This time of year I cannot help but think of when i was working at the UConn Co-op some years ago.
I had applied there for a part-time job in 2005 to try to prevent getting evicted from my Storrs apartment when I obtained disability, which did not cover the rent, and I was unsuccessful in obtaining area housing assistance.
I was treated like a valued individual from the very beginning by the co-op and was given a job that accommodated my disability in the accounting department, which did not involve looking at large computer screens.
UConn men’s notes: Ahead of Sweet 16, Clingan reflects on his late mother’s impact
I was a person called a ”money counter,” whose job consisted of proofreading the paperwork and balancing the money in the cash register drawers.
I loved my job, as well as my co-workers, from the very beginning, and although I ultimately got evicted from my apartment anyway and had to move to a care home in Willington, I continued to take the dial-a-ride in to campus to work in the UConn Co-op accounting department for another four years, which were among the best years of my life.
in the environment of the UConn Co-op I developed a whole new awareness and dimension of Huskydom. As i processed money and payments and paperwork, my job literally made me aware of the profound intertwining of customers with the athletic programs of the university, symbolized by their coming into the co-op and purchasing Husky products, most specifically Husky clothing.
And as much as my job itself expanded my awareness, what affected me even more was what I did every day after work when I went downstairs to wait for my dial-a-ride. Every day after work when I went downstairs I would walk the floor of the store and mingle with the customers and spend endless hours surveying the clothing. Lost in the world of the store, I forgot my cares and imagined living in a universe filled only with Husky attire. And gradually I began to realize that I was not the only one doing so.
As great a feeling as it is to wear Husky attire on your own, in your own home, that experience is amplified into another level when you are in the midst of ”source Husky.” Even after I was no longer working at the store, I would take the dial-a-ride in to campus not only to see my friends but to walk the floor of the store and get that feeling.
University housing could boost CT city’s profile as a college town. Where UConn is looking.
And as i wandered the floor of the store all those years, the words and music of a song began playing over and over in my head. Come tournament time in March those words assumed a new, more powerful meaning: ”some say madness, I say fire set to burn with great desire, reaching reaching ever higher; I see fire I see flame who’s the best to play this game, who‘s the team you cannot tame; feel the flames and feed the fire, dressed in all the right attire.”
Dom Amore: As UConn men swagger toward their lofty goal, San Diego State is now in harm’s way
Who would that team be? The Huskies, of course. And the attire would be the blue and white.
Lisa P. Rimland is from Glastonbury.