Walter Smith-Randolph, NBC Intern/Villanova Senior, and a few of his friends are treckking to Detroit Michigan to see Villanova take to the court. Read about his journey below:
After a night’s stop in Pittsburgh to divide up our road trip to Detroit, we hit the road at 7 a.m. heading west into Ohio. The weather was pretty clear, nothing like the wind and rain that we drove into on our way to Pittsburgh last night.
The traffic was a different story. We only saw one Villanova car. They honked, and waved their V’s in the air, which is common courtesy among all Villanovans. But, we saw a lot of cars with either UNC bumper stickers or North Carolina license plates.
Michigan hasn’t been too friendly either. After we took the classic picture in front of the “Welcome to Michigan” sign, we stopped at the Michigan Welcome Center, which was only encouraging if you were wearing green and cheering on the Spartans. The rest stop was decorated in green with “Go Spartans” posters everywhere, even the Men’s room door!
After realizing we were in Spartan territory, we drove north, heading toward the Motor City. We were greeted with billboards welcoming us to The Final Four, and of course we took a picture of the World’s largest tire, alongside Interstate 94 in Allen Park, Michigan. We drove through Downtown Detroit to our motel in suburban Detroit, passing the infamous 8 Mile Road. We checked into our hotel, waiting in the lobby with a Spartan fan and Tar Heel fan behind us. You could cut the tension with knife and of course eye contact was a no-no.
We grabbed a bite to eat and ran into three more groups of Villanova students who have made the journey as well. Slowly but surely, Detroit is turning into ‘Nova Nation. Our bill for lunch came out to $54.54, we crossed our fingers in hope that those numbers are a good omen because that's Ed Pinckney's jersey number. But, if you’re rooting for the Wildcats, don’t pick up The Detroit Free Press because they have us losing to the Tar Heels. By the way, what is a Tar Heel? Sounds like a Blue Devil to me.
After ten hours of driving through three states we are ready for the 8:47 p.m. tip off. Ford Field is currently drenched in green with Spartan fans but the blue and white is slowly emerging. Some of us are a little nervous since we are the underdogs but if anybody knows about 1985, the underdog title has never stopped Villanova (knock on wood).
