On THE floor

by Jeremy

 

I'm slowly learning ways to put smiles on teenage  boys' faces. You either feed them, give them new electronic devices, or provide them with really good tickets to a professional ball game.

A few weeks ago, we had all three of these wonderments, all tied up in a nice, little package.

 

 

See these Utah Jazz tickets? They are not your ordinary, "We got tickets to see the Jazz play the Hawks. And by the way we are on the 372nd row" Jazz tickets. 

 

Oh contraire…these are tickets to  THE game! The one where they play the reigning NBA champs, Miami Heat, starring Mr. LeBron James himself.

 

When Landon learned of this gift from one of my colleagues, he smiled hugely.
“That should be an awesome game!” he said, still expecting that we would be sitting in 372nd row.

 

Little did he know that these were "Jazz 100 Club" tickets. On the FLOOR!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s right. The ROW was ‘A’.

And even better, our seats were right under the basket on the Heat bench side.

When Landon heard this his head spun 360 degrees and he let out a sound I have never before heard. It was a happy sound and it was accompanied by a rather large smile and an “Are you kidding me?”. I’m glad I wasn’t cuz I think I would have been fired as a Dad on the spot.

 

Remember how I said food was one of the other things that can bring a smile to teenagers' faces?  We were able to go to the top floor of the arena before the game and enjoy a gourmet, all you can eat buffet meal. We took full advantage of this.  See the smiles!

 

 

After our meal, the fun began!

Here’s Landon (white t-shirt) on the floor while the Heat came running onto the court.








 

 

As a side note, Landon was texting his buddy, Sam the whole time who was at home watching the game on TV and cursing Landon. We sat next to a couple of other first-timers as well and they were so excited for Landon. Throughout the game they kept leaning over and giving him high 5’s and saying how cool this was for him. Landon agreed!

 

As the arena filled to capacity, the teams started warming up. We couldn’t get over how ginormous these guys are and how little effort it took for them to dunk the ball or to do a simple lay up. I’m pretty sure if I stretch for 20 minutes before hand and try my hardest I can could touch the rim! They’d be impressed.

 

And the final picture just to prove we didn’t sneak down and take the above pictures. Here we are with our ‘special’ passes around our neck that kept anyone from asking why we were standing ON THE FLOOR. These little babies got us access to the halftime room under the stadium for all the snacks and drinks you want and where Landon was paid a compliment on his hair by some grandma. She loved it and he liked the compliment, I think.

 

You'll recall that I mentioned how electronic devices always seem to always add to teenage smile? Well here's how this comes into the already completely awesome night: At one of the timeouts, a group from Vivint (a Jazz sponsor) came out and threw things into the crowd. Before they left one of the girls gave a basketball to one of the camera men who turned around and threw the ball to Landon. “Cool, a new ball”. I don’t think he noticed the piece of paper taped to the ball. It read, “Bring this to the information desk at portal U to pick up a pair of Skull Candy Headphones”. Double cool! And come to find out they were very nice and retail for $150. Triple cool!

 

Today I still see glimpses of this smile and hope that I’ll see it more often even when there are no NBA stars, buffet meals, high fives from complete strangers and sweet sounding headphones. I’m confident I will. This was a night that my eldest and I will remember forever.