I spent this past weekend in Chicago, visiting a friend at Northwestern University and going to see my beloved Cubs at Wrigley Field. The Friendly Confines were as great as they were when I last visited 12 years ago. Then, just as now, I remembered some of the oldest and friendliest ushers at any stadium across the nation greeting fans all throughout the game. Still, the trip almost turned sour when, Sunday night, as I waited at the airport, my flight from O'Hare to Richmond got delayed. Although I was traveling by myself, I fortunately met and got to kill the time with some other University-bound students who were waiting for the same plane. This group of Wahoos just happened to be the reigning national champion Virginia men's soccer team.
If you're wondering why they were in Chicago, well, so was I. These Cavaliers were coming back from an exhibition match against Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., which, interestingly, received very little press in Charlottesville. The game was part of the National Champions Challenge, which has seen the defending champion head to Omaha for each of the past three years, and it drew a record crowd at Creighton. It was part of a weekend benefiting Kicks for a Cure, which raised $178,000 for cancer research.
I was thankful - and surprised - to find the players in the airport, and let me tell you, they are difficult to miss when they travel in a group and sit together in an unfamiliar location, all wearing bright orange polos. They were probably just as frustrated as I was about the flight delay, as they had been in airports for the greater part of the day, starting in Omaha in the morning. But we shared laughs when strangers asked what school they went to - I guess the colors, the sabre logo or the word "VIRGINIA" don't quite give it away - and also found it amusing when these same people asked what sport they played and if they were any good. "Uh, yeah, we play soccer and we're pretty good."
Chatting with the players - mostly Ari Dimas and Sean Hiller, who both scored in the national championship-winning shootout last fall - in O'Hare Airport was a great way to end the mini-trip to the Midwest. I've interviewed players and coaches from a number of sports programs at Virginia, but this meeting came under very different circumstances, and it was refreshing to just talk to these guys, one student to another. Seeing what athletes actually do on road trips was also enlightening, as we were all resigned to eating junk food for dinner and entertaining ourselves in any way possible. And, for the record, books were read and homework was done in the airport, and not by me.
Running into the soccer team in Chicago was one, completely random, two, very clutch, considering waiting by yourself in an airport is no fun and three, a new experience altogether. Although I've written about the soccer team many times, I've never had the chance to get to know the players, which is why this chance encounter was so ... cool. I found that they're a group of good guys who, like me, were happy to see fellow Wahoos in the airport.
Being a sports journalist during my college career has provided me with a number of memorable experiences during my past four years. But nothing tops a good surprise, which is why I'd have to rate this past weekend's "airport encounter" as one of the most memorable stories I've happened upon as a Virginia sports journalist.
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