Road Trip: Jimmerica

A couple months ago I went to the BYU-Utah basketball game and watched Jimmer Fredette pour 47 big ones on the Utes in the Huntsman Center.

A few weeks later, Katie and I listened on the radio (curse you CBS-C! Why aren't you in my TV package!) as Jimmer and Cougars upset San Diego State, then watched his live SportsCenter interview after the game.

Jimmer Mania was officially off the charts, and it was only going to get bigger.

The next morning I had an idea, and what follows was the result of that idea.

DENVER, site of the 2010-2011 NCAA men's basketball tournament, Southeast Region.

At that point in the season, it was pretty clear that BYU was going to receive a high seeding in a close destination, and I wanted to be a part of the action. Attending a NCAA Tournament game is one of my bucket list experiences. My team was having a phenomenal year, and our star player was the talk of the nation. Given BYU's basketball history, this opportunity may not come again for another 30 years. The time was now. And luckily for me, my understanding wife was willing to play along.

Selection Sunday arrived. BYU's name came up in Denver, and their road to the Sweet 16 didn't look impossible. With a little hotel booking help from Hotwire.com and a lot of ticket booking help from my brother in-law (Thanks Michael), it was road trip time.

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Thursday: (St. Patrick's Day)

Up at 5 a.m., on the road by 6 with a car full of food (How great are wives! They feed us so well). Drove through the mountains and arrived in Denver a few hours before tipoff.

The arena was packed with Cougar fans, and our tickets for this game were better than just about all of these fools (thanks again Michael!) Katie and I were just on the fringe of Celebrity Row - Provo.

El Presidente Samuelson (below to rack of balls). I'm sure the guy in the gray shirt is important too.

TJ Fredette. In a word, he's "Amazing." Dude belongs right next to Eminem and Vanilla Ice on the Mount Rushmore of white rappers. :)

And, oh yeah, The Jimmer (sipping Gatorade). This is the closest we got to him since the guy plays the entire game. We love The Jimmer, but not as much as these people...

"The Luck of the St. Jimmer"

My personal favorite

The legend was in the house to see his son play for Gonzaga. Always exciting to see #12, even if he's just sitting in the stands.

Kinda tough to tell, but the big sign says "Jimmerica: Land of the Three, Home of the Shaved (per Honor Code rules)." We saw the pregnant woman who was holding the sign earlier in the day. Her T-shirt was even better: "We're naming her Jimmer."

Also saw a couple guys selling shirts outside the arena before the game that said "Charlie loves The Jimmer" on the front and "Winning....duh" on the back. Awesome.

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Friday:

This was still the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, so even on vacation, the best thing to do is watch basketball on TV. I'm lucky enough to have a wife who understands this. She did have one request for our Denver trip however, which I was happy to grant.

Katie's not much of a seafood eater, unless it's at Bubba Gump

Katie's meal: Jenny's Accidental Fish & Shrimp

My meal: "I'm Stuffed" Shrimp

I was extra happy that our table had a good view of the TV to keep watching games. Kind of amazing that a restaurant based on a movie is still in business more than 12 years after the show won the Oscar for Best Picture. I loved the movie when it still came out. I'll still watch it on TV when it comes up while channel surfing. But it's not like anyone's still referencing "Mama always said..." or using their Forrest Gump voice anymore.

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Saturday:

When we picked up our tickets from the BYU will call lady on Thursday, she made it very clear that we had great seats for the game. She also made it very clear that if BYU won, our tickets would be nowhere as good for Saturday's game.

Not sure how she knew that or why it was the case, but she was right.

We went from the BYU administrators and player families seats 7 rows from the team bench to the first row of the upper bowl. But as you can see, we had an unobstructed view, and we were still glad to be in the building to see Act 2 of The Jimmer Show.

You know how people talk about experiences in life that they will be telling their grandkids about? This will be one of mine.

Hopefully BYU will reach another Sweet 16 sometime in the next 40 years. But there may never be another Cougar who owns the sports world for an entire month like The Jimmer did.

How I spent my weekend

The plan for the past weekend was pretty well mapped out in advance.

Friday night: Dinner with Katie's friends

Saturday morning: temple
Saturday afternoon: church basketball and BYU basketball game
Saturday night: grocery shopping
Sunday: church, chillax

Nothing too exciting, but a plan nonetheless.

Things did not go as planned. For future reference, this is a fairly typical weekend plan for the Weilers. When it goes as planned, you can bet I won't be blogging about it :)

Friday:

Katie was not feeling well after work, so we scratched dinner plans, watched an episode of Man vs. Wild and hit the hay before 10 p.m. Charlie Sheen would be less than impressed, but then again, it's not like we have tiger blood or Adonis DNA, so it shouldn't be a huge surprise to him.

Oh, Charlie. Thanks for a week of laughs. We all envy your "uh... winning" ways and would give our right arm to try the Charlie Sheen drug for just one day, but none of us will miss your trashy show.

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Saturday:

Katie's stomach was still on the woozy side when we woke up, so we put the temple bags back on the shelf and broke out our new Wii game, Donkey Kong. Slight trade off of spiritual nourishment for a solid wrist and thumb workout, but quality family time either way.

Katie tells me this was her favorite game as a kid, and she still knows how to pound some ground.

Church ball was the trifecta of disappointment. Tip-off was 30 minutes late (and some point during halftime of the BYU-Wyoming game). Got injured three minutes into the game and was relegated to the bench. Lost game and was eliminated from the tournament.

Jealous of this girl? Me too. If Jimmer had a nickel for every time somebody stopped him for a few seconds to get their picture with him, ... well ... , he'd be making more than I do a week. I caught the last couple minutes of Jimmer and the Jimmeretes' final home game and title celebration, and I'm still optimistic about this team's tournament run. Of course, I've never thought anything beyond the Sweet 16 was a realistic expectation. Guess I'm a glass half-empty kinda guy.

Despite my best attempts to get out the house, we spent the rest of the day on the couch watching basketball games and movies while nursing my sprained ankle. Katie took good care of me, forcing Motrin down my throat and keeping the ice packs coming .... in waves.

You've probably all seen or experienced a purple foot by now, but Katie took the pictures, so I'm posting them. I'm more drawn to the green hue that starts about mid-foot and works its way to the toes.

I have small feet, but I feel like this picture. Makes the ol' dogs look like St. Bernards. It also highlights the bottom of my chicken legs, which is nice.

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Sunday:

Good day at church aside from the limping. It's not as easy to chillax at home while icing your foot. We broke out one of the puzzles we received at Christmas, watched more movies and finally got to see the Amazing Race at its regularly scheduled time.

We've done a few puzzles before. We. Katie tore through this one. And as you can sort of see in the picture below, these were not your typical square puzzle pieces

I guess I've seen one too many interviews with celebrities and athletes who love Martin Scorsese and Goodfellas, so when I saw it was going to be on TV I made a point of watching it . Now that I've seen it, I don't get it all the adoration.

Sure, Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci were born to play New York gangsters, and they do a great job. You got your guns, your blood, your robberies, your drugs and your Italian stereotypes. A fun story, but I don't see what makes it such an iconic film.