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Octogenarian friends enjoy dancing in stands at KSU basketball games – The Mercury – Manhattan, Kansas
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Updated: July 7, 2024 @ 2:50 pm
Janice Edwards, left, and her friend Gerry Ince show their enthusiasm Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, next to the Ernie Barrett statue outside of Kansas State University’s Bramlage Coliseum. Edwards, 83, and Ince, 82, have become a hit at the basketball games this season.
Janice Edwards and Gerry Ince dance and clap to the music at the K-State men’s basketball game against Oklahoma State on Jan. 20. The two draw a load of cheers from the crowd when they appear on the big screen in Bramlage Coliseum.
Janice Edwards, left, and her friend Gerry Ince show their enthusiasm Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, next to the Ernie Barrett statue outside of Kansas State University’s Bramlage Coliseum. Edwards, 83, and Ince, 82, have become a hit at the basketball games this season.
Nothing quite gets the crowd going at K-State basketball games this season more than two octogenarians who like to shake it.
Gerry Ince, 82, and Janice Edwards, 83, are as surprised as anyone that they’re drawing attention just for being enthusiastic fans.
The two friends are longtime K-State fans who had gone to basketball and football games with their husbands since the ’80s; they started going to games together this season.
Janice said it was Gerry who first got into dancing along with the timeout music.
“That first time we went, I had just sat down, and she popped up, and she said, ‘Get up here,’” Edwards said. “We both cheer a lot. When the team’s playing, we’re standing.”
Ince said every time the music comes back on, “I grab her.”
Like many fans, the women were just bopping along during breaks, and the moves earned them an appearance on Bramlage Coliseum’s big screen.
“When it first happened, I was just up there going with the crowd, acting up,” Ince said.
“The first time, we heard just a really loud roar,” Edwards said. “We looked up, and I said, ‘Oh my god, Gerry, we’re on TV! We’re on the jumbotron.’”
Since then, the camera operators keep coming back to them, especially at the most recent home game Jan. 20 versus Oklahoma State.
“We do it through the whole damn game, but they probably went on us four times,” Edwards said.
“I don’t do anything different than anyone else I see doing,” Ince said. “I never sit down. I’m always standing up behind my seat. I just get so involved in the game and all.”
Their seats are in the Big 12 Terrace section, so they conveniently don’t have to worry that anyone behind them won’t be able to see.
Both ladies said it’s easy to be fans of this team and Jerome Tang, who happens to be Ince’s neighbor.
“The coach lives right down the street from me,” Ince said. “They have a very nice family.”
“We love him,” Edwards said. “He’s just a super, super nice guy, nice family man. There have been some coaches who weren’t as nice.”
Going to basketball games has been a social outlet and maybe a bit of a silver lining for Ince and Edwards, who are both widows.
Ince lost her husband, Don, in April. He had been the owner of Manhattan Wholesale Meat Company, which he took over from his uncle.
Don’s uncle had hired Gerry right out of high school to work there, and Don, a “Wamego boy,” started working there after he left the Navy. That’s how they met.
Gerry said Don loved singing and dancing.
“My husband and I, we’d dance every chance we’d get,” she said.
She said once she and Don were at a show in a theater in Paris.
“We got seats clear down in front,” she said. “They had music playing, so we start dancing. We’re out there and probably dance five or six dances. We were a hit. Finally someone came up and said, ‘We’d love to keep having you do it, but we’re going to be in trouble because we’re going to have everyone start to come down here.’”
Janice Edwards and Gerry Ince dance and clap to the music at the K-State men’s basketball game against Oklahoma State on Jan. 20. The two draw a load of cheers from the crowd when they appear on the big screen in Bramlage Coliseum.
Janice’s husband, Dick Edwards, died in 2019. They moved to Manhattan from Augusta in 1981, when he opened his first car dealership. Janice ran the Junction City dealership, which she sold in 2021.
She said she and Dick would go to all the football games.
“I wasn’t that much of a fan, but I went with him,” Edwards said. “When he passed away, I kind of quit going to games. This last year, Gerry and I got involved — and really got involved,” she said. “We’re dancing fools.”
Gerry said before his passing, Don got her a pair of season tickets in the new section.
Then a pair of seats in the same section came open, and Edwards got those. That way, if their family members want to go, there’s room.
“It’s awful nice to have her there,” Ince said.
Edwards said her wedding anniversary is Dec. 27, and Ince’s is Dec. 29, so on the 28th they celebrated both anniversaries.
“We have a good time,” Edwards said. “We do. She said last week, ‘Are you tired?’ We really enjoy it, and we enjoy the students.”
Speaking of the students, why are they so enthralled with a couple of grandmothers doing their thing?
“Maybe to see old people who are enjoying the game? I don’t know,” Edwards said. “We just wave and clap and have fun.”
But she thinks Manhattan has a fan base that’s hard to beat.
“Normally Manhattan fans are happy and they just want their team to win, and they’re graceful losers if we lose. I don’t know. It’s a happy town, really. A good place to live.”
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