Back at Belk

Claire Asbury, Class of ’10, a terrific young writer, is back from her semester abroad, and one of her first stops stateside tonight is Belk Arena.

To mark her return to campus, and also just because they’re really kind of awesome, here are some more entries from her basketball journal from last year:

March 11, 2008: AND THEY SANG WITH US. THEY POINTED AT US (“TOUCHING ME, TOUCHING YOU!”). WE POINTED AT THEM. THEY RAISED THEIR FISTS (“1, 2, 3, 4!”). THEY PUMPED THEIR FISTS AND CHANTED “SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!” RIGHT ALONG WITH US! It was absolutely indescribable for me to see them doing that, overjoyed, a true reflection of what we as their supporters mean to them, and I had never seen it done so explicitly that if I hadn’t been so caught up in it I would've started crying.

March 22, 2008: And it’s hard to describe what it’s like when months and years are somehow slammed together to mean nothing but NOW, THIS MOMENT, the cheers, the screaming, the possibility of impossibility … it’s all still kind of a juxtaposition in my mind. It’s fuzzy, it’s red and black, it’s loud, it’s Sweet Caroline coming back for round two, it’s their wide grins and joyful fists, it’s my sweaty hands punching in Dad’s number and letting loose a shriek that I’d been dying to do for months as he answered the phone in kind.

Mach 24, 2008: But we all had dreams.

They’re not dreams anymore.

March 29, 2008: And I was there.

And it was incredible.