52 Dunks and Standing Room Only

This weekend was pretty awesome for the sports fanatic in me. Saturday night, I attended the Commonwealth Collegiate Challenge in Richmond, VA where between the CAA and ACC, 52 slam dunks were made...all with some kind of acrobatics involved. The final score:

ACC was Home, CAA was Guest. It was really a lot of fun. The guys, who hadn't practiced together unless from the same team, had an all out blast. You could see it on their faces. They were really having a lot of fun. I think by the end of it, every player had dunked a ball and/or made a 3 point shot. And those tiny point guards have vertical leaps you wouldn't believe. I think even the 6'10" center from UVA (Jason Cain) made a three point shot on his way to a 30 point game total (tied with Reyshawn Terry from UNC for the most points).

About 12 hours away on the same day, Alabama was holding it's spring football scrimmage called the A-Day game. I kind of envisioned that a lot of people would come to see what Nick Saban has put together in the last 4 months, but I didn't imagine this:

Bryant-Denny Stadium now has 92,138 seats. Every single one of them was filled on Saturday. As Sportscenter put it, there are only about 16 teams in the all of college that average that attendance for a REGULAR SEASON GAME. The gate attendees had to turn people away in the first half because the stadium was at its capacity. There were people standing on the ramps at each corner, which is common during the season as well since the student section is on a first come, first served basis.

The previous high attendance for an Alabama A-Day game was 51,117 at Birmingham's Legion Field (Current Capacity: 71,594) in 1988. Admission is always free. The previous best for a Southeastern Conference spring game was believed to have been 73,000 at Tennessee (Neyland Stadium current capacity: 104,079) in 1986, according to Alabama. By comparison, national runner-up Ohio State drew 75,310 (Ohio Stadium capacity: 101,568) at $5 a ticket for its own spring game on Saturday and champion Florida (Ben Hill Griffin Stadium capacity: 92,000) earlier pulled in 47,500. Simply amazing.

After this afternoon, I'll have what is probably the best Monday of my life to share with you. Nothing can take this one away...not even if this afternoon at 4pm Brandan Wright announces he's going to the NBA. Stay tuned...