There are many reasons why hardcore fans consider their preferred ‘sport’ a beautiful experience, but it is not always in game action that sparks such emotion and joy – occasionally something can go wrong, or is so bizarre it is almost unbelievable that it happened in the first place. It is even rarer for one of the latter events to happen in an enclosed gym, unless we are talking about a power cut or an exploding bulb that makes everyone jump.
But that is exactly what happened during a recent Men’s college basketball game between George Washington and American University. For reasons that still confuse me given the enclosed nature of GW’s gym and the plans and organisations that go into half time shows, a very energetic canine called Lucky managed to steal the headlines and both amuse, and entertain everyone, with their joy at catching frisbees. Maybe not the players themselves though.
This particular incident happened early in the first half of the match in the nation’s capital when Ricky Lindo Jr, the Colonials forward, attempted to inbounds the ball when he was in a rather close proximity to his own teams bench.
Given the commotion that caused, as border collie, Lucky, was already there to get attuned and accustomed to the crowd, she seemed to take that moment as a sign that she was being encouraged to perform, and promptly truly introduced herself to the attending fans by sprinting on to the court, and at least for a brief moment, giving Lindo himself quite the scare.
Understandably so, during a basketball game you generally do not expect to see an excited border collie sprinting frantically towards you – even if they do it with a very playful expression on their face.
Social media has been full of the videos of the incident, and once players adjusted to the shock of what was happening, they quickly saw the funny side, as did the crowd who absolutely loved it. Even the commentators got in on the action, with one playfully exclaiming ‘A border collie is running around the Smith Center’.
Lucky by name, and Lucky by nature – despite the momentary excitement induced lapse in concentration, the dog quickly realised it was not yet their time to steal the show and quickly returned to the sidelines having been called by their trainer.
Lucky finally re-emerged at the right time during the half time break, and having already received such adulation from the crowd, she went on to further wow them with her own skills, easily catching numerous frisbees as she admirably did her job of giving the players a physical and tactical break.
For the conspiracy theorists amongst us, given Lucky ran to Lindo, she was definitely the opposite for the Colonials, as they went on to ultimately be defeated in a 69-64 scoreline with Johnny O’Neill stealing Lucky’s show with 19 points off the bench, and six rebounds. Matt Rogers scored 16 points with six rebounds, and Geoff Sprouse followed with nine points.
The game saw the Eagles register their seventh win in a row, but Lucky may well have been just trying to pass some on to Lindo Jr, as he actually finished with 18 points, nine rebounds, two steals and three blocks after their encounter.