Was it ten years ago???

All through college I was very involved in bands - marching band, pep band, and concert band. Pep band was my absolute favorite. After one season of basketball I became obsessed with our team - we had some great players - who were the same year as I was - so the team was sure to grow and get better and better. And they did. Basketball games were so much fun to watch and participate in - I can still remember all the cheers we'd do with the cheerleaders and the student fan section and all the songs we'd play as loud as we could. The fight song, We Are the Champions, Horse (this one was fun - the tuba players got to dance around on the court and shoot fire out of their tubas!), and a bunch of classic rock songs. I loved all of the players - Jamar Smiley, Skip, Dan Muller (or something like that), I knew them all - their names, their strengths, their injuries and even what they liked to eat at Subway (where I worked - whenever one of them came in I got all flustered as though a true celebrity had come to order a sandwich - I couldn't even muster up a "good game" for any of them - I'd just make their sandwich and let them on their way - they probably thought I had no idea who they were). My last year our team made it to the NCAA championship; this is rare for a "small" school like Illinois State. The best part was that some of the pep band got to accompany them to Sacramento California - the weekend before spring break. Luckily for me, about half of the band was already on their way to Ireland, but not me, I couldn't afford it. With all those guys being gone there was room for woodwind players (usually only the brass players would go for something like this) and I got to go with! We were all so excited because we were the ones with NO plans for spring break - the ones that couldn't afford anything fun - and here we were heading to California for free! On a private jet! With the team! And a daily allowance of $75 for food! And it was so cold when we left! And so warm in California! What more could you ask for? How about the team winning the first game by ONE point in overtime - accomplished by a 3-point-shot AT THE BUZZER. By a player that was playing slightly injured! My gosh - the adrenaline rush was unbelievable! I still remember jumping and screaming with everyone even after we had left the stadium. Awesome. And then celebrating some more later that night (ever go on a band trip? The custom is someone gives up their tub for the ice and drinks. There's usually a lot of card playing and singing, "sing us a song your the piano man, sing us a song tonight we're all in the mood for a melody and you've got us feeling alright" or "bye bye miss American pie drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry and good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye singing this will be the day that I die.") This win gave us (the mini-pep band) a chance to take the bus to San Francisco the next day and since we were getting $75/day for food we treated ourselves to some amazing seafood and then spent the day sightseeing. We were there for maybe 7 hours or so and it was so beautiful. The next day was our second game. Our team did really well the first half and at half time we were down by maybe 6 points or so and we thought we might have a chance to win this (amazingly). Then the second half came and didn't go very quickly at all. I don't remember who we were playing but they basically put us back in our place of some small school that rarely makes it to the NCAA. That feeling of total ecstasy we all experienced just 48 hours ago was totally gone. The team was solemn, we played the Alma mater, and then we were quiet. It was time to head home and by the time we loaded the jet our spirits were lifted slightly. We had made it to NCAA and we had won a very exciting game. By the time the players got on the jet we were ready to cheer and I'm sure they were ready to hear it. It had been an amazing season and an even more amazing trip. That was ten years ago. I know what some of you were doing ten years ago, how about you?