Take me out to the basketball game

by Angela on May 6, 2012 · 3 comments

This will be a short post, as I am WAY behind on writing about the past 3 weeks of life here on our Orlando leg of the Lion King tour. But today was exciting, as I reconnected with my friend Patrick Ewing. I know him from my days as a broadcaster with the NBA. Below, I’m interviewing him at the 2007 NBA Draft Lottery in Secaucus, NJ for my show “NBA Timeout”.

Pat’s here in O-town as a big man coach for the Orlando Magic for the past few years (he namely mentors All-Star Dwight Howard, who is injured and out of the postseason), and he gave me two tickets to Game 4 of the first round of playoffs — Orlando Magic vs. Indiana Pacers. The Magic were down 1-2 in the series so far.

I brought seven-year-old Genesis and Max to Amway Arena this afternoon, and throughout the first half I had to explain the rules of the game to Genesis and reinforce that we were there to cheer on the home team. Perhaps I was too emphatic? She was so caught up in the competitive spirit, I had to stop her repeatedly from yelling at the top of her lungs, “I HATE the Indians! I hope the Indians DIE!” I had to quickly correct her… “Um, Gen. It’s the INDIANA PACERS. Why don’t you just use the word ‘Pacers.’ And we don’t HATE anyone, sweetie – we just want our own team to win, but we don’t want anyone to die or get hurt!”

And of course, we took advantage of the concessions. Mmmm, cheeseburger…

Mmmmm, french fry. We’re where? There’s a basketball game going on? Booooooorrrrrrring, says Max. Sigh, says Mama.

We left after the half, after Max pretended to ignore the entire game and snooze on my shoulder, and Genesis asked if we could go swimming. Boy, have things changed since my working days at these games!

The Magic ended up losing in OT.