My parrot is better than your honor student.
That's a weird bumper sticker to have on that beat-up 1980s Ford truck, I thought while driving down the center of Interstate 69 in Indiana.
As I peered into the driver's seat, expecting a guy in Army gear and a NASCAR hat, I couldn't believe my eyes. This guy had a white parrot on his left shoulder.
"Guys wake up," I yelled to the other reporter and the photographer. We kept letting the parrot guy pass us and then caught back up.
It was just another day on the road. It seems most of my spring semester was spent in a car on the expressway, driving somewhere. Covering the men's basketball team meant driving to 10 cities.
That's 8,014 miles logged in about 127 hours.
That means we could have driven from San Francisco to Boston and had 5,000 miles to spare.
But all that's a blur. I got to see campuses of eight of the Big Ten schools and tried to get a crash course in everything they had to offer in just hours.
After all, we had to get back on the road. I hope I will never again have to drive on nearly 5 inches of snow in Wisconsin.
But here's the two major lessons I learned while criss-crossing the Midwest. Not every street corner has a McDonald's and Starbucks. Wait. Nevermind. They do.
Not every community is the same. Each college campus has its own identity, its own history and thousands of college kids my age enjoying it.
Minnesota's buildings were amazing, Wisconsin had downtown Madison to fuel its fun and Northwestern must have a lot of money.
After four years at MSU, I feel like I'd seen everything here a hundred times. I've run to the end of the Lansing River Trail and back and seen the city from every angle.
Each time I come back to East Lansing, I fall in love with the architecture of north campus and the oldness of Morrill Hall, helping me appreciate the city's beauty all over again.
No. 2 lesson is appreciate our fans. There aren't other fan sections like the Izzone in the Big Ten. Before the season started, I was under the impression that other conference schools had caught up, but that's not true. Here's my ranking:
1) Illinois: At the Final Four, it showed class and appreciation for MSU and helped us cheer after the Fighting Illini beat Louisville. It was rowdy and supportive, and I can only imagine what the Orange Krush is like at its home court.
2) Indiana: The loudest and craziest place I went to. The entire crowd stood and cheered and gave Indiana a major edge in the win.
3) Wisconsin: A hard place to play because, at times, it did get loud but only when the Badgers were playing well. Plus, the Grateful Red showed up minutes before the jump ball.
4) Michigan: It cheered louder during Brent Petway's slam dunk show before the game.
5) Minnesota: One of the biggest crowds of its season, but that's because alumni came, not because of a student section.
6) Iowa: This was the trip that the Izzone traveled to see. A small section of the Izzone was louder and, on several occasions, it was so loud that the Hawks Nest had to stand up and cheer for Iowa.
7 tie) Northwestern and Purdue: Neither section had much of a presence. Major work needed here. Gene Keady Day didn't even sell out.
9) Penn State: Of what felt like 500 fans at the game, some were students, I think.
A lot of time was spent on the road, but discovering all the new cities and venues was an irreplaceable experience. Let the Izzone live on.
Brian Charlton was the State News men's basketball reporter and is looking for more volunteers to go on road trips with him. Reach him at charlt10@msu.edu, and he might reply back.
