From Last to First: How a Trade Results in a 35-Hour Campout
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Taking the drive down 17th street after my workouts at the Student Recreational Sports Center is usually a blur. It's just three minutes of uncomfortable cold, with heavy breathing and body aches (the stair stepper kills me).
Friday morning was different. After I coasted down the hill and through the light at the intersection of Fee Lane and 17th at about 9:50 am, I caught a glimpse of a green tent in the distance, pitched on the corner of North Walnut Grove and 17th street in between Briscoe and the Virgil T. Alumni Center.
"You're joking," I muttered to myself.
I whipped my car into the parking lot of Assembly Hall and sprinted across the street. I approached two guys and asked how long they had been there.
"Uhh, two hours maybe," one of them said. Then he pointed in the direction of the green tent.
"They've been here since last night."
"No way," I thought to myself. No shot someone actually slept in a tent on a Thursday night to line up for a Saturday, late afternoon game.
Well, I was wrong.
As I approached the tent I had no idea what to expect, I peeked in and saw nothing but a pile of blankets. Then I saw a pair of eyes in front of a Pizza X box glare back at me.
"What's up, dude? Get in here it's cold."
The gleeful camper's name is Bobby Soudan, a senior at Indiana studying real estate at the Kelley School of business.
No, Soudan isn't camping out for what will end up being somewhere around 35 hours because he wants to. He doesn't have a heater and from what the picture shows he's using a Pizza X box as a pillow.
He's being forced to, in what is the best and most efficient use of a fantasy football punishment I've seen to date.
"My buddy just left, he has some classes and stuff, but, me and him own a fantasy football team, and we lost," Soudan exclaimed. "So, our punishment was to ensure that we get front-row seats for our friends, so we staked our claim last night. We've been here for about 12 hours now."
35 hours in the blistering cold and wind doesn't sound like a pleasing experience to anyone. Yes, the end goal of getting a front-row seat in the biggest student section in the country definitely makes the process somewhat rewarding. However, in the mids of some the two friends might have gotten off the hook.
"Most of the season the punishment was you had to spend 12 hours in Kilroy's, dead sober, with no phone," Soudan said.
"Which was also horrible. But, we decided it was more of a net benefit if we get someone to get front row for Purdue. It sucks for us, obviously. But it's good for everyone, we kind of switched it up last second."
Being an impassioned fantasy football owner myself, I know the bevy of waiver wire claims and trades that transpire amidst a long season. Some work and some don't. In Soudan's case, most of his transactions are assigned to the ladder.
"Week 14 we traded Christian McCaffrey and someone else for a three-person package," Soudan explained. "We had a bunch of guys on bye and we thought we would need 'em. If we didn't make that trade we would have won two of the last three weeks. We ended up losing out."
"Don't trade CMC."
It's not to say that keeping McCaffrey would have catapulted Soudan and his buddy's team into the playoff race, but it would have likely prevented them from having to bear the sub-20-degree temperatures for over a day and a half.
Soudan is staying locked on the end goal, despite the boring and cold road ahead. He had nothing but a bottle of water and a pack of cards when I spoke with him, but he said he was expecting more reinforcements as the day goes on.
"A bunch of my boys went to Sports last night so they're slow to move," Soudan laughed.
The Illinois native can't deny the excitement that accompanies taking on one of the biggest college basketball games of the season in person, in the front row. That is ultimately what will get him through, along with knowledge to never trade a top-tier running back like Christian McCaffrey ever again.
Soudan wanted to add one last thing.
“76-72, Hoosiers.”
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