INDIANAPOLIS “”mdash; Sitting in the stands of the Oakland Arena
last Saturday, UCLA students Ryan Frontiera, Ben Clark and Jim
Brandon all decided that they had to reach one destination if the
Bruins were victorious against Memphis that day.
Indianapolis.
The three friends, two of them roommates, didn’t know how
they were going to get there or whether they were even going to
have tickets, but they just knew they had to go.
That is when they came up with the ingenuous idea of taking a
road trip across the United States on their way to Indianapolis for
their spring break vacation.
They loaded up Brandon’s Honda Pilot (an eight-seater
sport utility vehicle) on Sunday night and hit the road.
“We just knew we had to take advantage of the opportunity,
and we did it,” Clark said. “I mean, how many times is
UCLA going to reach the Final Four?”
The friends picked out their destinations on their way to
Indianapolis based on where they could stay for free. That meant
going to Phoenix, San Antonio, and even staying on the campus of
Central Arkansas in Conway, Ark.
During their trip, the three friends visited seven different
universities and drove through eight states. They stayed their
first night at Arizona State University and slept in their car
after their drive from Phoenix, Ariz. to San Antonio.
“That drive through western Texas was quite scary,”
Frontiera said. “We were very afraid that we were going to
run out of gas and get stranded in the middle of
nowhere.”
After safely reaching San Antonio, the friends drove to Texas
A&M University in College Station, Texas, where they followed
the school tradition of pond hopping and were almost arrested by
University Police. The school security threatened to arrest the
three friends for trespassing on school property and took down
their license numbers and information.
“That was definitely the scariest part of the trip,”
Brandon said. “But we thought it just a school
tradition.”
After going through Texas, the roommates headed to Graceland,
where they could visit two of the victims of UCLA’s
championship run, Memphis and Belmont University.
While driving through Memphis, the three friends, all dressed in
UCLA gear, got many rude gestures and remarks from angry Tiger
fans. In Belmont, however, they were cheered as people from
Nashville, Tenn. were just amazed to see UCLA fans in their
territory.
“It definitely nice, the reception we got from the people
over there,” Clark said. “We were kind of like
celebrities.”
Following Tennessee, the roommates headed to Louisville, Ky.,
before finally reaching Indianapolis on Friday evening.
It was an extremely long trip for the friends, two of whom are
juniors, and one who just graduated, but it was quite worth it.
They had tickets six rows behind the basket and got to see the
Bruins dismantle LSU live Saturday.
“It was the best outcome you could have asked for,”
Frontiera said. “To come all this way and see them probably
play their best game of the season is just amazing.”
Frontiera and Brandon will now be joined by their third
roommate, Brett Hall, who is flying in from Los Angeles after
spending all of spring break in Hawaii.
Hall, who hadn’t been to a tournament game this year, knew
this might be his last chance to go to a game and that he had to
find any way to get to Indianapolis.
For the three roommates, and Clark, watching the Bruins in the
Championship Game will be priceless.