Boeheimburg

Boeheimburg

Phil in Sports Illustrated's 2006 March Madness Bracket
Phil in Sports Illustrated's 2006 March Madness Bracket

As a Syracuse University grad, being a basketball fan is unavoidable. As a student, I took turns with my friends camping out in anticipation of a big game. We even painted ourselves orange and were pictured in Sports Illustrated’s 2006 March Madness edition. Now, about four years later, I had the opportunity to write about SU students doing a very similar thing.

Talk about your circle of life.

My story about the campsite, now named Boeheimburg in honor of Coach Jim Boeheim, was fun to write and appeared to be well received by Otto’s Army (aka. student fans). The students were camping out in anticipation of the January 22 game against Villanova, a perennial rivalry game that has previously broken attendance records.

For the television partner of my story, the reporter chose to focus on the students moving inside the Carrier Dome and out of the bitter cold weather. While that remained the news peg for my copy, I also tried to elaborate on the experience that I remember so well.

The web story was written using some of the quotes selected for the television script.