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I’LL TAKE THE FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS ANYTIME
(April 2005)

My wife came home with the offer of some free tickets to see the Spartans basketball team take on Delaware State early this past season. Wow, free tickets, 20 bucks apiece, for that price well be so close to the court I'll probably have my knees sticking in Tom Izzo's back. What could be better, of course we'll take 'em.

It was while parking the van, I got my first inkling that maybe, just maybe things were going to be just a little different than my Tuesday, Thursday and Friday nights I've become so accustomed to.

First off, I got hit with a $7 parking fee. Well, the lot looked to be just kind of kid-der-corner from the Breslin Center, not too bad, but we ended up driving about half a mile before finding a place to park.

Once inside, we were directed to a flight of stairs – not the ones going down to courtside, but those you had to climb up. At the landing, a young usher told us to "go just about to the top and turn left, you'll see your seats."
No chance for an errant pass hitting me in the face up there in the nosebleed section, but it was still a Big Ten basketball game.

Finding our row, we settled in for the game. Knees pulled up to my chin to avoid bumping the lady in front, I scrunched into the seat. Next to me was a rather large gentleman who felt it was his constitutional right to take the armrest as well as all the legroom he desired. I began to think about the freedom I had at a Friday night game.
About halfway through the first period, I came to the conclusion the designer of stadium seating must have been just slightly taller than my 5th-grade son, with a backside about the width of a super model’s.

The court seemed to be a long-distance phone call away, yet, amazingly, it didn't stop the people around us from loudly disagreeing with virtually every call the ref made.

With halftime approaching and neither team breaking 30 points, I thought about the games I had been to this fall and the kids I had gotten to know, whether it be under the Friday night lights of football season, or on the basketball courts.

And while our headlines reflected on the star players of the game, it is always the kids who never receive the attention they deserved who catch my eye. These kids, many of them starters, know that when they play their final game of their senior year, it will be the last time they walk on the field or court wearing a team uniform. No college offer of a full-ride. But they show up for the two-a-day practices and try their best, and at the end of the season, they are still there, still contributing to the team.

Thinking back over the fall sports season, I can't help but remember the remarks of a coach whose team hadn't won a game for three years, yet he always told me how proud he was of the efforts of the boys on the field. I thought about the girl who played basketball wearing a knee brace to help a damaged knee stay together. I later learned she postponed surgery to play this season. Numerous times I saw no-name players get twisted ankles taped up and limp back into the game. I've seen young girls get slammed to the floor so hard that the thud echoes throughout the gymnasium, and they kept playing, because that's what they joined the team for, to contribute.

I've had athletic directors pull me back when an end sweep threatened to run over the old man with a camera, and a high school principal offer me his hat on a cold wet night, explaining that the hood on his coat would keep him warm and dry. I've gotten some good-natured teasing from parents, and have had others tell me how pleased they were to see their kid's picture in the paper. I fought back tears when I heard how a team gave the game ball to a young boy in the hospital.

As the sound of the buzzer signaled the start of the second half, I decided to sit back and enjoy the show for what it was, but for me, I'll be happy to get back to the "Friday night lights" of high school sports. I’ll take the up close and personal relationships every time.

– Bill McLeod
DeWitt-Bath Review