I love breaks in classes. They let you get your homework done, or in my case on Tuesday, go get my Biology lab book. As I walk over toward Mackey Arena to the University Bookstore, I was thinking, man how cool would it be if I happened to walk past Robbie or JJ or E'Twaun? Well, it sort of happened. I was looking out the door while I was waiting on the lady to check me out, and I though to myself I said, "Hey there's JJ!", but unfortunately, it wasn't too myself. It was out loud, and so the lady checking me out continues on to say "WHERE?" and I said walking down the street, but by the time she finally came back to realize what she was doing, I was afraid he was too far gone for help. But thank goodness for crosswalks! I got pretty close to him at the intersection by the Armstrong Hall of Engineering. He is HUGE! I didn't realize how tall 6'10" was until I was behind him. And SKINNY! As soon as I was out of ear shot of him, I texted Brian and Bre, called Dad and told them what had just happened.
As if the week wasn't good enough, Thursday I was walking through Ford Dinning Court and get behind some guy, that I just thought was tall. When I got back to the table, I said man that kid is really tall... he should play basketball. Jacob proceeded to tell me that he was, it was another fellow freshman, Travis Carroll. I was seeing athletes everywhere! I didn't think my day could get much better than following some random basketball player through the line at Ford, until we were getting ready to leave and we happened to look over to where Carroll was sitting, there was JJ, Carroll, and Anthony Johnson. Seriously, I have the best luck!
Then today, was meet the football team day behind Ross Ade Stadium. There were people everywhere and as Stephanie, Bre and myself walked up the hill, we hear the band playing Hail Purdue and we see people everywhere. The first thing I notice is #9, a transfer, Robert Marve. He is kneeling down talking to a little boy. I though, now these are the kind of people we need on our football team and in our community. As we walk over to get in line, I see him interacting with all of the other people. He didn't care who you were, if you wanted to talk to him, he would talk to you, and say thanks for coming out to support us. When it was finally my turn, Bre took my picture first and he told me thanks for coming out, same with Bre.
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| Robert Marve and I |
Then we continued on to look around to see who else we could find, and we saw the kicker, Carson Wiggs. He had quite the line, but we were willing to wait. He also was taking time to talk to the younger kids and make them feel special. But finally it was our turn and so again Bre and I took turns taking pictures.
We also got the opportunity to meet Keith Smith, future NFL draft pick, hopefully, and again, he was so thankful that everyone had taken time out of their schedules to come out and see them.
There we many other pictures taken, but these were the 3 that really stood out to me. Not only how they conducted themselves, but how they interacted with the younger kids. But I think the best part of the day was when we were getting ready to leave and I had just happened to look over at Marve's line, and I saw a little boy come up and pull on his shorts, and he immediately stopped what he was doing, and got down on that little boys level and talked to him, sat on the ground with him to take a picture. That just really brought into perspective what today was all about with them. Community.
Even though seeing some of the players from afar, and getting to talk with some this week, I think the best part was seeing the interaction with everyone else. They know they are athletes and that everyone thinks they are awesome, but they didn't act like it. They just seemed like they were any other student who happened to be gifted in athletics. I made the connection today that no matter what we are, students, athletes, small children, or alumni, we are all Boilermakers.
Boiler Up!
Melissa
