I guess I can start on Monday. Funny thing when I got to practice on Monday morning, Beilien asked me to program his new digital addidas watch because he had no idea how to read the tiny instruction booklet. No problem I said. It took me a while to get everything properly, but that nice watch of his has the time and date, plus a quick button to the chronograph, and also 5 timer setting for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, and 5 minutes. I showed him how to swap through times and settings. It was pretty tight showing Coach Beilien personally.
Thursday was UCOffee. Now, its kinda a combination of a talent show/get together. We have people come to chat and drink coffee and goodies and get to meet new people while we have some entertainment in the background. Well, John asked me to be EmCee. Of course I took the job not realizing how much work I had to do this week. I ended up being able to quickly script the show once I got all the acts together Weds night. I had to go get pictures for the basketball team right before that, but I ended up having plenty of time to get from Crystler Arena to Campus Chapel and set up. It was a hit. We had a lot of performances from wanaa be magic acts to performances by the “Illegal Immigrants” to John´s awesome video to Ben´s Wake me up when My midterms end, to my magic trick (of course) to tons of fun in between. I even had some good joke to pull off. It was awesome. I had a blast leading the event and I am sure everyone who went had a grand time.
On Friday, I also had a busy day. I had no practice in the morning, quite the break, so I could stay and have prayer meeting with some dormtroopers (us fellow UCO people in the dorms). I went to my dumb econ discussion class, only to realize I knew way less than I anticipated. Now I am really scared of my econ midterm on Tuesday. Later on I went to the gym, only to notice on my way back that I had an hour less than I thought I had. I quickly took a shower, changed into dress clothes and ran over to see Joe Dumars, hall of famer, NBA 2 time champion, and president of Basketball Operations for the Detroit Pistons, come do a talk on leadership and the Michigan League. It was really good. This guy is amazing, probably the most respectable Gm in the NBA today. He stressed character and integrity and working and surrounding yourself with good people whom you can trust to get the job done correctly. After the speech he let the floor up for questions. Right when it was my skill and character for him choosing pro athletes, Q&A was over. What a bummer. But I ran into this awesome dude who was sitting right next to me the entire time. His name was Roberto, really cool for a classy black guy. He was in the Ross School of Business here at UofM. He wanted to get into the sports world so I shared with him all the things I knew of it and he was impressed by how much I knew and have been doing. He was a really really nice guy and hope to see him soon.
At this point I was starving because I rushed over from workout and hadn’t had lunch. I walked over to East quad at 3pm to grab lunch before check in started at 3:15 at perpoint commons for the Kenisiology Networking session. Right when I am finishing eating, Will, the head manager, callls me. “Yo, DP, can you meet one of the coaches a the Student´s Activities Building?” That is next to the Union. I told him my time crunch and he said I was the first one he called. I said sure, believing everyone else to be busy and well. So the next thing you know, people see this dude running down the street with a nice blue long sleeve button up shirt with kaki slacks and Mexican style brown shoes running down at quite a good pace with a black bag in hand. The afternoon is beautiful and it is a restful Friday, besides this dude running way out of place. I got there only to find coach Jackson and Matt to call the meeting off because of practice time infringement. So I then ran over to peirpoint commons at 3:35 out of breath, sweaty, and having to fix up my dress clothes. After that I went in and talked to some people.
One person used to work as an assistant coach for the Detroit Lions and is now a Lawyer for the NFL. Another worked for the Detroit Pistons/Palace of Entertainment until he moved over to work with 3 different leagues. This last guy I talked to was amazingly nice, and quite a resume as well. He went to the NBA Management training program and after that worked in creating the WNBA in 1997. After doing that for 3 years he went over and joined this first year Athlete Relation program which does player contracts and personnel for new athletes coming out of college. He is currently doing Wolverine Alums Amani Toomer, Chad Henne, Adam Kraus, and Adrian Arrington. Nuts! He was super nice. The things I learning from this network are: The NFL has really really good internship programs for students (so maybe an offer with the Dallas Cowboys wouldn’t be such a bad idea), that it is easier to go from Team Operations to Business part of the franchise than from the Business to Team Opps, and that if I keep with the basketball team, that is the best way to get into team opps in the future. I also was told to keep smaller leagues in perspective because they are easier to move up in. Anyhow, at that moment I got a call from my dad, telling me that him and my brother were at the Law Library waiting for me…
I rushed over and met up with them at south quad. I quickly brought Christopher up to my room, changed into my basketball gear, and we drove to Crystler Arena. We got there right when the team was finishing up a scrimmage. Then we had voluntary shooting. After a short meeting with the managers about the following day and the 2 tailgates we had to man I went with my brother and dad to Cottage Inn to eat some good pizza and show Skunk the good life. We got a lot of good talking and good catching up, so that was really special. It was so cool to have Christopher here in the land of Maize and Blue. That was the first thing he commented on: the huge difference of not seeing a single maroon or burnt orange any where but filled with the blue and maize. Haha, so true. This is not Texas anymore.
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After that, it was already dark and getting cold. I took them to Steve and Barry´s so that Christopher could get a new Michigan Football Shirt. Then we went to St Mary so that my dad could meet a few people at the pancake night that had just started. There weren’t many people but he got to meet Father Tom and Devon.
After that he took off. He did bring me my old books and notes from my philosophy class in high school. So I read over the Crito again and took some notes for my paper. After that me and Skunk went to get some bubble tea and then went to North Campus for some reason to see some friends. Some of my friends were in and other were out. I was amazed by how many of the nerds lived in the identical rooms from the year before. Hahaha. Then I saw Eugene, my good buddy from t he end of the year last year. He is working a ridiculously a lot right now. Christopher thought he was a cool guy. Then we meet up with Will and Ashley and we went on the bus together down to Central to go to pancakes. At this point it was already midnight. I got to introduce my bro to them and they instantly welcomed him. We talked a lot about UCOffee and they were both disappointed they had to miss my magic trick (haha).We got to St Mary and we played this ridiculous funny game in which you had funny things you had to do and curses to uphold as well. If you didn’t hold the curses, you lost the curse, and after 3 down, you lost the game. My first one was yelling like a sergeant with everything I said. I did a really good job for a while. Then I lost it when a friend of mine came in and I was talking to her. I cant believe they called me on it. Devon was doing alright, but not that good. He had all these things he had to do if people made noises. Will was doing terrible and wouldn’t last a full round before he lost his curse. Ashley did pretty well. She had to swat flies every time she talked and did a good job on that, and after she lost that she had to say “not funny” every time she laughed, which was every few seconds. I ended up getting a combined 3 voice curses. I had to talk in a high pitched voice, had to hick up while I spoke, and had to make an echo with my last words. It was nuts. We had a blast and Christopher had a good time too. After some dancing around, skunk was tired so we retired for the night like at 2:15 am.
The next morning I got up and did some work. Me and skunk went to Crystler at noon. I didn’t have to work at the alumni tailgate till 2pm. So pretty much I had to stand there and man the recruit tailgate for 2 hours along with 14 other guys. It was really cold, and I was freezing in my polo and pants. Even though Christopher had a sweathsirt, he is fresh from Texas, so I got him permission to sit inside crystler with my iphone to stay warm. My dad later came to pick him up while I did the Alumni tailgate and he brought my brother with him to the Law School Alumni Tailgate. My dad said he ran into people he hadn’t seen in 20+ years. They got my 2 tickets validated and they entered the park. I was still at the Alumni tailgate. The food catered there was soo so good. They had these bacon macaroni and cheese that was the best I have ever had and these barbeque ribs
which were superb. I got in the stadium with 15 minutes before kickoff at 3:15. But that was an adventure in itself. I gave my dad both my tickets. I didn’t have any tickets. But since the last 3 games I hadn’t even got my ticket scanned or even looked at, I figured I would be fine. Well, at the Alumni tailgate, they were asking for tickets. I was like, this is not a good idea. So I grabbed to orange juices and a water (no, a diversion was not my plan), and walked out of the tailgate and around to the empty recruit tailgate tent. I walked in crstlyer with the approval of the usher who knows my face. I walked around and got into the stadium. Step 1 done. Now I had to do the equally hard part of getting into my section without the ticket. Like I said before, every time thus far, I didn’t even have to show it because I suppose my shirt stated that I was with the team. But this time they asked for it!....I fumbled around in my pockets and pulled out my Miami (ohio) ticket, a 3 week old ticket, an with my smooth misdirection and subtle display of the ticket, he let me right on through! Score! I rushed down so happy but wanting to get there before the opening kick off and to join my friends and family. They were all happy I made it sound and the game started.
I am not going to say much about the game because we did really bad against the Fighting Illini, but I did have a good time and know it was quite the experience for my dad and brother to be on row four of the student section with the band next to us and 250 people short of 110,000 in the stadium shouting at the top of their lungs. We had an ugly 45-20 loss, but it was still fun. I am sure Christopher will never forget that experience.
After the game we rushed over to South Quad. The game took 4 hours and it was 7:30 by the time we got back. We ate a light snack and walked over with the guys to Martha Cook to have a Lords day with the girls. It turned out to be a good Lords Day, and it went from good to fantastic once my dad spoke. He talked about future goals and listening for God´s plan day by day. He made a great encouragement to us students and told many applicable stories of when he was going through school. He even talked about one of his clients he just finished up with in Ypsilanti which was a great example of how we can minister to people while on the job. It was really good and I know everyone appreciated my dad talking. He is just like me, or should I say, I am just like him. Once he gets started, he just takes off talking about this and that, this story and another, and tying it all together and what not. It was great and he even talked to a few privately after his talk. I am really glad he got to take this opportunity while he was here and only wish more people in UCO and St Mary could take this opportunity.Afterwards we walked on the calm chilly night to State Street to go to a salad shop for some late food. Us 3 got to talk a good while. I really enjoyed having their company that night. I took them back to the dorm and showed them some videos of UCOffee and some projects that I have gotten done since I left from Texas. Its kinda funny, because I have only been gone like 5 weeks from Texas. But it feels like I just saw them the other day. So much has happened since I got here that I didn’t feel the time pass away. But it felt so out of place to have Christopher here in Ann Arbor. But it was so goood. I am glad he came. We crashed for the night once the other guys got here.
My dad was supposed to come at 8:30ish on Sunday morning to eat some stuff and take off with Christopher for the airport. But my dad didn’t show up and his phone was off. I got some philosophy work done for my paper, and about 9am my dad shows up with some starbucks coffee and pastries. His phone charger didn’t work last night and ran out of battery. It was great to have him here. He was dressed in his “casual attorney attire” and we talked some and drank some coffee. This morning was the best because we had some energy and had a peaceful morning with the rest of the dudes asleep. This morning was probably the best time I got to spend with them because of the peacefulness and the energy we had. I really really enjoyed having them come this morning. We took one final picture and then I helped them go to the car in front of South Quad. It felt so good to have them. I hugged and waved goodbye and came up to my room. I hadn’t had time to miss them at all since I have been here or since they got here. But for those few minutes after they left I really got the feeling of missing them. Especially my dad. He is so awesome. I love my dad so much. I wish he could see all the things I am doing here and that he could get to know more of my friends and influence them like he has me. Wow, I had a great time.
Well, I just decided to waste an hour + of my Sunday morning to write all this to you. I have a busy schedule now. I have a paper to write for tomorrow and I have to go to a econ102 review session from 12-2 in an a little bit to go over my midterm that is coming up. And soon I have my sport management midterm too. So wish me luck.Thanks Dad for coming up to Michigan and bringing my awesome brother. I had a fantastic time. God bless –Daniel Fransisco
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