{"id":33512,"date":"2016-03-01T15:04:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T21:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=33512"},"modified":"2016-03-01T15:04:22","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T21:04:22","slug":"parents-epic-road-trip-following-star-wildcat-nears-last-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/parents-epic-road-trip-following-star-wildcat-nears-last-stop\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents’ epic road trip following star Wildcat nears last stop"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michelle R. Martinelli<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bruce and Mary Alice Lyon enjoyed their holidays in an unconventional way.<\/p>\n

They spent Thanksgiving at a basketball tournament in Texas and New Year\u2019s Eve on a nine-hour drive home to Wilmette from Penn State.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all been part of a four-year journey following the Northwestern women\u2019s basketball team. The parents of senior guard Maggie Lyon traveled around the country \u2014 as far as California and Maryland \u2014 attending 126 of their daughter\u2019s 127 college games and counting.
\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re basketball geeks \u2014 we love it,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0Mary Alice, a former high school coach. \u201cIf we can see it live, we will because there\u2019s a lot more you can see live than on the TV. It\u2019s a whole different setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

They love being in a crowd of cheering fans, seeing their daughter\u2019s improvements and emotions first-hand and even complaining about the officiating with fellow Wildcat parents.<\/p>\n

Their travels, though, soon will be coming\u00a0to an end. The Big Ten Women\u2019s Basketball Tournament this week in Indianapolis will\u00a0be one of the last times the Lyons see their daughter play for Northwestern (15-15, 4-14 Big Ten).<\/p>\n

The Lyons will miss it. They said their travel adventures are always fun and give them an opportunity to see family members around the country and take them to their daughter\u2019s games.<\/p>\n

Maggie loves it too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love my family, and I love where I come from,\u201d the 22-year-old Wildcat said. \u201cIt\u2019s been great that they\u2019ve been able to see that part of me. I know how much my parents love it, but they don\u2019t always tell me, but I think I get joy out of seeing them do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

After four years, they\u2019re known as the traveling parents among the coaching staff, the players and their families.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have parents on the team who might not have come to the game,\u201d Mary Alice said, \u201cbut they text or call us if someone gets hurt and to see what\u2019s going on because they know we\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BruceMaryAlice\"
Bruce and Mary Alice Lyon, parents of Wildcat senior guard Maggie, watch Northwestern’s final regular season home game against Michigan on Feb. 23. The Wolverines defeated the Wildcats 70-65 at Welsh-Ryan Arena. (Michelle R. Martinelli\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From Lincoln to Piscataway<\/strong>
\nWith the advantage of living 10 minutes away from Northwestern\u2019s home games at Welsh-Ryan Arena, the Lyons have been attending men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball games for more than two decades. But once Maggie joined the team in 2012, they decided to travel to her away games \u2014 occasionally taking her older siblings, Walt, 24, and Amy, 27, along \u2014 with the goal of seeing every college campus in the Big Ten.<\/p>\n

Originally, that meant traveling to 11 schools, excluding Northwestern, but it became 13 when Maryland and Rutgers joined the conference in 2014. They usually drive to each destination, making exceptions for farther schools, like Nebraska, Rutgers and Maryland.<\/p>\n

As an attorney, Bruce was able to plan his flexible work schedule around their Big Ten adventures, sometimes working half a day, driving to the game and then returning to Wilmette the same night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cover so much real estate now, [but] people can get to a lot of games,\u201d Northwestern coach Joe McKeown said.<\/p>\n

Nebraska was the last school on the Lyons\u2019 list because a Chicago blizzard led to the only blemish on their otherwise perfect attendance: a failed trip to Lincoln in January 2014.<\/p>\n

Bruce and Mary Alice agree the Midwest winter weather always has presented the greatest challenges to their travel schedule. With the 2014 game against the Cornhuskers a few hours away, the Lyons were stranded at Chicago Midway International Airport, scrambling to figure out how they would see their daughter compete.<\/p>\n

Worried about missing the game altogether, the Lyons decided to turn around and go home, Mary Alice said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just sat at the airport for seven hours because of the weather,\u201d Bruce said. \u201cThe game was on the Big Ten Network, so we were able to watch it. If I would have known [about the grounded plane] at the start of the morning, we could have driven.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with the Wildcats\u2019 76-67 loss Sunday to Nebraska in Lincoln, the Lyons came full circle and now have traveled to every Big Ten campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d go to the games, say hello and then we\u2019d leave,\u201d Mary Alice said. \u201cIt\u2019s [Maggie\u2019s] thing. We\u2019re just riding her coattails. We\u2019re just passing through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LyonSiblings\"
Northwestern senior guard Maggie Lyons’s older siblings, Walt, 24, and Amy, 27, cheer on the Wildcats at their last regular season home game against Michigan on Feb. 23. The Wolverines defeated the Wildcats 70-65 at Welsh-Ryan Arena. (Michelle R. Martinelli\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The road to Indy<\/strong>
\nThis week, the Lyons will be at Maggie\u2019s final Big Ten tournament and were nearly speechless when thinking about her senior season coming to an end. Eventually, Bruce was able to describe it as \u201cbittersweet.\u201d<\/p>\n

They remember the exciting buzzer-beaters and the team\u2019s NCAA Tournament bid last year \u2014 the first since 1997. They agreed the best parts of attending every game were being able to support Maggie and her team through the highs and lows and watching her class interact and improve.<\/p>\n

His daughter seemed to echo his sentiments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty emotional just to put everything in perspective and all the great times I\u2019ve had here,\u201d Maggie said with watery eyes after her last regular season home game, a 70-65 loss to Michigan on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

After years of planning their lives around the Northwestern women\u2019s basketball schedule, Bruce and Mary Alice joked about how much free time they\u2019ll have this time next year, likening it to a version of empty nest syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the end of a journey,\u201d Bruce said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that she loved and has always wanted to do, so it\u2019s just been fun to follow her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the Wildcats\u2019 first tournament game Wednesday, Bruce will send Maggie the same text he has sent her before every game for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlay hard, and have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Photo at top: Senior guard Maggie Lyon reaches for a layup against Maryland on Feb. 14 at Welsh-Ryan Arena. The Wildcats lost 79-70 to the Terrapins. (Michelle R. Martinelli\/MEDILL)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michelle R. Martinelli Bruce and Mary Alice Lyon enjoyed their holidays in an unconventional way. They spent Thanksgiving at a basketball tournament in Texas and New Year\u2019s Eve on a nine-hour drive home to Wilmette from Penn State. It\u2019s all been part of a four-year journey following the Northwestern women\u2019s basketball team. The parents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":33581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,585],"tags":[597,901,1442,1837,137,192,641,1838],"class_list":["post-33512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-winter-2016","tag-basketball","tag-big-ten","tag-big-ten-tournament","tag-maggie-lyon","tag-northwestern","tag-promo","tag-wildcats","tag-wilmette"],"yoast_head":"\nParents' epic road trip following star Wildcat nears last stop - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/parents-epic-road-trip-following-star-wildcat-nears-last-stop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Parents' epic road trip following star Wildcat nears last stop - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Michelle R. Martinelli Bruce and Mary Alice Lyon enjoyed their holidays in an unconventional way. They spent Thanksgiving at a basketball tournament in Texas and New Year\u2019s Eve on a nine-hour drive home to Wilmette from Penn State. It\u2019s all been part of a four-year journey following the Northwestern women\u2019s basketball team. 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