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30+ Day Challenge, part 15 – Something I Miss
I’m not really not the type that misses things much.
Don’t get me wrong. I have wonderful memories of all kinds. But I just don’t tend to hang on them.
For example, I certainly miss my mama. But, I lost her when I was 14 and I never knew her in my adult life. So, it’s probably the healthiest thing that I remember her, rather than missing experiences with her that I mostly couldn’t have anymore as a 35 year old man.
So, if I miss anything, it’s probably something mundane in the big scheme of life.
Like I miss football Saturdays in Knoxville.
Most of you all know I am a huge fan of college football. But, I have not been to a game at the University of Tennessee in two seasons.
More important factors in the big scheme of life have kept me from it.
Mostly the care I need to provide for Granny.
That, combined with the fact that we’ve had three poor seasons1 in three years time, and a rough patch between me and The Attorney a while back, has kept me from immersing myself in the pomp and glory of what Sports Illustrated once named the best game day experience in college football.
So, I guess I miss that a little: The adrenaline-charged energy surrounding the campus; the hoards of people, bathed in orange and white2, combining for a single shared experience; and the (almost) guarantee of a winning seasons with major bowl games;
But all that will come around again one day.
So why miss it?
{ fin }
And I’m sure I’m not the only one who missed your sharing of the football seasons. Hopefully that, too, will return “one day.”
Thanks.
I have followed you for several years and always love what you have to say. Please Tony…. don’t change!!!!
Wow. You’re really crankin’ em out. Good reading. Soooo good, Tony.
Hey Tony, great post … no reason to miss the past. But don’t miss the future because of few bad seasons …
Cheering for your team for approx. 3 hours only to watch them lose is always a bummer. No argument there.
And Granny comes first, good man.
Still … in those seasons when you’re ticked-off at the Vols, but could make it to Knoxville and don’t, consider that you may be cheating yourself out of a different kind of great experience …
I call it the Stockholm Syndrome 2.0. Version 2.0 is specifically re-tooled for sport fans.
My parents went to Alabama and USC, so I was used to rooting for powerhouse big-win teams. I was used to going to the Rose Bowl.
On USC game days, my family piled into the big Town & Country station wagon with fake wood paneling and drove 2hrs each way to watch our team WIN. And since SC could afford to buy great players*, win we usually did.
Then, after attending a schools w/o football programs, I made the fatal mistake** of moving to San Francisco and falling in love with a man, aka MT, from UC Berkeley. A man from multiple Cal generations and with 3 UC siblings. A man whose family had prime-seat season tickets!
In other words, I had innocently stumbled into a den of hardcore BEAR FANS!
MT and I met in January ’86, and since we waited almost 24 whole hours before ripping each other’s clothes off, I figured it had to be true love. Months go by, love grows, and as Fall and Football approached, the excitement was palpable.
As the first home game and my first game in the Blue& Gold approached, the adrenalin surged (great for sex.)
Top down on the car on beautiful fall day, we wove our way thru the crawling traffic into Berkeley Hills toward Memorial Stadium***, barely avoiding thousands of fans decked out in their own Blue&Gold.
Like many Cal fans, we paid an exorbitant amount of cash to sexy drunk shirtless frat boys to park on their house lawn, close to the stadium. And, following MT’s family’s long tradition, we went to Top Dog, where we fought our way through the 100′s of people who, over a couple of hours, will cram themselves into a 8′x25′ space while yelling, “2 Dogs, 2 Kiel’s, 2 Brats, Kraut and Mustard on all, Please!!” until one of the counter guys finally hears you. Best. Dogs. Ever.
Entering the stadium, grabbing beer, taking our excellent seats … all set for a great game. The Bears look good, and by half-time, they were up 15pts or so. MT is aglow, and I’m having a blast.
And then the most horrific thing happened.
In the 2nd half their lead got chiseled away. Now down a TD. Then another unanswered field goal. Yet another unanswered TD. The 4th qtr winds down. More than once, the Bears came close to scoring, and then the inevitable interception. And the Bears lose.
Wait …. whaaaaat?
It was one of those “record scratch”, stop the music, moments.
It began to sink in. Had I just rooted 2hrs and 45 minutes for the losing team? How did this happen? Why was I not warned? The frat boys were hot, but was that cheap thrill and a parking place worth 30 bucks?
And … why the fuck did I buy this Blue& Gold rugby shirt?
Over the season, I was to learn that being a Bear fan would mean watching, in high hope, as Cal threw points up on the board. Then, inevitably, and usually via unforced errors, dumb-ass penalties, and quarterbacks who wouldn’t run a ball even if you put a rocket up their ass, we would again and again watch Cal slowly, painfully, snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory.
But I was in love with a Bear fan. His hostage. Too late to escape. I had begun to empathize with my captor.
Over the years, I would learn that being a Cal fan was an exercise in futility. Occasionally, you relax and enjoy a coming win … but ONLY if the Bears were up a minimum of 21pts, with 4 minutes left on the clock.
Sure there were great years … winning seasons where you could smell the Roses wafting up from Pasadena … only to watch Cal blow the end of the season and end up getting the bid for the Cheez-Wiz Toilet Bowl held in places like Katmandu, or worse, Arizona.
But … and you saw this coming, I sure … those remain some of the best memories of the 25 years of my life, thus far, with MT. Like pre-2004 Red Sox fans, we all bonded in our pain.
A favorite memory is MT and I developed a secret code for when the chips were down and the game was slow … our code allowed us to discreetly point out hot guys, especially those with no shirts, to each other. 3 seasons into our “secret” code, we realised MT’s parents’ eyes were going to the exact spot our code was indicating. We were so busted, but they would just wink at each other, and they never called us out on it.
Season tickets are passed down the generations, a micro-study in life … kids grew up, grandparents went away, spouses joined-in, and soon they had their own kids on their laps. (Btw, bringing up a kid to be a Bear Fan should be construed as child abuse, but that’s for a different comment.) On many occasions, probably because we were only near them 3hrs a week, I enjoyed our” football family” way more than our actual families.
By 2001, we had given up our home in SF. Our work taken to us LA and NYC and Asheville. Nieces and nephews sit our seats now.
And every football Saturday in the Fall, I miss it.
Sorry for such a long comment, but it’s Saturday, there’s no football today, so what’s a guy to do?
_____________
* Pete Carroll, who did you think you were fooling?!
** The mistake was that of a collegiate football fan. Moving to SF and meeting MT remain the best things ever.
*** Amazing old school stadium, designed by Julia Morgan, on a mountain overlooking the entire San Francisco Bay … a place where the world feels right, even on a hard bench seat in the shade, and even given that one of the largest earthquake faults in Northern California runs, quite literally, down the center of the field (Ms. Morgan designed the stadium to come apart in big safe sections, for when the “big one” hits.)
Great comment Mikey!
It’s easy to support a perinnial winner, it’s all about supporting a losing team.
Ask any sports fan in Cleveland.
How interesting that Tony’s hiatus from TN football coincided with OSU finally getting the SEC monkey off its back!
Sad posting for any sports fan to read. College basketball is my thing (well,baseball and football too but I only watch bball). Here’s hoping The Attorney slips you an IOU for Valentines Day.
This is spot on how people should really approach life, IMHO.
Been reading through the past challenges! Really nice – though I’ll readily admit I watch football more for the players than the game.