
And how great was it that the football team was honored for its Orange Bowl victory during halftime of the Missouri game? The Jayhawk plane exploded a Virginia Tech helmet on the big screen as the crowd roared. I hope Amanda Jobe, a Shawnee sophomore, wasn’t offended. She wore an orange Virginia Tech shirt to the game.
“Really, it was the only orange shirt I had,” she said.
So orange was scattered throughout the arena, but that from my comfy reserved seat, only one group of solid orange stood out. It was 15 orange T-shirts in all.
“No, we weren’t in a camping group,” said St. Louis junior Ryan Klamen. “We were sitting here, and then two other groups showed up randomly.”
What better way to end this than with the best sign I saw at the game, one that got to the heart of what the “Orange Out” was supposed to be all about. The credit goes to Sam Stepp, a Mission Hills senior.
“Hey Mizzou, the Oranges tasted great!”
— Edited by Dianne Smith
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