Didn't see this in the thread:
https://theathletic.com/1277253/2019/10/08/girl-crocheting-kansas-oklahoma-game/
Crocheting at a Kansas game: Hailey Solomon explains the moment she went viral
By Nicole Auerbach 2h ago
Hailey Solomon doesn’t enjoy watching college football. She jokes that she doesn’t understand it at all, either. (That might not have been a joke.) You might have surmised all of this already, considering what you already know about her — that she’s the kind of person who brings her crocheting with her to a live sporting event. But she’d like to confirm anyway.
Saturday’s game against Oklahoma was actually the first Kansas football game Solomon had ever attended. The senior studying civil engineering had only decided to go for one very specific reason.
“One of the most influential and inspiring people in my life is my structural engineering materials professor, Dr. Matt (O’Reilly), who has been a role model and mentor to me for the past three years,” Solomon wrote in an email to
The Athletic. She had nominated O’Reilly for an award — the Board of Class Officers H.O.P.E. Award (Honor for an Outstanding Progressive Educator) — and he’d won it. He would be honored during the Jayhawks’ football game, which meant that Solomon would be going to a football game.
“Though I know football is a well-loved pastime, I’ve never taken to it, so I brought my crocheting to keep me busy until the presentation,” said Solomon. “I sat away from the crowd so I would have a good view and contentedly worked away at a little potholder before the game began. Once it did, I watched it for a bit but somehow got turned around and managed to lose track of which direction my team was supposed to be going.
“The award was presented in the first quarter and when it was, I cheered as loudly as I could and left shortly after, thinking my presence went unnoticed. As you know though, the opposite couldn’t be truer, but I think it’s hilarious that the one game I attend ends with me becoming a meme.”
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She knows that her hobbies are a little different from your typical college student’s. She didn’t go to the Snoop performance on Friday in part because she went to the Late Night in the Phog last year and “found it overstimulating.”
“I’m sure I sound like a grandma trapped in a young person’s body, but that’s only because it’s true,” Solomon said. “At this point in my life, I know who I am, I know what I like, and I know how I prefer to spend my time.
“I used to be incredibly self-conscious and even semi-ashamed of my atypical interests, but now I embrace them and I’m much better for it.”