Once upon a time I did not live in Alabama, and thus had no real concept of College Football, let alone Team Loyalty.
But then we moved to Alabama when I was twelve, and my brother and I came face to face with the
requirement (I’m not making this up) that we wear our “favorite team shirt” for spirit day at school (that was seventh and second grade, respectively).
My mother dutifully loaded the two of us into her car and took us to Wal-Mart (big excitement in our little town back then), where we were faced with row upon row of crimson-and-white vs orange-and-blue. My brother and I were bewildered- what should we choose? We didn’t know- and we didn’t care, beyond not wanting to endure further torment from people who already thought we were hopelessly alien and weird. If we thought about college ball at all we thought about Air Force Academy (our dad’s alma mater) but that was not going to cut it in the Heart of Dixie. Finally the three of us came to a decision- we had always kept cats, so we decided that a team with a tiger for a mascot couldn’t be that bad, in spite of their horrible color preferences.
Hence my family became nominal Auburn fans. We still didn’t care, we still didn’t watch any games, but by golly we had our shirts to wear on spirit days and people left us the hell alone about it. (Auburn had the added benefit, for me, of being the preferred team of my A#1 Crush at the time, but let’s not examine that too closely…)
Fast forward about ten or eleven years, to when my brother was applying to colleges- he dutifully applied to both Auburn and Alabama, and in the end Alabama gave him more money. And boom, my nominally-fans-of-Auburn family became Alabama fans. But what is strange is that we became genuine fans. Perhaps moreso, in the beginning, for my mom and brother, but when I married Nathan I came over the actually caring part of being a fan (although the twelve-year-old in me is still horrified that we have betrayed A#1 Crush…) (which is very likely a factor in why I still root for Auburn every day but the Iron Bowl…).
So there’s the history of my Fanhood. Which leads us to today, when Nathan and I got to go, for the first time ever, to an Alabama football game. My boss (a huge Auburn fan, himself) worked with a friend of his to get me tickets, and then gave me the day off to boot. How sweet is that? Pretty dang sweet. My boss is excellent. My original plan had been to surprise Nathan with them, but I ended up telling him about a month ago so that he could ensure the day off (obviously Thursday is not a typical day for a college football game). But he was still really happy and excited, which was the point (he’s been a life-long fan and never gotten to go).
Kickoff wasn’t until 1830, but we drove out there super early to take some photos and such. I’d asked my brother for his recommendations for where to eat lunch, and although he gave me a few he suggested I’d be better off asking one of his friends that still lives there. So I harassed said friend on FB, and he directed us to Wilhagan’s. I had hoped he could join us for beer and catching up, but he was unable to get away from work… ah well, maybe next time. Anyway, we took his advice and holy cow- the food there was amazing. I hate a blue-cheese burger which was one of the best I’ve ever had, and Nathan had a pork shank platter that impressed even me. It had some sort of sauce on it that is probably illegal in some states, it was that good. And he topped it off with an oatmeal stout, which he deemed "tasty". So we rolled out of there fat, happy, and full of enough calories to carry us through to game time.
We spent the next four hours wandering around campus, taking photos and reminiscing about college and just being happy to be off work and together. Then we headed back over to the stadium so we could watch the players do their little pre-game-strut, and I will admit it was pretty exciting even for non-obsessive me to see the young men I’ve been cheering so hard for over the past few years. Plus Coach Saban. Oh my yes, Coach Saban.
::cough::
Anyway.
We were pretty foot-sore by that time, so we headed on up to our seats, which were admittedly nose-bleeders. But here’s the thing- once we were up there I realized they were actually pretty great seats, because we could see everything, and we were sheltered from the wind and rain (there wasn’t any rain, but it did threaten a bit). And then our seat-neighbors showed up and turned out to be very nice people that we chatted extensively with. We were a great curiosity to the group in that corner, since we obviously were not the regulars…
The game itself was great to watch- I’d thought it would be really hard for me to tell what the heck was going on without slow-mo-replay all the time, but I actually followed it quite well. And the lack of “color commentary” was just about the sweetest experience I’ve ever had. I wish every game was like that.
I must say, I was quite proud of Georgia State, playing against Bama in the inaugural season. Nathan points out that they got lots of money to do it, but whatever- I completely cheered when they made their touch-down. I was so happy for them! What fantastic stories they’ll be able to tell someday (because quite frankly a 97-yard kick return touchdown is pretty freakin' impressive any way you slice it). The fans near us were very amused by my wanting GSU to score at least once, and I even got them to admit that it would be okay. So see- I have gone out in the world and spread the gospel of the non-dickish fan. Join me, brethren…
That being said, I’m glad we won. And I’m glad we got to see our 3rd and 4th string guys play. We had a wonderful time, and it was so exciting to be there, and I would definitely go to another one… although I’d prefer a slightly earlier kick-off, since I was falling asleep on the ride home. Poor Nathan.
(Gameday)
