The Best Day of the Week

 If I had to pick my favorite day of the week it'd be gamedays. There's nothing I love more than arriving at the stadium when it's completely empty: just me, my team and the court beneath our jazz shoe clad feet. The roaring crowd is great and all but sometimes the silence is peaceful, the court lights shining steady beams of light on us as the jumbo-tron is dark. I soak in the feeling for as long as I can until we inevitably have to go back to the locker room where the flurry of gameday preparations await us. 

The gameday routine is clear, a methodical list of steps we complete in the same order every gameday. It's comforting knowing that at least once a week every step of my day is nailed down to a tee - no modifications or alterations. I like to wake up early on gamedays and get in a workout to jump start my likely sore muscles. After a warm shower and peony scented body wash, I head to class. Classes always pass alarmingly quick on gamedays. I run home, quick lunch and then it's time to pack my bag. The contents feels endless: two pairs of jazz shoes, one pair of red converse, black jazz pants, poms, warmups, uniform top and skirt, makeup, makeup mirror, hair brush, curling iron, tights, maybe a few snacks (I know I'm forgetting a few things). I shove all of that in my monogrammed dance team backpack and yell goodbye to my roommates as I head out the door to carpool. 

Carpool consists of my junior class plus one of our senior friends. We squeeze ourselves (and bags) into the car, talking about the game, the competition, and our dance the whole ride to Carver. Once we arrive and park, we walk into the stadium. Since we're the dance team we have to arrive three hours before the game starts so we can mark the court. Marking the court is essentially when we block our dance so we know where to stand when. We run through the dance a few times with music before we head back to the locker room. The locker room is chaos but also some of the best memories I have from dance team (I'm sure plenty of other athletes can relate). We have music blasting and snacks, makeup mirrors with the lights turned all the way up and the smell of hairspray wafts in the room. After foundation, eyeshadow, mascara, blush, and signature Bradley red lipstick, we put on our Bradley shield tattoos on our left cheek. We're officially ready. 

 We stretch in the locker room before heading out onto the court for pregame. Stretched muscles are safe muscles - all cold muscles will give you is an injury. With red, shiny poms in our hands we take our place on the sidelines. The pregame routine is always the same - alma mater, pledge of allegiance, motorcycle, fightsong and tip off. We complete this routine with ease, each step checked with a smile on our faces and "go Bradley" on our lips. Three minutes before halftime we head back through the tunnel to stretch and run one last mark. 

Our cue is the same: "The Bradleyyyyy Bravettes!" from the announcer overhead. Our dance goes fantastically and we return to the sidelines, doing a few sideline routines and media time outs here and there. If it's a game like this past Wednesday we win and we do the fightsong dance at least four times to celebrate. By the time we get done its 10pm and we've been at the stadium for six hours so we might stop for food or sometimes we're just so exhausted we go straight  home. They might be long days but they are some of the BEST days of college. 

I wouldn't trade gamedays with the red & white for anything in the world. After this week's win we're officially first in the Missouri Valley Conference. LET'S GO BRAVES! 

Till next time - IF