It’s that time of year when everything becomes pumpkin-flavored, little ones load up backpacks, and I start obsessively looping the “Rudy” soundtrack on repeat. It’s football season!
While I won’t be making a football-specific pilgrimage to South Bend this fall due to other major travel commitments (including a trip home under the Dome for a very special wedding, yay!), I’ve made plans to take in as many games as humanly possible, starting with this weekend’s matchup against the Longhorns. We’ll be at Greg’s cabin, where it sounds like football rules the day on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. With alums of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan in attendance as well, it’s sure to be a long day of cheers and beers.
We also had our office fantasy football draft yesterday, and I had the 9th pick in a 10-person league. Needless to say, with my very minimal expertise and even more limited experience, I panicked a bit. Last year I had the second pick and it was easy-breezy. This year? Yikes. Thankfully, I have guy friends with way more football knowledge than me, and with the excellent (and extensive!) coaching advice of my dear Davids (high school and college friends, respectively!), I ended up with this fine team:
We’ll see how the season shapes up. There are a few colleagues that, being totally honest, I wouldn’t hate slaughtering on the fantasy field. Gotta defend that third-place finish from last year, after all!
Now I’m feeling all nostalgic for campus—cereal in the Band building followed by early march-outs, traipsing around the quads in my uniform so excited for the game, that long, humid first march to the stadium on a day that was inevitably 90 degrees. The claustrophobia and camaraderie of cramming shoulder-to-shoulder into the Tunnel, ready to burst into the sunlight and sound of screaming, rabid Irish fans ready for a victory. The heartache of a defeat or exhilaration of a win, and the raw, scratchy throat that, without fail, took over after eight hours of shouting and cheering. I may not be there in person, but in spirit I think I’ll always be there this time of year.
Onward to victory…unless you’re a Longhorns fan, in which case…go away!