It's almost game time at Breslin Center.

Mary Smith, who stands just above 5 feet, seems small amid the bustling arena.

The 91-year-old walks to her seat, wearing her favorite white hat, a dark green skirt and white boots — green and white from head to toe.

"She's always dressed to the nines," said Kris Hassan, a 1974 MSU alumna who befriended Smith several years ago at a basketball game. "She always wears that during basketball season."

Smith is a witness to MSU basketball history. She's seen the team move from Jenison Field House to Breslin Center and from head coach Jud Heathcote to Tom Izzo.

But the great-grandmother of four hasn't always been an MSU fan.

Smith, who never attended the university, discovered the team later in life. It was after her 50th birthday — her son had become an MSU baseball coach — when she first started rooting for the Spartans.

In the early 1980s — when Smith was in her mid-60s — she began buying basketball and football season tickets.

So far this season, Smith hasn't missed a Big Ten matchup at Breslin Center.

From her seat overlooking the dance team, she watches as Mateen Cleaves' No. 12 jersey is retired and raised to the rafters before Saturday's game.

She remembers cheering for the senior point guard as he led the team during the national championship season in 2000.

"When they were cutting the basketball net, when they finally got that championship — that was so exciting," Smith remembers. "I still feel chills."

Just as she's been a bystander for the different eras of MSU basketball, Smith also has seen the world change.

Smith, who was born in 1915, will celebrate her 92nd birthday June 23.

She's lived through the Great Depression — during that time she said she paid $1 to see a Broadway musical, and she rode a streetcar to school in her Chicago hometown.

She's lived through World War II, when her husband, Woody, worked as a superintendent for a factory that made weapons' parts.

Spartan love affair

Smith keeps a faded green MSU doormat by the back door of her Coldwater home.

She's lived in this town, about 75 miles south of East Lansing, since she was 18, leaving the Windy City to be with her husband, who died in 1991.

"I love it so much," Smith said. "I wouldn't want to live anywhere else."

Step inside her house and right away you'll notice Smith's passion for the university.

On her wall hangs a framed photograph of Smith standing next to Sparty on the 50-yard line at Spartan Stadium. Smith grins at the camera while Sparty flashes a thumbs-up sign.

That picture, which is the only photo she has with the mega-biceped mascot, was a 90th birthday present.

Throughout the rest of her home are subtle reminders of MSU — from the magnets on her refrigerator and the clock in her dining room, to a jewelry box that plays the school's fight song.

Taped above her desk is the men's basketball schedule.

"I live by that," said Smith, who has attended all the Big Ten contests at Breslin Center so far this season. She keeps a close eye on the team's upcoming games, making sure not to miss one.

Before each home game, Smith said she scurries around, getting ready to leave.

If the telephone rings?

Forget about it.

"I can't talk — sorry, I have to go to a Michigan State game," Smith said.

Usually, she nabs a ride with Michael Cherry — a fellow Coldwater resident and the father of Steve Cherry, who played MSU basketball during the Cleaves era.

During their drive to East Lansing, Smith said she becomes excited once she sees Breslin Center looming ahead.

"It just stirs an excitement within me," Smith said. "It's like a kid who knows he's going to get a lollipop."

Green roots

Concession stand workers line up bags of popcorn for sale before Saturday's home game.

A few feet away, vendors fold gray MSU T-shirts into a neat pile. Down in the concourse, the Izzone starts filling up.

The beat of the warm-up music is instantaneously drowned out by a deep roar of boos as the Ohio State players make their first appearance on the court.

There's an unmistakable aura of anticipation.

And caught up in this pregame ecstasy is Smith.

Her love for the Spartans can be traced back 40 years.

Smith's son, Tom, signed a professional contract with the Milwaukee Braves when he was 18 years old, before the baseball team moved to Atlanta.

Tom Smith said he didn't have what it took to rise in the big leagues, so instead he earned his degree at MSU and coached baseball at his alma mater from 1967 to 1995.

During those years, Mary Smith was a faithful parent in the bleachers, weathering through "many, many rainy days" and occasionally frigid temperatures to see her son coach.

"My mom and dad both were interested in my teams. … They would show up in Florida when we went to spring training," said Tom Smith, 64. "The games right in the state they never missed."

Even after Smith's husband passed away, she kept traveling to East Lansing to see her son.

"I would drive to Lansing three times a week by myself if that was how many times they would be playing," she said. "I always waited to talk to him, and he'd give me a big hug, and he'd walk me to my car."

Even though Tom Smith hasn't put on an MSU baseball uniform in the last 12 years, his mother didn't lose interest in the university's sports teams and kept going to MSU basketball and football games.

In her son's honor, Smith said she donated $30,000 last year to start an MSU scholarship fund.

Beginning in the fall, the first-ever winner will receive the Thomas W. Smith Endowed Scholarship in Kinesiology, said Michelle Mertz-Stoneham, director of development for the College of Education.

The partial tuition scholarship will go to an undergraduate student studying kinesiology.

Smith keeps photographs of her son from his coaching days.

"I just loved him in that uniform," she said.

Next game

The Saturday afternoon game is over, and Breslin Center has the feeling of a deflated balloon after MSU's second loss of the season to Ohio State.

The pregame excitement is gone. The band has stopped playing.

People file out of the stands, trying to forget the 63-54 loss on the scoreboard.

Smith, clad in green and white, is among the masses heading for the exit.

She's seen plenty of losses like this one — plenty of victories, too — but she'll be back at Breslin Center for another home game this season.

"It makes me feel much younger," the 91-year-old said. "That's why I stay the way I am."