ATLANTA - They rode 12 hours together in one overcrowded RV that smelled mysteriously like sweat socks. They sat on the side of the Kentucky highway for two hours to fix a broken tire.
And once they finally made it to Atlanta, someone broke into their vehicle and stole their cellular phones.
But when Steve Rothwell, a 1993 MSU graduate, and seven of his closest college-day friends, finally got to watch the MSU men’s basketball team cut down the nets after its 69-62 victory over Temple at the Georgia Dome on Sunday, the sweaty smell, the broken tire and the missing phones hardly mattered.
In fact, for the thousands of MSU fans who crowded into Atlanta hotels this weekend and watched MSU qualify for its third-straight Final Four, nothing aside from basketball seemed to matter at all down south.
“A lot of Michigan State students didn’t live through what we did in the early ’90s and late ’80s,” Rothwell said. “They didn’t go to school through the lean years of basketball. The students now are so lucky to have a team that can get to the Final Four.
“They need to come down here and live it up.”
But a majority of fans who crowded around Sparty and head coach Tom Izzo at the pre-game pep rally Friday in the Atlanta Hilton’s Ballroom were people like Rothwell - not current students.
And students were also the minority among the thousands of Spartan supporters who filled nearly a quarter of the 40,000-seat Georgia Dome.
Instead, it was alumni that jumped at every dunk and screamed at every undeserved MSU foul.
The Izzone they weren’t, but as MSU cruised its way past Cinderella hopeful Gonzaga on Friday night and battled by the Temple Owls on Sunday, the older crowd roared like any baby-faced student section.
Julie Carmisohael, a director of the Volleyball’s Side-out Club, painted her black hair green, and had a green manicure, with a white “S” on both ring fingers. She made a sign that said, “Can’t Beat State!” and waved it and cheered at every timeout.
Robin Storm, a 1975 MSU graduate, wore a fluorescent-green wig and giggled at the pep rally with her former Holmes Hall roommate, Rita Barker, who graduated from MSU in 1973.
Storm bought the wig two weeks earlier in Chicago, when MSU’s early departure from the Big Ten Tournament left her and Barker with ample shopping time.
And although while in Atlanta the duo hoped to get more shopping done, basketball was certainly their biggest concern.
Well, concern might not be the right word.
“I know we’ll win,” Storm said. “In fact, we already have hotel reservations in Minneapolis.”
“We’d had those since last April,” Barker chimed in.
Good thing.
The Spartans will square off against Arizona on Saturday in an NCAA Tournament semifinal contest. The winner advances to next Monday’s finale, where a champion will be crowned.
The decision of so many MSU alumni to head south for the two weekend games didn’t go unnoticed.
Lupe Izzo, wife of head coach Tom Izzo, said she was slightly worried when MSU was picked to play in the South, not the Midwest.
Thus, the turnout of fans in Atlanta pleased her.
“I think the Spartans really showed up,” she said. “It’s amazing that they all could come for it, even though it’s in Atlanta. They’re still here, and that meant a lot to the players.”
