FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) a' Sherwood Brown only wanted a bagel. The Florida Gulf Coast star went into a restaurant on campus Monday and was quickly surrounded. People wanted autographs. People wanted photographs. People only wished to scream words of encouragement. A college that opened a mere 16 years ago finds itself front-and-center in March Madness, among only 16 college basketball teams left from an area of 68, wanting to win the NCAA national championship. "I had no idea it was going to be like this, but I am warm it," Brown said as he made his escape from the store. "I feel just like we're obtaining a large amount of America behind us. I suppose you might say we're part of America's group at this point." And the Eagles spent your day savoring their moment. Lines in the university bookstore snaked in one side to the other, over 100 people waiting for the opportunity to pay for their FGCU shirts and caps. Telephone lines were jammed by those seeking seats for this weekend's South Regional, and even the college president half-seriously wondered if he would have the ability to receive what he needed. And as they reached classes, participants were met with applause. "It is really brand new," Eagles instructor Andy Enfield mentioned Monday, as e-mails jumped into his address at a fairly dizzying pace. "No one understands a no one understood a what FGCU stood for, the words. Now it puts our school in a national spotlight and rightly so, because this is a good place. It is a young, energetic university with only a lot of energy. I've been attempting to tell that story to plenty of people." The Eagles perform Florida in the South Regional semifinals Friday night, two wins from a most-improbable trip to the Last Four. Seeded 15th within their region, FGCU pulled down both No. 2 Georgetown and No. 7 North Park State in Philadelphia over the weekend to help keep their period going. Enfield's lone error up to now in the NCAA tournament could have been what happened when he went along to sleep around 5:30 a.m. Saturday, approximately two hours after the Eagles landed house in Fort Myers after pounding their solution to the regional semifinals. Before Enfield went along to sleep, he forgot to silence his ringer. Suffice to express, he was awakened long before he needed. "It is area of the moment," Enfield said. "We are very happy to compromise just a little rest for the achievement of our program." Here's maybe the best way to explain what's happening right now with FGCU: In circumstances where the Gators are back in the regional semifinals, where the Miami Hurricanes (who dropped to FGCU early in 2010) are still alive in the area and look very much like a contender, and as the Miami Heat took a 26-game winning streak into their sport at Orlando on Monday, it is the Eagles who may be the best story. LeBron James selected them to get one game in his class. Not two, although. "Just a hunch," the NBA's ruling MVP said. The Eagles a' 26-10 over all and 13-5 in the Atlantic Sun Conference a' are starting their particular tradition, given that they don't have any real tradition yet. Of the 19 banners that sway in their gym to commemorate various achievements, the earliest entry to them is for a women's volleyball trip to the NCAA Division II event in 2004. "You originate from a tiny school like that, and everybody else just kind of looks at us like a mid-week preparation game. 'All right, we'll get our gain mid-week and then we'll incomparable meeting play,'" mentioned Chris Sale, a former FGCU pitcher now with the Chicago White Sox. "I don't believe is the way it's planning to be from here on out." The college has about 11,300 students, 1 / 2 of whom originate from the state's southwest section. The university a' with a manmade lake and real beach where students go a sits on 760 acres of land donated by Ben Hill Griffin III. And that lends a certain irony to this Eagles-Gators matchup, given that Florida's soccer team performs its home games in what everyone calls The Swamp but what formally is named for Ben Hill Griffin Jr. FGCU is such start as a school that its oldest alumni probably have yet to turn 40. "I have held it's place in higher ed for quite a while, worked at many institutions, and I have not experienced anything similar to this phenomenon," FGCU President Wilson Bradshaw said. "What has happened in the last 3 or 4 times has been extraordinary. We're getting, I am getting, my staff members are getting messages and texts from all around the country, and it's been really gratifying." The attention has been overwhelming, at the very least to the servers that host the school's athletic department internet site. It failed twice Sunday evening, and other university internet sites were seeing big upticks in trips. Will Morse, a former baseball player at the college and now a student, was waiting to buy a sweatshirt at the bookstore. He wished the investment of his time could lead to his parents creating an of $200 for student tickets to this weekend's activities at Cowboys Stadium near Dallas. "It is for my mom's companion. I actually do not know," Morse said. "They live in Colorado and they turned fans immediately, and they wanted a sweatshirt due to their birthday. And so I am the little one who's trying to make certain my parents get me tickets." And the delay in those long lines lasted about as long as FGCU's activities have taken up to now in this event. "I think everybody's surprised, mostly," said elderly Kristi Hurson. "We went to view the game Friday and were all joking this was not likely to be a big deal. And then it was." Her friend and fellow consumer Erica Turczyn used three terms to explain the mood on campus today a' crazy, nuts and disorder. "Professors canceled sessions today, a few of them," Turczyn said. "I do not understand how anyone could target right now." Give FGCU guard Brett Comer some credit. He was attempting to focus, anyway. Comer got three hours sleep before waking up Monday to hit his statistics course. As he appeared, his teacher asked why he was there. "A lot of students did not appear to ensure it is to school today," Comer said. "But I was." He will maybe not be at any sessions later this week. The team's annual banquet is scheduled for April 2. Some body in the reception of the area found that sign Monday and asked if the Eagles make the Final Four if it'd be ended. A great question, one that no one even a couple of days before would have imagined would have actually been uttered at FGCU. "Our heads have not gotten bigger," Bradshaw said. "But we really are stoked up about the eye that we are getting. And I have said this before: If it takes our very successful baseball team to obtain people to arrive at our web site and learn more about Florida Gulf Coast University a' and there is so much more a' then I am fine with that."
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