Big scoreboard
After blogging about the Jazz game this week, I started thinking about my first NBA game. Like Eldest, I was a first-grader who was just starting to seriously like basketball. My dad was a big Bulls fan, and that season, the Bulls were good, with Norm Van Lier, John Mengelt, Norm Van Lier and 7-foot-2 Artis Gilmore on the roster.
I don't remember much of the game -- who won, who lost, where we sat, and so on. What I remember most was Chicago Stadium itself, especially the big hanging scoreboard overseeing the court. Lights from the bottom of the scoreboard lit up the court and provided a bright center to an otherwise dim stadium. The players' numbers were displayed as well as other key stats, and I was intrigued by the billboard ads rotating rotisserie style on the bottom sides of the contraption (this was before stadiums started putting Jumbotrons on scoreboards). The scoreboard was larger than life, at least for a 6-year-old, and dominated my focus, even after the game started.
That first game wasn't my most memorable Bulls game -- that belongs to a 1985 game against the 76ers when Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley were rookies and I was trying to get over salmonella. My boys talked about the Jazz game the day after and what they observed and liked. They took the Jazz bear and a near-victory from their first game. I took a gigantic scoreboard from mine.
I don't remember much of the game -- who won, who lost, where we sat, and so on. What I remember most was Chicago Stadium itself, especially the big hanging scoreboard overseeing the court. Lights from the bottom of the scoreboard lit up the court and provided a bright center to an otherwise dim stadium. The players' numbers were displayed as well as other key stats, and I was intrigued by the billboard ads rotating rotisserie style on the bottom sides of the contraption (this was before stadiums started putting Jumbotrons on scoreboards). The scoreboard was larger than life, at least for a 6-year-old, and dominated my focus, even after the game started.
That first game wasn't my most memorable Bulls game -- that belongs to a 1985 game against the 76ers when Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley were rookies and I was trying to get over salmonella. My boys talked about the Jazz game the day after and what they observed and liked. They took the Jazz bear and a near-victory from their first game. I took a gigantic scoreboard from mine.
Comments