Just hours after their Cardinals beat the Michigan Wolverines at the Georgia Dome, University of Louisville fans turned their attention to Buckhead, where official National Champions t-shirts went on sale before daybreak Tuesday.
Adam Nussbaum was first in line at the NCAA’s Final Four Superstore, a temporary store set up for the weekend at Peachtree and Piedmont roads.
“It was a great experience,” said Nussbaum, who has been studying in the Czech Republic this semester and flew into Atlanta Friday for the game.
Nussbaum is a student at Indiana University, but said he was “born and raised” in Louisville. “I’ve been a die-hard Louisville fan all my life,” he told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Nussbaum said he stayed up all night celebrating Louisville’s win, then got in line for t-shirts at 4:30 a.m.
Louisville senior Ashlee Pitcock, a 22-year-old communications major, also lined up in the predawn darkness for shirtss.
She said she and her mom, Janie, drove down to Atlanta from Kentucky on Friday, “absolutely” planning on winning the championship.
“I just think this was something that the team wasn’t going to be denied,” Janie Pitcock said. “They had a goal at the beginning of the year and they weren’t going to let it go until they cut the nets here.”
She said she and her daughter “came into the store yesterday, and we saw the signs that they were going to have the national champion [t-shirts] and we just made a plan that we would be here. We haven’t even been to bed yet.”
Addie Quasnick works at the temporary souvenir store, which opened for business on Thursday. She said the store had been opening at 8 a.m., but opened at 5 on Tuesday as fans began lining up for National Champions shirts, which were printed locally overnight and were selling for $28 to $32.
“I feel happy for them,” she said of the Louisville fans. “Congratulations.”
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