Several years ago when my ballet career was over I decided to leave New York City and focus on one thing, College Football! I applied to every college with a major football program on the east side of the Mississippi and, being the superstitious lady that I am, decided to go to whomever I heard from first. It was a glorious day ordained from heaven when I became a Buckeye, but more importantly I became a part of a larger family, the NCAA College Football family. Every Saturday we commune in bars, parking lots, homes, you name it, and from sun up till sundown, we cheer and scream, drink and eat, and live and die with every play, because, we are … college football fans!
I made a trip last weekend to my alma mater, The Ohio State University, and was immediately struck by how badly I longed for that most glorious time of year, football season! The first time I ever set foot in the Horseshoe on gameday was one I will never forget; a sea of scarlet and grey, palpable excitement, beer flowing like wine, making new friends every stumble along the way, The Best Damn Band In The Land playing “Hang on Sloopy,” and thousands of people there for one purpose: to cheer our team to victory. There is nothing in the world like it, and there is nothing like college football season! So here they are ladies and gents, my top ten reasons I am so desperately wishing it was football season, in no particular order…
I have a kind of tunnel vision when it comes to sports, and I wear it proudly. I have mountains to fling myself down in the spring and tennis to occupy me in the summer, but there’s nothing gets my blood going like the divine brutality that is football season. (What? Our god is a vengeful one. Look it up.)
OK, first, I didn’t go to Michigan State. But I would rather eat a bag of aquarium gravel than cheer for UNC, so yesterday I was all “Go Green! Go White!” all the time, even though my entire family was decked out in a shade of blue that they call “Carolina ” while I defer to J.Crew’s description of “Rich Peri” in a sad attempt to feel better about the tees I just ordered.
There were about 10,000 other unique snowflakes rocking the light blue, since the game was in Winston-Salem which is only about five Cracker Barrels away from Chapel Hill. From all the seersucker, the Topsiders, and men named Worthington Fenimore Tartarcontrol “Whitey” Textilemill, it was obviously a Tarheel crowd.
