My seat in the Chase Center affords an excellent view of the pregame introductions.
There’s a kid on every team who knows the ritual greeting for each starter. At Utah, it’s Alyssa Blanck.
Here’s how I think this evolved: Long ago, the first player introduced would run on the court, then stand alone for a moment before greeting the second player. Someone said: Let’s designate someone to receive each of our starters. Over time, the low five evolved into the high five, high ten, chest bump, and so on.
Then players began inventing 2-second ballet. The first time I saw two players creatively diverge from the usual shake, it was a couple of Big West Conference men. The greeter patted the starter down, then signaled OK to go. Sometime said what I was thinking: “Did he just pat him down?”.
There’s a bit in the movie “School of Rock” in which the music teacher walks the keyboards player through a handshake long enough to serve as parody. He tells the kid that they’ll have to work on it.And there’s that player who remembers half the routines for each starter.
The players who perform this role, like Blanck, deserve recognition, I think.
Eventually, this pregame practice will find its way into high school games (maybe it already did, years ago). I thought it would be amusing if a high school student-athlete was so outstanding in this role that it registered with recruiters.