Boston College Basketball Game Was A Slam Dunk for Area Au Pairs!

Baseball may be America’s favorite past time, but you wouldn’t have known that the past few months.  The months of  February and March are all about  basketball.  And I’m not talking about professional basketball.  I’m talking about college basketball.  You may have heard about “March Madness” and wondered what it is?   Well, “March Madness” is the NCAA’s (National Collegiate Athletic Association)  single elimination basketball tournament that starts out with 64 of the top college teams, culminating with one championship game in April.

In the interest of cultural exchange, I thought I’d share a little history of the game.  Basketball was invented in Canada in 1891 by a teacher named James Naismeth.  There were 18 players in the game, 2 teams of 9. The game was played with a soccer ball and 2 fruit baskets.  The baskets were attached to the balcony on both ends of the gym.  Points were scored by shooting the ball into your team’s basket.  Every time a player made a basket, someone would have to climb up a ladder to retrieve the ball! It wasn’t until later that they decided to cut holes in the bottoms of the baskets to avoid this step.  (Great idea!)

The first public basketball game was played in Springfield, MA in 1892. Basketball quickly spread throughout the United States and Canada.  And when the United States Army joined the First World War in 1917, basketball gained popularity in Europe.

In 1906, metal hoops with nets and backboards replaced the fruit baskets.  And the soccer ball was replaced with a leather ball similar to what is used in today’s game.  But, other than that, the game has not changed much.    The rules are pretty much the same as Naismeth’s game.

But enough with the history lesson.  Being from Kentucky, college basketball is, in my opinion, much more exciting than professional basketball.  (But that’s probably because we never had a professional basketball team to cheer on in Kentucky).  It’s definitely much more affordable.  Some of the au pairs in my cluster expressed an interest in seeing a Boston Celtics game.  But, with ticket prices averaging $100/each, I knew that price was a little out of their budget (and mine, too!).

Since a road trip to Louisville was out of the question, I contacted Boston College and arranged for a group of 22 au pairs to see the Boston College Eagles take on Georgia Tech.  For the bargain price of $10/each, we were able to get center court seats.

Even though Boston College didn’t make it into the “March Madness” tournament this year, the au pairs and I still managed to have some fun cheering them on.   We saw some great cheer and dance routines performed by the BC Eagles cheerleaders and Pom Squad.  Some of us even got to get up close and personal with Baldwin the Eagle, BC’s mascot.  (Check out our own cheerleaders on their Youtube debut.)  Here are some still shots from the game:

That’s me posing with Baldwin the Eagle.

The game gets exciting as the competition heats up!

The lovely ladies from China.

“Peace!”

Some more of our crazy friends.

Amity was having fun with Baldwin the Eagle.

“Come, come on…I don’t bite.”

“But I do peck!”

More game excitement.

Our friend Sam joined us. (She is an adopted member of our cluster!)

The cheerleaders take the floor.

That’s a nice looking group!

The game was exciting until the very end.  We sat on the edges of our seats as BC narrowly beat Georgia Tech with a final score of 72-74.

And in regards to the NCAA championship game next week– I’ll be rooting for my own home town team.  Go Louisville Cardinals!