#32 of 351

Cookeville, Tennessee. Ever heard of it? Me neither. But here I was in Cookeville on a Saturday night in February. I was driving from Chattanooga to Cookeville accounting for the one hour difference in time. Yes, Cookeville is on Central Standard Time. As I pull  into the parking lot 2 hours two early, I see a parking lot full of cars. My plan was to find the school first and then head off to a local watering hole. Piquing my interest, I pulled into the parking lot and after much difficulty found what I think was the last parking spot. I headed inside to find out that this was the infamous girls/men doubleheader. Knowing somewhere that I heard Tennessee Tech had a good women’s program, I headed to my seat and watched the second half. No commentary for the ladies game will be found here.

This was a dress in pink night to support a cure for breast cancer as you can see above.

So naturally, the women’s game heads into overtime. I am calculating in my head the return time to Chattanooga (actual time was 1:15AM). The Tech women won so the crowd was in a good mood for the men’s game.

I am all for getting a free T-shirt thrown by a cheerleader. Although never having caught one during my journey, my dream is to catch one and hand the t-shirt to a child whom I just stepped in front of to catch the t-shirt. The crowd will erupt with mild applause. I will shake it off like this is something I do every day. But the Tennessee Tech folks have an annoying of throwing t-shirts DURING the game not during a time out. The crowd would stand up begging for a t-shirt blocking the view of folks who could care less.

This was the most exciting game of my journey so far. The scored was tied at 70 with about 7 seconds left. Tech takes the ball down court and shoots a wild three pointer with virtually no time left on the clock. He was fouled in the act. The Tech player sinks 2 out of 3 foul shots and wins the game.

Both teams are in the Ohio Valley Conference which I think is a league made up for teams that no other league wants. But I have noticed that the size of the scoreboard is inversely proportional to the size of the program. The scoreboard was huge and brilliant. OVC – not so much.