Forza Azzurri
All American
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- Oct 27, 2011
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I planned this Final Four trip so it would be about my son.
I took him to Atlanta but we arrived in Atlanta mid-afternoon Saturday, stayed at the hotel at the airport and flew out Sunday AM.
This time around I wanted to make sure he experienced the entirety of the Final Four rather than just the game.
I booked us downtown at the Hilton Americas, right across the street from both Fanfest and Musicfest. As an added benefit, all the coaches and the CBS team were staying there.
It was fun to watch my son walk around with his eyes as big as saucers seeing all the people we normally
only see on TV...Barkley, Kenny Smith, Scottie Pippen, Calipari, John Thompson, JT3, Pastner, Mark Few etc...
The only coach we interacted with was Frank Haith. On the flight down to Houston, I had rewatched the SU-Texas game and Haith was one of the assistants on Texas under Barnes at that time. At breakfast one AM, I talked with him about that game and Carmelo and GMAC for 5-10 minutes...
Fanfest was heaven for my son...so many different hoops games that he played hoops for hours...knockout, free throws, 3 pointers, dunking on hoops of different heights, vertical leap etc...We spent hours there on both Friday and Saturday...Just one little bit of braggadocio...even at 49, my vertical was still 30 inches...my son was impressed...but he beat the pants off of me at every shooting contest...
At the game we sat next to 3 SU fans who had gone to St. Louis, Chicago and Houston. One of them went to SU and graduated in 1956. She sat next to Jim Brown in math class...Very cool.
As my son gets older, and taller, I am looking forward to getting back to sitting in the SU section, as we did in '03. We had really good seats with a great view of the game, and nobody in front of us to block his view, but there is no substitute for being in the SU section...
Sunday, we also went to see the NASA Space Museum which was well-worth the trip...
The Final Four has become such an Event that I would urge each and everyone of you to go to the next one SU makes...
Even if they lose in the Semi, as they did this year, it is an unbelievable experience.
I took him to Atlanta but we arrived in Atlanta mid-afternoon Saturday, stayed at the hotel at the airport and flew out Sunday AM.
This time around I wanted to make sure he experienced the entirety of the Final Four rather than just the game.
I booked us downtown at the Hilton Americas, right across the street from both Fanfest and Musicfest. As an added benefit, all the coaches and the CBS team were staying there.
It was fun to watch my son walk around with his eyes as big as saucers seeing all the people we normally
only see on TV...Barkley, Kenny Smith, Scottie Pippen, Calipari, John Thompson, JT3, Pastner, Mark Few etc...
The only coach we interacted with was Frank Haith. On the flight down to Houston, I had rewatched the SU-Texas game and Haith was one of the assistants on Texas under Barnes at that time. At breakfast one AM, I talked with him about that game and Carmelo and GMAC for 5-10 minutes...
Fanfest was heaven for my son...so many different hoops games that he played hoops for hours...knockout, free throws, 3 pointers, dunking on hoops of different heights, vertical leap etc...We spent hours there on both Friday and Saturday...Just one little bit of braggadocio...even at 49, my vertical was still 30 inches...my son was impressed...but he beat the pants off of me at every shooting contest...
At the game we sat next to 3 SU fans who had gone to St. Louis, Chicago and Houston. One of them went to SU and graduated in 1956. She sat next to Jim Brown in math class...Very cool.
As my son gets older, and taller, I am looking forward to getting back to sitting in the SU section, as we did in '03. We had really good seats with a great view of the game, and nobody in front of us to block his view, but there is no substitute for being in the SU section...
Sunday, we also went to see the NASA Space Museum which was well-worth the trip...
The Final Four has become such an Event that I would urge each and everyone of you to go to the next one SU makes...
Even if they lose in the Semi, as they did this year, it is an unbelievable experience.
