I was down at the Richmond Coliseum for the Colonial Athletic Association championship game between Old Dominion and William and Mary. Hoping this cinderella story was the making of something big, I was there in case William and Mary knocked off favored and regular season conference champions Old Dominion gaining an automatic bid into the NCAA men’s basketball tournament for the first time in the school’s history.

William and Mary has never made it into the “Big Dance” and the school is one of five original Division I teams that has never made the national field.

The Tribe has some pretty impressive alumni,  guys named George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe but I guess none of them ever had much of a three-point shot.

In many ways, this conference championship game had the feeling of old time basketball. The Richmond Coliseum just feels like a true basketball barn and the fans are loud and up close to the action. The public address announcer before the start of the game “invited” the fans of the winning team to celebrate on the court following the game but please remember to be respectful and in control. The crazy thing was, the Old Dominion fans were respectful and in control following the 60-53 win over William and Mary. They celebrated their victory in style and class.

The fans of William and Mary knew their team was close to something big. A close game down to the final minutes kept the Tribe in reach. Old Dominion had just written their own ending to the cinderella story.

Reason number 1,673 why this job is so cool. Nine months before the start of the Vancouver Olympics, I found myself just below the top of a 13,487 foot mountain in Silverton, Colorado hanging out with Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Shawn White. His sponsor Red Bull had built a super secret halfpipe for Shaun and only Shaun to develop his new tricks for the halfpipe prior to the Olympics. We were allowed out but promised and officially signed a bunch of waivers making sure we wouldn’t give up the location or show any photos of the halfpipe until just before the Vancouver Olympics.

On television, Shaun White seems like a pretty down to earth kid. To be completely honest, in person, the guy who has turned snowboarding into one of the most popular extreme sports in the world and has become a household name is really just that, a normal guy.

He is the Michael Jordan of his sport and by today’s standards of superstar athletes, you would think he would be completely out of touch like some (not all) acclaimed athletes.

Sorry to disappoint but definitely not. Just a normal kid who can do some pretty amazing things on a snowboard.

Maybe he stays grounded holding tight to his humble beginnings in the sport and the closeness to his fans both in the halfpipe and skateboarding. I don’t know but it is just surprising and refreshing to be around that caliber of athlete and feel like you are around a person who knows just how lucky he is to be living a dream.

I did learn one valuable lesson while in Silverton during the thick of winter in a pretty major snowstorm. Out at night having dinner with Shaun and the Red Bull folks, I made a serious menu selection error. When in a town that closes up shop for the season and restaurants decide among themselves who will open to serve a pretty small group of clients, NEVER order the seafood. I can count on one hand the times I have ordered fish at night usually when I am on the coast somewhere. I have no idea why but something made me order the mahi mahi hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean.

I paid the price a few hours later.

It was definitely a great night listening to all of Shaun’s stories along with his buddies and the great people from Red Bull. One of those moments I will always look back on and remember how lucky I am at times.

My stomach, however, wishes I would have just gone out for a hamburger instead.

From now on, I am sticking to the meatloaf.

It was a very wet night in a pouring rain as “The Great One” entered the plaza to bring the Olympic flame from the BC Place and the Olympic opening ceremonies to Coal Harbour after getting a ride on a flatbed truck.

The funny thing was that Olympic officials allowed only a very small number of people to witness the lighting. I am sure it looked much more crowded on television but in reality, there were not more than 150 people in the plaza.

At one point, people on the outside of the security fences began to rip the fabric on the fences which was blocking the view from the general public. Police initially tried to stop people but finally figured out how futile it was to keep people from attempting to witness history.

Overall, we did pretty well. My colleague Robert Deutsch had a really unique shooting angle from directly in front of the cauldron and made some remarkable pictures.

My take from the evening was pretty boring stuff. Shooting through a ton of rain with long glass is not always pretty but at least I got to see Gretzky make history one more time.

Getting to Vancouver a few days before the Olympic opening ceremonies is always a busy time. Spent part of the morning running over one hundred feet of ethernet line in the rafters of the Canada Place Olympic hockey venue with my coworker Bert Hanashiro. The ethernet line will connect remote camera in the overhead catwalks in order to transmit photos back to USA TODAY remotely. I really didn’t realize until after looking at the photos that the rafters in this place are really up there.