FOOTBAW!!!

It's football season! It's football season! OMG IT'S FOOTBALL SEASON!

I debated last night between the gym and ice cream. Andy assured me that it's fine to have ice cream because IT'S FOOTBAW! So the gym got skipped. Again. I was told I was sexy for texting score updates. Yeah, I'm kinda awesome. (subliminal message: you should date me) I know that every Saturday for the rest of the fall will be spent in front of the television watching games. Whether it's 80 degrees or 40. Except for the Saturday where I'M IN BATON ROUGE WATCHING IT LIVE! *happy dance*

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I was not raised on college football. I was raised on the church of baseball. But after my first LSU football game, I was converted. It was as if I'd been to Catholic church all my life and suddenly found myself in a revival tent speaking in tongues and being baptized. "Oh, these slightly crazier, less uptight people? These are MY people." I discovered that while I will always love baseball, once I finally got over the betrayal of the strike, for it's slow Sunday gentleman like pace, I was a girl designed for the violence of football. I like hits. Hard hits. Lots of them.

I love tailgating and the way everyone cheers all the way into the stadium, that giant concrete behemoth not far from the banks of the Mississippi River. I love marching bands and the smell of whiskey and pots of gumbo. I LOVE WEARING SHORT SLEEVES AT NIGHT! Sorry, I had to yell that one. But if you've ever heard me lament the fog that is just so freaking pervasive over SF, you know it's true.

It was a way of life I was never indoctrinated into. My parents didn't go to college. My high school was no football powerhouse. I didn't even know high school football was a Friday night thing 'til college because we played it on Saturday! Yeah, I know, I dunno. California is weird, yo. My grandfather was a 49ers fan but reserved time and effort for dumping into the boys. I knew it took over my TV on Saturday's but I didn't really get it.

And then: through a serendipitous series of events I ended up at LSU, the farthest away from home school I got accepted to. To this day, quite possibly one of the best decisions of my life, to attend a school in Baton Rouge I knew next to nothing about.

On that first Saturday, that first fall semester way back in 1998, I had NO idea how much a part of my life this would all become. How important it would all be to me. How every Saturday that you pull me away from the TV will be painful. (Like tomorrow, when I'm stuck on a dinner cruise in the bay for my aunt's 50th birthday.) I didn't know then that I would find it hugely superstitious to not wear purple on a Saturday when LSU is playing. That I'd plan vacations to visit a town in South Louisiana. That I would sleep with a regulation helmet and a replica of the stadium in my room. I didn't know, until those first chords were struck lo those many years ago, that Pregame would give me goosebumps for the rest of my life.

I may not be an expert in football. I know basics. Shotgun v. under center. 3, 4, 5 wide receiver sets. I can name the positions. I know head coaching changes. I know Nick Saban is evil, Steve Spurrier was when he was at Florida, and that Les Miles is just as bat shit crazy as Brian Wilson. I definitely know more than most guys in my expanded circle of friends and WAY more than in my close circle of SF friends. My fandom isn't from birth. But somehow, coming into it on my own makes it that much MORE special. This was by choice. My choice. A gift by virtue of a school I attended (not some bandwagon hopping Florida fandom, like people I know in the Bay).

And with that, after a lonnnngggg summer, I excitedly welcome the start of a new college football season.

GEAUX TIGERS!!!