Spirits and the Final Four. The event has become a holiday tradition for thousands of fans in Waco, many of whom travel across the country to cheer on the underdog that's led by the nation's best player, Stephen Curry. Curry's team isn't expected to get this far in the NCAA tournament. Curry isn't expected to win the Final Four. But we'll find out what's possible when the final buzzer sounds Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. WACO - On the way to AT&T Stadium, a line of yellow school buses snakes toward Waco’s city limits, a parade of pinstripe navy and yellow SUVs that seem a little larger each day, until one in the middle bears a banner that says “Steph Curry” in a stylized cursive font, and it’s as if a giant magnet has just been attracted to Waco’s signature brick building that houses Texas Wesleyan’s basketball team. Every two weeks, there is a Final Four matchup between a No. 1 seed and a No. 16, and for that week, the building is jammed. There is, however, a certain order. Texas A&M fans go to class at 8:30 a.m., and the Texas crowd can’t get in there until after 10 a.m. So for the most part, there are two different crowds on campus, each looking for their own glimpse of victory and each in its own way. The Aggies crowd arrives earlier and leaves earlier, usually in clusters of four or five and heading to the bar or the tailgate parties near the stadium so they can watch the game along with friends and family. For the next four hours or so, they’re going to need their luck to run out. WACO - It’s a weekday morning at Texas A&M. From a distance, it might just look like a game of dodgeball or a pickup game of basketball, and the students gathered on the side of the road would explain that it’s not as simple as it appears. But this gathering has meaning beyond just basketball, that much is clear. Rarely have I seen the students on the sidelines appear as excited as they do now. When it’s announced that there will be a half hour delay due to a rain delay, the students run into the bathroom and lock themselves in there, trying to stay as dry as they can. The next group of students that walk by are in disbelief that the rain delay hasn’t ruined their day. What makes this special, though, is the energy of each student, the excitement that’s shared and understood. On this day, which is an off day in between classes and study breaks, there is no need to rush in and find shelter as soon as the rain starts pelting down. No need to find shelter as soon as the skies open and the rain begins. Instead, the energy is that much greater. The students in the sidelines are running from one student to another in pure excitement, grabbing friends and screaming and cheering together. “Who do you have?” “What are you cheering for?” “Have you seen his last game? Who’s got him? Who’s got him!” In the midst of the chaos, there is a new tradition that has found its way to one of the most anticipated games of the college basketball season. A few of the Aggie students who were waiting for school to start had an idea about an hour before tip-off. They came up with the idea of writing a player’s name on a piece of paper and having them thrown from the student section, with each student holding their own paper with different players’ names. WACO - The student section is a little different now. Instead of being dominated by members of the school’s sports teams, the students have been instructed to write a player’s name on a piece of paper and then try to throw the paper on the floor as fast as they can. Fans have been encouraged to get behind the game in a way they never thought they would. In an effort to help, staff members and student workers can’t throw the paper on the ground fast enough and help their fellow students as much as they can. If they can throw it accurately, the students throw them $5. If they miss, they get $10 from the student worker who caught the paper. For those of us on the student side of campus, however, the game doesn’t really matter. The Aggies are on a streak now, but we can’t get too attached. If we do, we might lose our edge. WACO - If you were to see the members of Texas A&M’s student section now, you’d be unable to tell what had happened until you tried to explain it to someone. At that point, you’d be met with a variety of responses. You could have someone explain that the Aggies have lost the next three games they played. Or that their opponent was a team playing in their home stadium, like it was against A&M. Or you could hear the typical response, which is that a single person from the student section was able to help by making a play in the final seconds of a game. It’s not every day that a single person can affect a whole game like that. The team that is behind gets to feel invincible and confident. If you were to then show this fan a picture of a fan from a school like Florida State, which plays to a packed stadium most nights, you would see that they do the same thing. If you were to show the A&M students another picture of a student from another school, you would see that they do the same thing. It doesn’t matter whether a football or basketball team wins, which side does better or how the game goes. It’s the energy that’s shared by the students and the fans. That’s what makes the students and the student workers here even more invested than the average fan. They all want to win, and they all want to share in the glory. WACO - It’s only been four games, but the student section has already started to evolve. At the beginning of the year, it was impossible to avoid Aggie colors. From the moment you came in and tried to take a seat, you’d be greeted with an Aggie blanket and the students would be holding up pictures and screaming about all of the players on the team that they know personally. During the television timeouts, it’s easy to see it all, but what happens during halftime is where everything starts. The Aggies have a student body of 30,000 students, which means there are plenty of Aggies walking around the stadium. There are so many of them, in fact, that as the students make their way to the upper sections of the student section, it takes a long time for them to get there. One of the best views for any games, however, is found here on the student side of the stadium, in the stands that are located along one side of the football field. There is a tradition of standing there, waiting for the teams to come out and yell until they finally come to the middle of the stadium, where they stay until they come back out for halftime. Those fans who try to sneak down from the top deck can often be heard from the street below. The other option is to wait around outside of the ticket office, which has been cleared out for the first few rows. If you were to watch closely enough, you could see a handful of Aggie fans standing off to the side, wearing black Aggie shorts that have a dollar sign written on them. That’s because fans can buy those shorts by bringing in a dollar. The seats that are being reserved for Aggie fans are reserved seats. Those students are there by themselves, either by buying tickets themselves or finding someone in their group who is willing to buy them as gifts. The tickets were a way for students to get together and give someone a day of school that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to enjoy, like seeing their favorite player play in their hometown. It could be students who have friends and family they want to share the experience with, or someone who just wants to be a part of the experience that most of their friends and families can’t be a part of. Those seats, which start at $20, have not only brought students to games but also started conversations and brought communities together, all because they decided to stand together and support the Aggies. It’s not that they would choose to do anything different. It’s just that they’ve come to realize the importance of this particular ritual.