The media hospitality room was awesome as I really took advantage of hanging out when I could, they did a fantastic job having events and stuff for the media members as later that night they had a Media Olympics where they gave away a bunch of prizes, as media members took place in the Olympics that included a tournament in pool, pop-a-shot and ping pong. I signed up not knowing if I would take part, as that night I was going back to hang out with Justin who also made the trip down to Dallas as a spectator, but I decided to take part and take advantage and try to meet some people from across the world where I ended up networking with a lot of fantastic people as all the media members were incredible, a huge shoutout to Tino, Katie, Cedric, Brandon, Joe, as I spent most of my time with them that night, as all of us where from different cities across the country, but we all came together to talk sports, and the Cotton Bowl Semifinal that would take place just two days later. However, I did lose in the first round of the pool tournament. I indeed bounced back to redeem myself to claim 3rd in the pop-a-shot tournament, after having to climb back up the ranks after someone dropped 107 points on my head in the semifinals it was a fantastic night and was great to interact with the media members for the night at the hotel, as not many people really left the hotel to explore the city due to the rise of the new omicron virus.
Thursday morning, I woke up early again as press conferences started at 8 am that included Bearcat’s head coach Luke Fickell, and Alabama head coach Nick Saban, as they spoke for about 20 minutes each ahead of the big game the following day. I met up with Justin and our friend, where we went and got some In-N-Out for lunch, which to say the least is better than Wataburger, but the crazy thing was to see how many Bearcat fans made the trip as it was about a 20:2 ratio favoring fans wearing Bearcat gear compared to Alabama gear, as the Bearcat Ruckus showed out as they made the trip to see the Bearcats try to make history.
Thursday night, I attended the Media Carnival night where I hung out with Tino Bovenzi of Spectrum News, and Blake Lewis of the Dallas Express as we took in the festivities and had a blast hanging out, we talked sports, life and much more that night, as Tino was giving Blake and I, a lot of advice as young journalists. The Cotton Bowl staff did a phenomenal job with the media events as they went above and beyond to make sure we all were enjoying the trip and hospitality. The whole trip was something I won’t ever forget, especially spending so much time with people that enjoyed something as much as I do and that was the topic of sports. The night was one to remember, as we did the 360 video of yourself where it puts it in slow motion, like the current hype videos players do before the season, which was very cool.
Friday Morning, game day. I woke up got ready arrived at the media headquarters around 9:45 am where I met up with our photographer Brandan as we had breakfast before heading to AT&T Stadium for the big game. I took the 10:30 shuttle to the stadium, which was roughly a 20-25 minute drive to AT&T Stadium from the hotel, where I arrived, I got settled in at my seat in the press box and got all set up about 3 hours before kickoff, as i prepared some pregame notes, that included matches to keep an eye on, some x-factors for the game, and much more, ahead of the Bearcats biggest game in program history.
