Sunday, August 28, 2011

Annual Ode to College Football

I sent out an email the other day to my friends alerting them to the fact that it my favorite major holiday: college football kickoff Saturday. LSU opens with a marquee game against the Oregon Ducks. (La la la la I can't hear anything else about legal woes, fingers in ears!) I'll be at North Star bar watching the game with Abita. I have been lobbying, quietly and to no one who cares, to make this the LSU bar for a few years and alas! it is! I win something I wasn't even trying to win! (I also went there last night, through a series of random events, and despite a guy wearing Affliction bumping into me often, had a bizarrely good time. Even if it is the bar where I met The Dude who... sigh. Memories.)

Most of my friends won't be watching with me due to an ex-friend's wedding, which is a bit of a bummer because I love amusing them as I scream nonsensically at the TV about "goddamn hit the motherfucking summabitch!" Sorry for the swear words but that's really how it sounds around here on Saturdays. More than once my non football understanding mom has shouted down the stairs to see if I am okay, thinking I am being attacked. I used to laugh at her and be all, "Yeah, I'm fine." Now I yell back, "NO I am NOT okay! The freaking quarterback couldn't find the broadside of a barn, let alone the wide receiver AND just threw into double coverage when he paniced! GEEZUS!" (I'm not an expert, as has been pointed out, but I get a bit of it. Which considering I wasn't raised on football is pretty good, in my humble opinion.)

Anyway, not getting to share this with most of my friends, as they celebrate nuptials, is a bit of a bummer. However, I am so glad to not be friends with this person anymore, for a lot of reasons, but right now: only in the non-South does some asshat have a wedding during football season. WHO DOES THAT? No one in their right mind that I know, that's for damn sure. There are about four acceptable weekends a year to get married if you hail from the South. I call dibs on the weekend after conference championships/before bowl games in December. Then you have most of the summer if you aren't die hard baseball and really that's a 162 games so you can spare a weekend. From September to January, if you even THINK about having a wedding on a day when major games are going on, you know that half your wedding party is gonna be parked at the one TV in the bar pouring over scores. (Digression: I have been mentally planning weddings lately. And having dreams about them. I blame this entirely on some stupid wedding magazine that is taking up residence in our bathroom that I mindlessly flip through when in there. I mean, seriously. This is me. I'm not even dating anyone/hate everyone right now so WTF, brain?)

Despite some friends not being there, others are going to be watching with me and that makes my wee little heart happy. Because these are people that mostly could give the slightest thought to sports generally. When someone who has the mildest passing interest in sports IMs you, "I am oddly excited to go watch sports with you again!" out of the blue, you feel like you've actually accomplished something. It is a small accomplishment, but in this non-college football obsessed city, it's a victory.

The fact that San Francisco is not at all a college football town was covered beautifully right here. That condescending tone? Drives me nuts. Look, I'm fairly accomplished. I went to college. I know a thing or two about a thing or two. Being a football fan does not negate my intelligence, ironically tattooed hipster who loves Burning Man. 

In fact, I have lately realized that nothing will coalesce your beliefs like having them attacked. This person whose wedding is next weekend once told me, "I think being a fan of sports is stupid. Like really stupid. To be fair, I think being a fan of ANYTHING is stupid but football is particularly dumb." Oh, well now, that's a pretty unforgettable indictment on my core beliefs. Mainly: nothing makes me giddier than college football and things that make me happy make me a better person and being a better person is good. (Yeah, really glad to not have this person in my life anymore.) For all the various things in my life I would change, ending up accidentally at LSU, loving it, and falling in love with football is decidedly not one of them. My personality generally hovers somewhere around apathetic. I don't do extreme poles of emotion. An ex used to get mad at me constantly for not being more excited about everything ever. College football is not one of those things. It brings me this bizarre happy sense of joy that very very little else does. And I'll be goddamned if someone tells me that's ridiculous ever again.

So with that I say: bring it on! Bring on four months of insanity and grass eating and losing but still winning and clock management jokes and my obsession with the color purple and the fear of the jinx and the heartbreak and Lou Holtz mumbling through broadcasts and being up insanely early to watch College Gameday because I live on the West Coast and texts from the stepsister, college roommate, and other various assorted friends about the games. Bring on a loathing of: Rocky Top, creamsicle orange, Bama, Nick Saban, all things Auburn, and playful smack talking in crowded bars.

Can. Not. Wait. For. Next. Saturday...

GEAUX TIGERS! BEAT THE DUCKS!

(P.S. The dude in San Diego who told me I was angry and The Dude...Sigh are both going to Dallas for the LSU/Oregon game even though neither of them are alums of either school. The cruel injustice of it! Temptation to text something witty: high. Temptation to drive to Dallas because wtf not? and try and procure a ticket: also high but I am a mostly rational person with no actual funds so I won't be doing this.)

No comments:

Post a Comment