Walls that talk
How RedHawk basketball shaped my college experience
Lindsay Stevenson
Jillian Wynn
There’s a photo on my wall of a guy named Mekhi Lairy dribbling a basketball in front of what was once an empty section of Millett Hall. It’s a photo of Miami University’s season opener against the University of Evansville on Nov. 7, 2022.
Mekhi’s photo is just one of hundreds of sports decorations covering my bedroom walls. They take up every inch of space and tell the story of my emotion-filled love affair with sports, a story perhaps best told through the lens of Miami basketball.
If you’ve ever listened to a press conference by Miami men’s basketball head coach Travis Steele, you’ve probably heard him mention the Evansville game I referenced. It was Steele’s first-ever game at Miami, one where he recalls that “probably 20 people” showed up.
Steele entered Miami’s empty stadiums the same year I came to the university from my Chicago-area high school. He couldn’t believe the small crowd on his first day. As he put it, he “was floored.”
I wasn’t at that Evansville game, but I too was floored by the lack of attendance when I went to my first basketball game just weeks later — a loss against Marshall University. I grew up a fan of Iowa and the Big Ten, arguably the best conference in basketball, and I had fallen in love with the rowdy atmosphere of the games I saw on TV. They were always packed, and everyone stood, cheered and screamed for all 40 minutes.
But at Miami, no one went to games, and no one really cared. I quickly lost touch with the fanatic side of sports that I loved so dearly.
There’s a poster on my wall I’ve held onto from my second Miami basketball game, a game that forever changed the trajectory of my college experience.
I must’ve been walking back from a class or a meeting that Tuesday night — the second night back from winter break — because I vividly remember standing outside what was then Stonebridge Hall and contemplating going. I remember telling myself, “Lindsay, you like basketball. Go watch some basketball.”
So off I went to Millett.
When I arrived, I sat in the front row because, like every other row, it was wide open. Not long after, five male students bustled into the row, concessions in hand and decked out in red. One guy was wearing a red morph suit. That guy was Adam Smith.
He was thrilled I was there.
“No one comes to games at this school,” Adam told me. “We want to make it fun.”
For all 40 minutes of basketball, those boys stood on their feet. They cheered. They screamed. They yelled obscenities at the refs on occasion. They really, really cared.
I yelled and cheered alongside them and, for the first time, I truly had fun at college. I was so excited to have found a five-person microcosm of the 15,000-person college gameday experience I had been longing for. And they were excited that their group of five people who cared deeply about Miami athletics had turned to six.
Those young men shared the vision of college that I was beginning to think only I had: one where crowds of people packed into Millett Hall, Yager Stadium and McKie Field and went crazy for every game.
They couldn’t get 15,000 people, but they still went and screamed their hearts out with five because that’s as close as they could get to the experience they wanted. Except now it was six. I had bought in. I went to every remaining home game that season and sat with Adam and the rest of the self-proclaimed “Steele’s Soldiers.” I once again loved college basketball.
There's a picture on my wall of Adam and me after Miami beat Cincinnati in football at the beginning of my sophomore year. We went looking for a miracle, and this game solidified the fact that every ounce of me loved Miami athletics.
At this point, I worked in communications, marketing, statistics and broadcasting for the athletic department. I worked games for every sport, but men’s basketball was the exception. I was in the stands because I loved being a fan.
That year, Miami put bleachers behind the basket, which Adam branded as a student section called “The Brick Wall.” There were four of us who began “sitting” (although really we only stood) on the right side in the front row, which is still my unofficial assigned spot to this day. I’ve deviated maybe once.
The Brick Wall was not always a huge success. There were a lot of games where it was just the four of us there. Maybe we dragged a handful of friends along to make it eight. I even remember at one point the three of them left when it hit halftime, and I was the lone student in the student section.
But by the last game of the season, we had worked our way up to 20 or so people. As silly as it might sound, that was a really big win for us.
Adam graduated that May, and sports haven’t been the same here without him. I wish he could see what Millett is today, because he’d cry tears of joy.
Adam, I promise it looks even better in person than in the pictures I send you.
***
There’s a picture on my wall of one game that stands out in my memory: a December matchup against Bethany College during mine and Steele’s third year.
Miami broke a school record for the most 3-pointers in a game that day (22), yet the silence was deafening. I remember sitting there thinking, “If I cheered right now, everyone in the whole stadium would turn and look at me.” It would’ve been like cheering in the middle of a church service or a class.
Everyone seemed to be there to watch Miami rain threes and blow out a team in silence.
Miami started 6-0 in conference that year, and slowly, students began coming to games. One day in early February of 2025, my heart teemed with joy and disbelief as I watched the sides of the lower bowl of Millett become nearly full for the first time.
That was the most fun I’d ever had at a Miami game. I can only imagine what I would’ve thought if I had looked forward 365 days.
On the way out of that game, I remember hearing someone tell a friend, “I’m coming to every game now.” That sentiment made me so happy. That person understood me.
There’s a photo on my wall of Miami guard Luke Skaljac flying off the bench during the 2025 MAC title game against the University of Akron Zips. Miami came one basket short of making it to March Madness that year, shattering my heart. The slow stream of student buy-in stopped.
But almost no players transferred out that year, so when my senior season rolled around, I knew the RedHawks would be special. I went to their first home game of the season against Old Dominion University, which I anticipated would be the start of a long, undefeated run. I was right. They improved to 1-0.
I had hopped onto the ride of my life.
There’s a drawing on my wall of Akron’s logo. I keep it three spots to the left of Miami in the line of MAC logo drawings that runs atop my wall.
The RedHawks were 14-0 when they played the Zips this season, their toughest opponent by a mile.
I watched that game on TV with my mom. It was tight the entire time, and in the absolute climax, a courtside seat holder flew out of his chair in celebration. Akron had turned the ball over, and Miami was going to win.
I no longer walked anywhere. I floated. My Miami basketball team was 15-0.
After that, the rest of the world bought in and flipped my world on its head. Nearly 3,000 people reposted Miami’s 15-0 post. Students posted memes, photos and graphics of every kind. People blew up my phone with messages about how they were going to come to games now because they finally got what I had been harping on about for the last three seasons.
With the best record in the nation and one of just six undefeated teams left, the media swarmed Miami basketball. Small numbers of people slowly began to demand that we be ranked.
Everything I had ever felt for this team, other people started to feel too.
There’s a blurry photo on my wall that has Eian Elmer in the background. Everyone around him is overflowing with insurmountable emotion, but Eian only shows focus. The photo was taken right after his three-pointer following a miraculous tip-out by Brant Byers that sent Miami to overtime against the University at Buffalo. Not far over hangs a now-famous photo of Pete Suder saying goodnight after hitting the game-winning shot.
I ran laps around my boyfriend’s kitchen during that game, jumping through the air as my life, which had nearly been forced back to its feet, stayed turned on its head.
The following Monday, 5,403 people shared Miami Basketball’s Instagram post announcing that we were ranked for the first time this century. Every student knew, and almost every student cared. I may have been the first, but thousands of others had finally joined me.
With one game left before students would return from break, Kent State University forward Rob Whaley Jr. tried to single-handedly erase my dream of seeing students pack Millett. But he did not. I came back to an Oxford campus that was home to a ranked 20-0 team, the winningest team in college basketball. I knew that would be enough to make the student body join me at Millett Hall.
There’s a huge photo on my wall, right in the center, of the Miami players looking up inside Millett on Jan. 27 before playing the University of Massachusetts. Millett’s lights are off and fans, who pack every seat, are shining flashlights. The players look like they’re looking up at the crowd.
They might've been watching the jumbotron, but I know that moment, surrounded by all those fans under the lights, had to be the most special thing they’ll ever experience in this world.
Earlier that evening, my roommate and I took a bus to Millett 30 minutes before the doors opened. When I saw the bus was already standing room only, I knew my dream was about to come true.
Millett filled all the way to the top. The right side filled first, then the left. The upper bowl, which I had never even seen open, was soon full too. We drew almost 8,000 students. I’d get choked up if I looked at it for too long.
Throughout that game, people yelled. People cheered. People stayed on their feet the whole time. There were times when I thought the roof would blow off. Everyone there cared.
I jumped and danced and lost my voice and felt all of the emotions sports so wonderfully draw out of people. It was the 10,000-person version of the five-person game I had gone to three years ago.
If Miami had lost that game, I would’ve been sad, but I wouldn’t have been devastated because everything I wanted from college had been fulfilled.
***
When I walk around campus now, I daydream about basketball frequently. The very ground beneath my feet feels different as my shoes hit it. The campus isn’t just Miami anymore. It’s a basketball campus with a nationally renowned team, the last one to go undefeated in the regular season. It has a different weight.
Sometimes, as I walk, I think about myself four years ago applying to all those Big Ten schools.
“If I hadn’t gone to Miami, would I be kicking myself right now?”
I like to think I’d recognize how cool this experience is. After all, no matter where I’d gone to school, there’s only one spot where I could’ve seen a 31-0 team. That spot is Miami, a school whose existence I didn’t know of six years ago, and I’m lucky enough to be one of not even 20,000 people who gets to be a student here during it.
That’s something you hold onto tight and don’t let go of, even if someone offers you the world.
There’s a photo on my wall of myself with the team.
Since Millett first filled up, so many people — coaches, players, players’ parents and strangers alike — have approached me to tell me they remember me from the beginning and that they appreciate what I’ve done for the team. Even though I’ve really only ever been just a fan.
While driving back from Miami’s last regular season game in Athens, I thought about the group of nine or 10 Miami students I had sat with, one of several pockets of students who had made the trip. It hit me that the number of Miami students who had driven hours to watch a basketball game was much greater than the number who had walked 15 minutes to Millett three years ago.
It’s moments like those where I think about the part I’ve played in the transformation. Going to every game. Bringing a handful of friends who brought a handful more. Showing up on the road. Being interviewed for articles about the run. Prompting President Greg Crawford to buy overalls for the student section, which led to the first line outside Millett Hall in a really long time. Small details, but part of the story nonetheless.
Back when Adam started the Brick Wall, he was adamant that we would build “brick by brick.” I’m proud to be one of the bricks in the foundation. I can’t say this wouldn’t have all happened without us, but I can say that we did play a small part. A part documented by the decorations on my walls.
