Relishing a front-row seat in the Pit
As an 11-year-old boy living in Albuquerque in 1990 before moving to southern New Mexico, I was well aware of the Pit and the Lobos, even if I was the rare breed that didn’t exactly bleed cherry and silver in these parts.
Being the only boy in a single-parent home that wasn’t centered around sports, my mom knew her son would love the opportunity to sit center court for a game. That wasn’t much of a possibility back then for Lobos games, so she got tickets for the two of us to see the Globetrotters — front row, center court.
Despite her best efforts, she ended up being the center of attention.
Midway through the first half of the game, a bucket of confetti went flying toward a referee (something I’m sure Rudy Chavez has dreamed of doing to Dave Hall several times through the years).
Globetrotter Matthew “Showbiz” Jackson immediately ran to the crowd and sat on my mom’s lap.
As he started to blame my mom, embarrassed and decked out in her cherry red sweater, for the confetti misdeed, I sat there grinning ear to ear in an Air Jordan T-shirt with a power mullet that was the envy of everyone at McKinley Middle School.
Little did I know then I’d one day get plenty of courtside opportunities there covering the Lobos, not to mention I’d one day be working with Jim Thompson, the photographer who captured that moment that was published the next day in the Journal.
While the Lobos are a job for me, ever since that day with my mom, the Pit has been a little more than just an office.