Huddle Updates

The 2007 Huddle.

Not quite the same without you…but we’re doing our bestJ This year’s team: Marc Ericson, John Snekkevic, Thomas Burgemeister, Ryan Gianelli, Paul Kilian, Steffenie Birkland, and myself.

9/8/2007

Our first game. Opponent: Boise State, longest winning streak in major college football.

After several meetings with former Huddle organizers, we take a stab at our first tailgate. We leave Costco with 50 burgers, 25 brauts, 200 beers, and fixins for breakfast burritos. On game day, Thomas and Marc hold down our premier spot in the alumni lot at 7am. When I arrive at 9:15, I am pleasantly surprised to see all of the food arranged in colorful plastic ware (compliments of Target), complete with napkins nicely folded in the bowls. We quickly decorate our three tents with party streamers and balloons and John gets to work making the Huddle team breakfast burritos. We soon find that the breakfast burritos are a lot of work and switch over to burgers and brauts. We are ready. And then come the first years…all in all, there are >60 people at the Huddle. So nice to catch up with friends coming back from internships and meet new people arriving to the program. I’m sad to say that ~50 of our Huddle participants are 1st-year students with a core ~10 from our 2008 class. Ah well, not a huge surprise. One nice addition this year is the strong participation of new UW alums. Happy to have some friendly faces around: Sara Burnett, Eric Goldsborough, Ben Shepard, John Mowat, and Neil Dunn.

9/15/07 Ohio State

Lessons learned from the previous Huddle:
1. Expect more than 40 people and try not to run out of beer at halftime.
2. No one is actually in the alumni lot at 7am.
3. Coors Light is the beer of choice (even more than the microbrews), go figure.

After one Huddle under our belt, we decide to step it up a little and give people more for their $15. The menu: flank steak, corn, and grilled asparagus. Thomas and Marc early, me picking up the rear. First, I wake up late to pick up the Ciabatta from Trader Joes—yikes! 15 minutes later I get a call from Marc, we need chairs—I make a quick stop at Husky Headquarters and pick up two Husky folding chairs. 10 minutes later, we’ve blown out the adaptor to the TV…we need ?? adaptors. I say call someone else given the lack of hardware stores in the UDistrict and my own personal lack of expertise in adaptors. Ben Shepard to the rescue! The Huddle is busy, fun and crowded with over 70 people (including some wearing Boise State gear thanks to Justin Lewis ^_^ ). Good 1st half (though they blow it in the 2nd), beer left over, and perfect amount of food. Bonus: TV broadcasting the game. Now, for USC…

http://picasaweb.google.com/uwmbaexchange/HuddleOnSet15Seattle

Carrie




(Organized by Cortilia)