Downtown Atlanta became the epicenter of college basketball Friday as teams and fans alike prepared for tip-off of the NCAA Final Four.
As welcome banners hung from street poles, clothes in the clashing team colors brightened the crowded sidewalks and concerts began in Centennial Olympic Park, the countdown continued palpably toward one of the grandest events in American sports.
At 6:09 p.m. Saturday in the Georgia Dome, it’ll be Louisville vs. Wichita State, followed by Michigan vs. Syracuse. The winners will meet Monday night for the national championship.
By Saturday, city officials expect as many as 100,000 hoops fans to gather downtown. The money those folks spend through Monday — much of it in hotels and restaurants — could produce an economic impact from the Final Four of more than $70 million for the city, according to some projections.
The games cannot arrive soon enough for the multitudes of impassioned fans who have followed their teams here.
Jim and Jo Ann Williams left their Wichita, Kansas, home early Friday morning to fly to Atlanta on one of three planes chartered by Wichita State’s alumni association. By noon, the Williamses were watching their team — by far the most improbable of the quartet here — practice for its first Final Four game in 48 years.
“We were bound and determined to get here, no matter what it took,” Jo Ann Williams said. “It’s a very big deal to be here. Being in Kansas, we get overlooked a lot because of KU.”
She was proudly wearing a small hand-puppet replica of the Wichita State Shockers’ mascot, WuShock. “You’ll see the big one tomorrow,” she promised. The school describes its mascot as “a big, bad, muscle-bound bundle of wheat” whose name dates back to when the school was simply known as Wichita University, or WU.
More than 74,000 fans will get inside the Georgia Dome, which has temporarily expanded its seating capacity by several thousand, for the games. The rest of the throng will be drawn by free concerts, a 300,000-square-foot fan fest and various other activities, or perhaps just to absorb the spectacle that the Final Four has become.
Not surprisingly, fans of all four teams, including long-shot Wichita State, expressed confidence Friday about their chances of leaving Atlanta with a championship. Some said the tournament results so far have fueled an anything-can-happen mindset.
Only one of the Final Four teams, Louisville, a No. 1 seed, was widely forecast to be here, and the Cardinals’ quest for a title took on a new emotional dimension for fans and players alike after the gruesome broken leg suffered by guard Kevin Ware, a Rockdale County High School product, last weekend. Michigan and Syracuse are No. 4 seeds, Wichita State a No. 9 seed.
Syracuse fan Brian Cassell, 41, was at the fan fest — called Bracket Town — with his two sons, Kyle and Brett, on Friday afternoon. A glance at older son Kyle, who’ll turn 10 Saturday, quantified how long it has been since Syracuse last reached the Final Four.
“Kyle was born April 6, 2003, and we were still at the hospital the next day when we watched Syracuse win the national championship,” recalled Cassell, who grew up near Syracuse and now lives in Charlotte. “We were yelling and screaming in the hospital. People thought we were giving birth again. But we were cheering our team on to their first national championship.”
So when the Orange made it back to the Final Four this time, Cassell figured his family had only two options: “Either we were going to go back and try to rent a room at the hospital, or come down here. It had to be one or the other to keep the karma.”
The fan fest, a four-day attraction with interactive games, youth clinics and autograph sessions, opened in the Georgia World Congress Center with a rush of activity Friday.
Many youngsters — and some-not-so-young — shot hoops. Others, incongruously, opted for baseball- or hockey-themed activities. On one end of the massive space, former Georgia Tech basketball coach Bobby Cremins was a guest on a radio show. In the fan fest store, business was brisk for merchandise in the colors of the participating teams.
Outside, people streamed into Centennial Olympic Park for the start of a three-day concert series.
Michigan fan Steve Schlussel, who lives in a Detroit suburb, moved from activity to activity with his three kids, ages 14, 11 and 9.
The Schlussels drove from Detroit to Dallas (with a night’s stop in Memphis) for an NCAA Regional last week and, when the Wolverines beat Kansas and then Florida to earn their first Final Four berth in 20 years, headed to Atlanta.
“We figured we’d be going home, playing Kansas,” Schlussel admitted. He called this trip to Atlanta “a special opportunity.”
Schlussel, 44, said he attended Michigan’s Final Four appearances in 1989, 1992 and 1993 and also recalled watching the Wolverines play other NCAA tournament games in Atlanta, dating as far back as the Omni, Philips Arena’s predecessor.
“Atlanta is great, so friendly,” Schlussel said. “Everybody seems happy for the fans to be here, which is not always the case when you go to something like this.”
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