Seattle Bowl Diary Day 3: Fabian Davis
12/26/2002 12:00:00 AM | Football
Dec. 26, 2002
SEATTLE, Wash. - Well, the day didn't start out as well as it normally does because we started practice today. That's never a good start to the morning - guys just want to play the game and not practice.
Practice was all right. There were a couple of mental mistakes - but if you didn't have to work on mental mistakes it wouldn't be called practice. It started out a little slow -- guys had to get used to the weather and the turf. We had three or four messed-up plays, but other than that it went decent.
After practice we had a little break, so we went out and hit the streets. For the first time we saw that people are actually here. That was a big change for us - seeing people - because there was no one around on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.
There was a group of about 12 of us walking around, and some of the guys wanted to find a convenience store so we walked around the block for about 15-20 minutes. Then we met up with this guy in the street - we tried to get him to tell us were the store was. I had my video camera with me and when I pulled it out, he started to put on a show - singing and dancing. Then he takes us on a wild goose chase to where the store is, except we never find it.
So then we split up in three groups of four, and we're looking for a store that supposedly on 12th Street. When we got to 9th, the streets changed from numbers to names. We walk about eight more blocks, and still hadn't hit 12th. We see a policeman and ask him, and he tells to go four or five more blocks. So we do that and finally get to 10th Street! It still takes another four or five blocks when we finally find 12th - all in all, we walked about 30 blocks from 6th to 12th, thinking it would take only six blocks. So we used all of our free time to take about a five or six mile walk, it seemed. Then we saw one of the groups that had split up from us - and they were in a taxi! That's messed up - we just walked 30 blocks and they got a taxi. We were a little hostile. (smile)
Tonight we went to Key Arena to see the Seattle Supersonics play the Toronto Raptors. Our tickets were up high, so before the game we went downstairs to try and get a seat down low. While we were standing there during warmups, Gary Payton comes over to the scorer's table. We're asking, "Hey, Gary, let us come on the court and shoot free throws with you." He tells us he can't do that, but eventually he autographed his shoes and gave them to Cori Stukes.
The weather here is not as bad as I thought it would be. I think some of us expected it would be a monsoon every day, but it's more like a steady drizzle. It's a beautiful city; it's a fun place to be.
I'd like to say hey to my Mom and family. I'm having fun and I hope to see you soon!