The Inadvertent Basketball Game

On Tuesday November 19, 2013, I made the cold, long trek across the new bridge to north for swim practice. My friend, Michaela, and I left from Fox Hall at 8PM as we typically do to go to UMASS Lowell's  club swim team practice. It was freezing outside so we had to bundle up. I had a long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, scarf, hat, and mittens on so that we wouldn't freeze on the walk over, or back with our hair soaking wet from the pool.
Once we finally got to the pool, there was huge crowd of UMASS Lowell students and the typical New Wave Swim Club was not finishing up nor were the kids waiting to be picked up. The lights in the pool were shut off, and only me and Michaela were there, when finally our teammate Bobby showed up. He had no clue whether or not practice had been canceled. Then a man in a suit came over to us, because we all looked so lost. He saw our gym bags and asked what we were doing, so we told him that we had practice, but he said that due to the basketball game that was going on all activities in Costello were cancelled during the game. We had no idea why because the pool was separated from the gym, but the pool was locked so we could not get in. We had no idea what to do and figured that we'd wait for our coach to come, because she wasn't going to let us miss a practice, especially because we had a meet coming up.
After a few minutes of waiting, I called the club president. He, also, had no idea that practice was supposedly cancelled. He called the vice president who worked for the lifeguards and could get us into the pool. We had to wait for her to show up, so while a group of us gathered we decided to watch the basketball game. Surprisingly, they were doing pretty well against Brown University. There was a massive crowd inside the gym. It started to go wild right before half time, because UMASS Lowell was making a comeback. A flag about the size of a four door sedan that said UMASS Lowell Riverhawks was being waved back and forth rapidly and violently. UMASS Lowell's team was gaining momentum, but then the buzzer sounded that signaled the end of the first half of the game. We continued to watch even after half time, when the cheerleaders did their routine. Our coach or vice-president had yet to arrive. The team came out pumped up and ready to go, but so did Brown. It was a close game after that, but unfortunately our vice-president showed up.
She unlocked the pool, turned the lights on, and we got in so that our coach wouldn't be mad. She arrived shortly after that. While swimming we could hear the chants and cheers of the crowd. It was actually quite inspiring. However, after 15 minutes in the pool the man in the suit came into the pool. He told us that we could not be practicing in case people from the game came into the pool. But the game was in its final seconds as he said that so we were allowed to continue our practice. We discovered that the final score of the game was 76-87. Brown had won. But UMASS Lowell had put up a good fight, and we got to have our swim practice. So, Tuesday November 19 was a pretty eventful and cold night.