Sylvia Goes to the Horizon League Tournament

This week I rolled into the Horizon League Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. For three days I got to park right in the middle of the action while teams battled it out on the court and fans wandered through between games.

I met all kinds of people — families of players, die-hard fans wearing school colors, and plenty of locals who stopped by because they heard something interesting was happening at the fairgrounds. Turns out basketball fans are pretty great book browsers.

The Horizon League staff was truly top notch. Events like this take an incredible amount of coordination, and every single person I met was welcoming, organized, and genuinely excited about having books as part of the experience.

One of the highlights was Anthem School Day, when thousands of students came through the tournament. If you’ve ever chaperoned a field trip, you already know the vibe:
half excitement, half chaos, and about 67% (I said it) teachers doing headcounts every seven minutes.

Dan also found himself with an important job during school day: helping students predict the future. We had kids draw their pick for the tournament’s winning mascot, which meant the table quickly filled with some very confident bracket analysts. Dan took his role as official collector of mascot predictions very seriously — though I suspect the artistic interpretations were the real highlight.

And of course, there was one moment I won’t forget.

A little girl came up with her adult chaperone ready to buy a book. When it was time to pay, she confidently handed over a bright pink credit card that said “Queen Card.”

The adult passed it to Casey very seriously, so Casey gave it a proper, yet suspicious, attempt at the card reader.

After a couple tries, the adult leaned down and asked her,
“Is this real?”

The girl shrugged and said, completely unfazed:

“I don’t know. It’s how I shop at home.”

Honestly, I respect the confidence.

By the end of the tournament I had watched some great basketball, met a lot of wonderful people, and seen thousands of kids experience the event during school day. For a little silver bookshop on wheels, it was a pretty great place to spend a few days.

Until the next stop — keep your brackets hopeful and your books within reach,

Sylvia