SAN DIEGO — Want to understand how wildly committed "Show Grandmas" Leila McCoy and Bette Boucher are to San Diego State basketball? Trying to figure out why the 75- and 82-year-olds yelled themselves hoarse and flirted with arthritis pain by pumping arms like pistons until COVID-19 locked up Viejas Arena?
Sure, it's "the boys" and their families. Yes, it's wedging themselves into the student section while learning about their classes, their dating woes and their dreams. No doubt, it's those exhilarating bolts of adrenaline rarely felt since youth.
There's much more, though, particularly at a time when an unforgiving global pandemic rips and claws away so much joy. The players, students and the win-loss stakes possess the power to heal.
McCoy provided powerful proof.
"I was suffering with grief," said McCoy, whose first name is pronounced LAY-eye-luh. "Three years of therapy and medication. This basketball team and those people saved me."
Chalk fanless Aztecs hoops as another cruel stroke in 2020, sidelining two of the program's most delightful and dedicated supporters. McCoy, Boucher's friend, offered a ticket one day with the caveat that they would ditch seats near the top of the arena to cram in with the pulsing student section known as The Show.
The selling point to Boucher, who found herself swaying with the metal bleachers as students jumped enough to register on the Richter scale: Those seats are special.
"(The students) adopted me and I've never left," McCoy said.
That became essential medicine to mend a broken heart for McCoy, who lost her special-needs son, Martin, in a vehicle accident in 2006. She and her husband, David, prefer to keep the details of the accident to themselves, but the cratering devastation lingered.
McCoy said she hoped gardening and reading might help her form healthy scar tissue. Nothing dulled the pain, however, until the septuagenarian launched herself into a sea of teenagers.
"I would look forward to basketball season to get back with the people and kids who brought me out of this," she said. "The young people embraced us."
McCoy said she joined The Show about eight years ago. Three or so years later, she recruited Boucher, an acquaintance from church and school-kid crossover. Turns out, Boucher understood the settling and soothing capacity of Aztecs basketball, too.
Jump shots could jumpstart, it turns out.
"I really started watching as a caregiver for the brother who had Parkinson's (disease)," said Boucher, a 1960 graduate of San Diego State. "He always played sports. My dad went to San Diego High when they were a powerhouse. So, I watched Aztecs basketball with my only brother. I got hooked reading articles about players like D.J. Gay and Skylar Spencer.
"We watched the Kawhi Leonard years. We didn't miss a game."
Boucher's brother, George, passed away in 2016, but her interest in the Aztecs had been cemented.
Quiz the women about life in the student section and the stories flow. Boucher, who infectiously giggles like someone a fifth of her age, uncorked one as she detailed the game where organizers of The Show asked the two to help deliver the famed "I Believe" chant.
"I said, 'You've got to be kidding,' " Boucher said. "They got us up on that block (in front of the student section). My friend from church nudged his wife and said, 'You'll never believe this. Look who's on the Jumbotron.' I said, 'If we fall, guess they'll catch us.' "
Advantages abound, she said.
"I can't open a water bottle," Boucher said. "My hands are arthritic. Well, there's 100 people there to open it for you."
There's only one operating imperative, the friends said, beyond cheering themselves to exhaustion.
"We don't push religion. We don't push politics," McCoy said. "I don't let them get away with the 'F' word, though. If I hear it, I tell them, 'That's a technical (foul, using her hands to make the 'T' sign).' "
The importance of staying connected with the Aztecs game after game was illustrated two years ago. McCoy underwent disc surgery. A vein ruptured. She "coded" and found herself on a ventilator for seven days. When the danger faded, she had one demand of doctors.
Just guess.
"I said, you have to get me well, I've got a game at Viejas," McCoy said. "I went in a wheelchair and Bette pushed me around."
Boucher explained the time the pair crashed practice.
"Leila called (coach Brian Dutcher's administrative assistant at the time) and said we needed to attend practice because we didn't know the new guys," she said. "(The assistant) told us, 'You have to behave yourselves.' We said, 'We'll be good.'
"The guys came up to us and we got hugs. The old guys introduced us to the new guys. The coaches talked to us. We sat there enthralled for three hours, watching how they worked the guys."
Each season involves loss of a different kind. Players graduate or leave to play professional basketball. Students grab diplomas and charge into their futures.
"It's like mourning when you lose them," Boucher said. "It's sad when they move on. You fall in love with them every year."
The roots of the Show Grandmas dig in more by the day. The Mountain West produced an online story about the pair. They have a dedicated Twitter page, @ShowGrandmas. The bookstore conducted a photo shoot with McCoy and Boucher, but it was shelved until students can make a full return to campus.
Videos of the two were shot in their respective driveways, COVID-19 and all, to show graduates at the most recent commencement.
When whispers circulated the two would be forced out of prime seats and pointed back to their real seats in the upper reaches of the arena because of increased demand, students put a stop to it.
"I'm having a very hard time not being at games this season," McCoy said. "I'm not coping, at all. I'm a nervous wreck. Betty misses the yelling and I do, too. It's a lot different than watching the ballgame at home with your dog."
The quiet moments trigger the pain about Martin for McCoy.
"I live for each basketball season," she said. "When I went to games, I could be free. I could be outgoing. What the Aztecs did for me? They helped me be myself. When it was tough I didn't worry, because November was coming."
Boucher shrugs.
"It's so disappointing, not being at the games," she said.
Hang tight, ladies. Hang tight.
