Andrew Grimm

As someone who started writing about sports for a student newspaper I helped start my sophomore year of high school, I’ve seen a lot of really cool things.

A sold out WesBanco Arena for a Kelly Cup Finals game when I covered the Wheeling Nailers. A double overtime game and an overtime game seven those same playoffs.

Since doing this full time here, I’ve been to the football state championship game in 2017, football state semifinals on both sides of the river, basketball and baseball regionals in Athens at Ohio University, the state baseball and softball tournaments in Akron.

As a sports fan, I’ve been to sold out Penguins playoff games, college hockey and basketball tournament games, NASCAR races, NHRA events and many other cool places.

UD Arena Thursday and Friday nights for the state basketball Final Four might be at the top of the list now. It was incredible.

Between the atmosphere created by the large number of local fans that traveled out there to watch and support Big Red’s memorable run, the stakes and intensity of both games, right down to the final horn in both, and what was on the line, it is a feeling I will never forget.

It was bigger than the atmosphere, too. A big part of it was getting to watch a group of local kids chase a dream and getting to be a small part of telling their story.

I remember some of the players who played Friday night being ball boys and around at games as kids.

Friday night I got the privilege of watching them play in the biggest game of their lives, and witness them captivate the hearts and minds of the Valley.

If you do this long enough, it’s impossible for that not to affect you.

They were one of the most fun groups I’ve had the privilege of covering, and we’ve had quite a few special groups in my time here. I won’t forget it.

Throughout Big Red’s run, I was shown newspaper clippings from past teams whose accomplishments they matched or eclipsed.

It was a reminder that the words I would write, the photos that got printed or posted online, would be something people might keep a long time.

In, what I guess is now 15 years or so of doing this, and the last almost nine now covering this part of the Ohio Valley, I can maybe count on my fingers the number of times I’ve truly been nervous to cover a game.

The first couple of times in each new role, for sure. The aforementioned big games, Indian Creek’s baseball state semifinal a couple of years ago, Big Red softball’s the year before that, big football playoff games, some of the big regional games, that feeling definitely crept in.

Friday, I had that rare feeling of nervous energy again. Maybe as strong as it had been since 2016 when the Nailers were in the finals.

After Big Red won on Thursday night, I was so excited to get to cover Friday’s game I don’t think I slept more than four hours. That morning I used the hotel gym equipment and swam in the pool, and still I felt like I could run through a wall. I paced around the hotel room for an hour and 40 minutes Friday afternoon just waiting for it to be time to head to the arena.

I went over what photo gear I wanted to use and what words I might write in different scenarios in my head all day long.

We’ve had local teams play for, and some win, state championships in my time here, but as it’s worked out, the only one of them I was there for was Big Red’s 2017 state football championship, and that day I was there for a side bar and some extra photos, that team’s main coverage came from our late friend Ed Looman.

I could not help but think of him, a man who loved Ohio Valley sports, basketball in particular and covered some of the prior big moments for Big Red, as I looked around the arena on Friday night.

I kept my own stats at a regional game earlier in the tournament despite having official ones provided because I wanted to see how close mine were, something Ed did at that 2017 game.

I do not know how many more times I will get to cover a moment like Friday, if ever again. That’s what makes those moments so special and it so important to cherish them when we get them.

As the clock ticked down Friday, despite my best efforts to remain calm and focused, I could feel my heart fluttering in my chest. There’s just something about sports and the biggest moments they give us that have that effect. Whether a fan, player, parent or someone fortunate enough to cover sports like me, there is just something about sports that brings out a range of emotions like not much else.

Every so often, a team, a tournament run, a big game, a special story to tell comes along and reminds us of that. We have those moments that affect us.

Two nights in Dayton last week were such moments for me.

Thanks to a special group of players and their coaches, parents and fans for providing us with another moment to remember why we love sports.