This last week I took my 6 year old grandson (Nate) to his first professional basketball game. It was the Denver Nuggets VS the Phoenix Suns. The tickets I had were exceptional. They were provided by Fox Sports and were in a catered suite almost mid court. When I first received these 2 tickets I had originally planned on taking my wife but since the game was on a Tuesday evening, she had to work so I offered the extra ticket to my brother. Unfortunately his job required him to work as well so on the spur of the moment I decided to take my Grandson. This turned out to be the best decision I had made in a long while.
Nate is an adult in a 6 year old body. His grammar and social skills are more advanced than some of the adults I know. However, he had never watch a basketball game let alone attended a live game. I wasn’t sure if he was going to understand what was going on with the game or how he was going to react to the large crowd of fans attending the game as well.
While riding to the game Nate was full of questions. He wanted to know where we were going, if they had pizza there and if I would buy him a cotton candy. After answering these questions, I steered the conversation to the Denver Nuggets and told him about some of the players. I talked about Carmelo Anthony, the Birdman (Chris Anderson), Nene and so forth. It was taken it all in, When we arrived at the Pepsi Center his eyes were the size of silver dollars. He was in awe when we walked into the door and he saw how huge the facility was and all the people waiting to get in. Because our tickets were in the club level we were allowed to bypass the general admission line and use the VIP entry. As we walked by the general admission crowd Nate told everyone within ear shot that he was going to the basketball game to see the Bird Man.
We took the elevator to our level and found the suite. We had arrived over an hour before the game started and had the suite virtually to ourselves for the first ½ hour. Nate was in heaven. The fridge was stocked with juice and cola and there were cookies, snacks, hamburgers, disserts and all different varieties of sugar filled junk food that every little kids dreams of and best of all he had the freedom to help himself.
About 20 minutes before tipoff the players came out to warm up. I looked over at Nate and he was transfixed on what was happening on the court. I pointed out the various Nuggets players to Nate and he was taken it all in. The next thing I knew he was yelling Go Mello and Go Birdman and seemed to be pretty excited to see the players we had spoken about on the ride to the game.
Right before the game starts the lights dim at the stadium and the sound system is turned up. All of a sudden strobes lights were turned on, music started playing and the crowd started to roar as the announcer introduced each of the Denver Nuggets starters. Nate was in sensory overload. He was up on his feet with a smile from ear to ear. For the next 3 hours he rarely sat down.
The ref threw up the ball and the game began. Nate was transfixed. He was watching every second of what was happening on the floor. The crowd would roar after a slam dunk and Nate was added to the decibels. The refs would make a bad call and Nate would boo as loud as his little lungs would let him. During the timeouts Nate would dance to the music and wave to the staff throwing T-shirts into the crowd. He would cheer every basket and moan each turnover. If I wouldn’t have known better I would have thought that he was a seasoned fan of the game.
In the second half the Nuggets blew the game wide open and at the end of the 3rd quarter were up by 30 points. You would think that the excitement would have subsided for Nate by then but that wasn’t the case. He was jumping to his feet and fist pumping the air on every basket. When JR Smith hit a 3 point shot he would yell “Go JR Swish”. The people in our suite started watching Nate more than the game. They couldn’t believe this little guy was that much of a basketball fan. He would yell the players nicknames when the scored, Mello, Birdman, Kmart and so forth. I was asked how long had Nate been a Denver Nuggets fan and I responded “since about 2 hours ago”. The only time he didn’t watch the game was when I took him to the restroom and when I bought him the cotton candy I had promised while traveling to the game.
This little boy had one of the best times in his short life. I am so thankful that the family I had originally asked to go wasn’t able to do so. This will be an evening I remember the rest of my life and hopefully so does Nate. On the way home Nate looked over to me and said “Grandpa, would you take me to a Bronco’s game? You’ve got to love it!
