The Penalty Box: The roar was back in the Tiger Den
February 17, 2021 at 12:04 a.m.
The Penalty Box: The roar was back in the Tiger Den
By Roger Grossman-
I experienced two moments during broadcasts recently that I must share with you.
The first came on January 29.
It was a Friday night in the Tiger Den, and NorthWood was in town for a critical Northern Lakes Conference game against the Tigers.
Kosciusko County had just turned “yellow”, meaning the rate of COVID-19 tests that were positive had dropped to a level where restrictions were eased a little.
For basketball fans at Warsaw that “yellow” status meant a green light for about a thousand people to attend the home boys against the Panthers on that Friday night.
Fans got the word.
I have no idea how many fans actually were there to witness basketball in-person that night. I certainly would never want to infer that there were more there than there should have been. I would not anyone at the health department to feel like there was a reason for them to see if Warsaw allowed more fans in than they were supposed to. I’m sure they did not.
But when the buzzer sounded to begin the junior varsity warmup, there were about 400 adult fans and almost 100 students already in their seats.
There was an energy in that moment that I could not immediately identify. Later, it occurred to me that most of the people who were there when those teams ran onto the floor were attending their first basketball game of the season.
They were not parents. They were not anyone who had been on any pass list all winter.
They had been watching online and listen on radios and mobile devices all season, and when given the chance to go see basketball with their own eyes, they didn’t balk.
Some wore orange, some wore red, all were glad to be there.
And when their team did something well, the sound that bounced around the Tiger Den was no longer just the players who were not playing screaming their approval. It was fans—real fans—unleashing all of the emotions and passion for their teams that they had either bottled up inside or that had soaked into the walls of their own homes all season long.
It was real, and it was powerful.
And when the night was over, everyone who was there—winning team or losing team, fans of the winners or fans of those that didn’t win, broadcasters and school administrators—knew that we had participated in something special and unique, and we were moved by it.
The other moment came this past Saturday.
Warsaw had pulled away from a four-win Wabash team and was putting the finishing touches on as powerful a weekend of basketball as any in my 19 years of broadcasting the boys games.
And then it happened.
Warsaw Coach Matt Moore went down his bench, pointed to one of the four Tiger senior basketball players and told him to go check in.
And Graydon Brath—all 6-feet 11-inches of him—ran to the scorer’s table.
The roar from the WCHS student section was joined by that of the freshman and junior varsity players voicing their approval for this moment.
Brath is a quiet kid. He’s not in the business of doing a lot of things to bring attention to himself.
And yet a guy that tall can’t really help but be noticed, can he?
He plays some, but not a lot. He usually plays for a minute or two in the first half of games, and he does not wow you with big numbers in the time he gets.
As a matter of fact, he played only two seconds in the win at Elkhart. But with two second left in that game, and the Tigers having just scored to go up by one point, Brath was inserted to make it hard to thrown the ball down the court for a potential game-winning shot.
Brath tipped the ball, which started the clock, which ran out before anyone could get to it.
His teammates mobbed him like he’d hit the winning shot himself, and it was glorious to watch.
Now, in his final game in the Tiger Den, he was inserted into the game in its final quarter.
The roar was magnificent.
They passed him the ball, and he scored.
I don’t know how many fans were there that night either, but it sounded like 4,000. He would score again, and then be taken out. A standing ovation. A thunderous outpouring of affection and love for a guy who told his teammates at the beginning of the season he just wanted to be part of the team…and he meant it.
It was a reminder that character still matters. Being a good person still matters. And it was also a reminder that there are genuinely good people in the world.
And we should all cheer for them every chance we get.
I experienced two moments during broadcasts recently that I must share with you.
The first came on January 29.
It was a Friday night in the Tiger Den, and NorthWood was in town for a critical Northern Lakes Conference game against the Tigers.
Kosciusko County had just turned “yellow”, meaning the rate of COVID-19 tests that were positive had dropped to a level where restrictions were eased a little.
For basketball fans at Warsaw that “yellow” status meant a green light for about a thousand people to attend the home boys against the Panthers on that Friday night.
Fans got the word.
I have no idea how many fans actually were there to witness basketball in-person that night. I certainly would never want to infer that there were more there than there should have been. I would not anyone at the health department to feel like there was a reason for them to see if Warsaw allowed more fans in than they were supposed to. I’m sure they did not.
But when the buzzer sounded to begin the junior varsity warmup, there were about 400 adult fans and almost 100 students already in their seats.
There was an energy in that moment that I could not immediately identify. Later, it occurred to me that most of the people who were there when those teams ran onto the floor were attending their first basketball game of the season.
They were not parents. They were not anyone who had been on any pass list all winter.
They had been watching online and listen on radios and mobile devices all season, and when given the chance to go see basketball with their own eyes, they didn’t balk.
Some wore orange, some wore red, all were glad to be there.
And when their team did something well, the sound that bounced around the Tiger Den was no longer just the players who were not playing screaming their approval. It was fans—real fans—unleashing all of the emotions and passion for their teams that they had either bottled up inside or that had soaked into the walls of their own homes all season long.
It was real, and it was powerful.
And when the night was over, everyone who was there—winning team or losing team, fans of the winners or fans of those that didn’t win, broadcasters and school administrators—knew that we had participated in something special and unique, and we were moved by it.
The other moment came this past Saturday.
Warsaw had pulled away from a four-win Wabash team and was putting the finishing touches on as powerful a weekend of basketball as any in my 19 years of broadcasting the boys games.
And then it happened.
Warsaw Coach Matt Moore went down his bench, pointed to one of the four Tiger senior basketball players and told him to go check in.
And Graydon Brath—all 6-feet 11-inches of him—ran to the scorer’s table.
The roar from the WCHS student section was joined by that of the freshman and junior varsity players voicing their approval for this moment.
Brath is a quiet kid. He’s not in the business of doing a lot of things to bring attention to himself.
And yet a guy that tall can’t really help but be noticed, can he?
He plays some, but not a lot. He usually plays for a minute or two in the first half of games, and he does not wow you with big numbers in the time he gets.
As a matter of fact, he played only two seconds in the win at Elkhart. But with two second left in that game, and the Tigers having just scored to go up by one point, Brath was inserted to make it hard to thrown the ball down the court for a potential game-winning shot.
Brath tipped the ball, which started the clock, which ran out before anyone could get to it.
His teammates mobbed him like he’d hit the winning shot himself, and it was glorious to watch.
Now, in his final game in the Tiger Den, he was inserted into the game in its final quarter.
The roar was magnificent.
They passed him the ball, and he scored.
I don’t know how many fans were there that night either, but it sounded like 4,000. He would score again, and then be taken out. A standing ovation. A thunderous outpouring of affection and love for a guy who told his teammates at the beginning of the season he just wanted to be part of the team…and he meant it.
It was a reminder that character still matters. Being a good person still matters. And it was also a reminder that there are genuinely good people in the world.
And we should all cheer for them every chance we get.
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