I Love This Game

Hello All,

Last night I was driving home from softball on the 110 Northbound “freeway”.

As people familiar with the city of Los Angeles know, as you reach downtown on the 110-N you reach a crossroads that looks just like the heart of any highway interchange in any major city. The 10 shoots off to the east and west. The 101 shoots off at a diagonal to connect you to Hollywood.

Last night I looked at this interchange and wanted to stop my car, grab my nine iron out of the trunk (I guess at this point it is a mythical nine iron) and go straight Johnny Drama on the first car I saw. To me, last night this interchange represented nothing but another example of the malaise that living in a big city can be.

As I stewed silently, I began to think back to a simpler time, when I was a little guy who lived in the sticks of Wisconsin, or Texas, or Tennessee, or wherever we lived at the time.

When we used to go on our summer roadtrips as a family, nothing got me more excited than the first time we saw another highway go over the top of our car.

Signs that said things like “Chicago City Limits” or “Downtown Miami 12 Miles” would get me more excited than I can say. Every city was a new adventure. They were foreign and full of all the things I wanted but couldn’t find in DePere or Laredo. The trips were rather infrequent, and therefore every time was more exciting than the last. The final ten miles or so of any trip into the city saw the sudden progression of countryside to city décor, from my real life to the life I always read about and envisioned as an escape from the boredom.

Obviously living in the city strips away the excitement. The Walk of Fame is a really cool place to visit for an afternoon, but to live a half block away from there turns it in to the personification of all things bad about this town.

Things like traffic go from minor inconvenience to life-altering force. It is just the way it works. It takes a trip out of town to relax and recharge before you are re-awakened to the things that make a city cool.

(LA is an immensely diverse place, filled with talented people bordered on two sides by mountains and on one by an ocean. It is an outdoorsy city that has a culutral event seemingly every night. It is still the hub of the music scene, although Austin does at this point churn out better musicians in my opinion. And 78 and sunny with a breeze is damn tough to beat.)

The reason I am writing all this is because we have now passed the halfway point in the college football season.

I was talking to a certain someone from Chicago that shall remain nameless the other day on the phone and I asked her what she thought about the crazy Michigan State-Wisconsin game from the night before.

This is a girl who I have attended MULTIPLE live sporting events with. I know for a fact she knows what she is talking about. She is a good fan and a better ‘Cane. I would not hesitate to invite her over to Casa de Bro for any football game, and once there she would not receive any restrictions on her participation.

(Watching at Casa de Bro is an intense experience, so yes, there are restrictions on who is allowed to attend.)

She said “Dan, I haven’t watched really any football all weekend”.

This is not a girl who needs to have her fanhood called in to question. She’s a busy person who is doing wonderful things to better herself and the world which she occupies. But it did get me thinking about what I miss out on every Saturday when there is no college football to watch. This is not a piece directed at her, therefore, but a post that she inspired.

During the summer months, when the season is getting ready to start, we always feel like we are about to enter the city for the first time in months. Everything feels new and exciting. Training camp reports start to come in. The countdown to gameday goes below one month. Position battles get determined. Like CITY LIMITS signs and highway overpasses used to get me excited on the drive in to the city, every little nugget of information about the upcoming team gets me increasingly excited during the build up to the season.

Then the season gets going and we fall in to a routine.

Not only does it become routine, but all the things you don’t like about it get brought back up. The media suckfest with the SEC. The BCS. The NCAA and its blatant corruption. Nick Saban. The Gators.

It makes it easy to forget the goose bumps you get every time the ‘Canes run through the smoke.

The stadium coming to life on 4th & 1 in the 4th.

The Grove at Ole Miss.

Callin’ the Hogs at Arkansas.

The USC Song Girls.

The feeling of pure elation after a victory over a rival, a feeling only outmatched by the feeling of despair after any loss.

The rise of a true freshman (Sammy Watkins) or the resurgence of a fallen star (Jacory Harris) or the long awaited breakout of super talented recruit (Tommy Streeter, Arthur Brown).

“Enter Sandman” at Virginia Tech.

LSU vs. Alabama.

The Big Ten sucking.

Army vs. Navy.

Oregon’s terrible uniforms.

A southern team whuppin’ a northern team in the title game.

The taste of the first beer around the grill on gameday.

(sub in Mimosa if so inclined)

The Cocktail Party.

Red River.

Kirk Cousins going in to the stands to celebrate with his fellow students after taking down Wisconsin.

Les Miles, the Mad Hatter.

Yell Practice at Texas A&M.

The colors…oh the colors. Oranges and greens and yellows and blues and reds clashing in beautiful contrast.

The sound of a stadium falling silent when the road team goes ahead.

Sitting in my apartment alone on Saturday night because I can’t peel myself away from a game between two teams I dislike, and then screaming for five straight minutes “IT’S A TOUCHDOWN!” when the Hail Mary is completed and under review.

Swagger.

These are the things we miss during the summer. Then we move in to the season and can lose sight. I am guilty of it myself, and I don’t think anyone would ever say I am not a fan.

But every now and then, all you need to do is take a step back and think about how awesome this stuff really is.

I hope my friend in Chicago gets to watch some ball this Saturday, because it really is pure, unbridled emotion. It is all the things listed above and so much more. It is one of the few things left in this world that gets me as excited as the drive in to the city used to.

And there are only a couple more months of it left before another LONG break.

Last week I went 7-2 to extend the season record to 47-19. And yes, the Big Ten still sucks. But what a hell of a game that was in Lansing, huh?

Michigan State over Nebraska (-4)

aTm (-11) over Mizzou

UGA over UiF (+3)

My dream of a UiF 0-October comes to roost. I am happier than a pig in shit.

Wake over UNC (-7)

UPSET SPECIAL.

Oklahoma over K State (+14)

K State will cover.

Auburn (-11) over Ole Miss

Ole Miss wins the party again.

USC over Tennessee (+4)

Stanford over USCW (+8)

Clempson over GTech (+4.5)

Rutgers (+7) over WVU

Former Knight Eric LeGrand is leading them on to the field for this one for the first time since being paralyzed. Yeah, I think there will be a little emotion there.

To my friend in Chicago, watch this weekend (and of course this Thursday night) for your sake, because if you don't, our Sunday phone chat will once again be filled with half-comprehensible ramblings and exclamations from me that I am sure make either your head or your ears hurt, and probably both.

God I love college football.

Always guard the inbound passer.