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 Football Must Be Great Because...After going several years without seeing a Division I-A college football game in person, I've managed to get to two games in the past couple of weeks. I wrote on these pages about the experience in Corvallis in the previous commentary; this week, the report is live from Autzen Stadium in Eugene. Although I still can't say it was quite the Florida Field experience (a sold-out crowd in Gainesville could just about fill both Reiser and Autzen Stadiums), it was, without a doubt, closer to the real deal. The Ducks can fit 25,000 more fans into its stadium which, like Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, completely surrounds the football field and allows the fans to reasonably affect a quarterback's ability to bark out signals and manage the clock. Duck fans also seemed more intent on being disruptive, although a major difference between my Autzen and Reiser experiences was that the latter I sat in the alumni section (with the orange and black clad 80 year olds wearing headphones) and at Autzen I was standing on the bleachers for the whole game in the student section. This may account for my feeling that the crowd was more alive, and also had unexpected consequences which will be reported on shortly. The focus of this report is not so much on the differences between Oregon and Oregon State, or even the differences between Oregon and Florida. Rather it is about tangible proof that football must be great. Why? Because I simply had a terrific time last Saturday, even though my experience to the non-football fan will read like a nightmare! To have survived the trials and travails of Saturday, November 16, and to have emerged with a positive view of it (I'd do it again), is incontrovertable proof of the fun of seeing a college game.
But I had some tunes on the CD player, and I had some amusements along the way. Several vehicles were of course decked out in U of O paraphernalia, including the most school spirited drive I've seen to date. One gentleman that I zoomed past had a green pickup truck with Oregon Duck bumperstickers and magnetic U of O signs. He had the requisite small green and gold Duck flag on the driver's side window and a green and gold wind sock flapping on the passenger's side. The bed of the pickup held a large University of Oregon flag, and the window of the cab had University of Oregon lettering. As I passed, I noticed the green soft football on the dash, and that this fan was wearing a somewhat outdated Oregon jersey. I got the feeling that the Duck fans knew how to do it up rightly. I was also put in the mood for some football by the banner on one overpass that read "Huck The Fuskies!" Not bad, you say. In fact, I made good time to Pony Boy's pad in Springfield, and was even treated to a scrambled eggs breakfast that couldn't be beat. As we ate, the sun came out, and it looked like it would be a beautiful day.
And that's just about when the day ended! Oregon students don't pay for football tickets per se; instead, they pay a fee with their tuition and can pick up tickets whenever they want. There appears to be some paranoia, though, that students will use this mechanism as a scalping financial opportunity, and therefore no one is admitted into the stadium with a student ticket without showing a University of Oregon student ID. Besides the obvious lameness of this policy: a student couldn't sit with his visiting parents, or a girlfriend or boyfriend who goes to Oregon State, there is the far more serious concern that such a policy prohibits the Webmaestro from entering the stadium. Not any Webmaestro; I'm speaking of our beloved Webmaestro who got up at 6:30 am and drove 2 hours to be here. Pony Boy and I were aware of the rule, we just were unaware that the rule was being enforced. I was turned away at the gate! The ticket checker demanded my student ID, and when I admitted I wasn't a student, refused to accept Pony Boy's rather incontrovertable defense that a student had given me the ticket, no scalping involved. We suspect our Gator gear proved to be a red flag for this stickler to the rules.
And it was so. The student section at Oregon starts in one corner of the end zone and spans several sections of seats along one sideline up to about the 35 yard line. Halfway up, Pony Boy tentatively approached an usher, who requested his ID. Pony Boy is not the current leader of the Picks Page by accident! Thinking on his feet, he began to bombard the usher with irrelevant questions. How far do the student seats go? Maybe we should sit further over? Blah blah blah. I took my cue. Flashing my ticket to a second, more occupied usher (Pony Boy's questioning creating an impatient line), I slipped through the cracks. The system can be beat, I tell you, but not without ample subterfuge. We wended our way to decent seats toward midfield. Oregon was impressive, jumping out to a 14-0 lead. The second drive was a 98-yarder (the field position caused by an amazing 80 yard Washington punt) capped off by a circus catch in the back of the end zone. We were screaming like any good Oregon students, even as I cast sidelong glances at the gestapo at the top of our section. And while the game remained fun, everything deteriorated. I got my true November Oregon football experience, after the sunny Oregon State game. It got cold. It got blustery. The skies spat at us, first timidly, and then with contempt. The Oregon offense crumbled. The Oregon defense crumbled. Then came the downpour.
Wahington scored 42 unanswered points. This meant we could move down close to the Oregon bench in the fourth quarter in the wake of leaving fans, but other than that, the only good football news was the score reports that convinced us that Georgia would lose to Auburn and Florida would capture the SEC East. Drenched, we still had the muddy jog to the car. Once there, we learned that Georgia had made an amazing comeback and that UF would be denied a shot at an SEC title. The final part of the nightmare came when I met up with my old nemesis: Interstate 5. Just outside of Eugene I came upon traffic at a standstill. Already late to get home (guilt at leaving Rebekah and Kathryn alone on a Saturday belatedly taking hold), it took me one hour to creep 3 miles to the site of a detour. Sadly, a fatal accident ahead had caused the closure of the highway. The detour took us out of the way and made the two-hour drive an hour and a half longer. But here's the moral. I was cold. I was wet. My team lost by 4 touchdowns. I was harassed by the stadium security forces. I was stuck in traffic when I was tired and missing my family. And I'm ready to do it again. Next on the list: Seattle? |
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Things started off on a promising foot. Pony Boy had snared a couple of student tickets, which meant I had my second consecutive free ride. All I had to do was make the 2 hour drive from Portland to Eugene along I-5. I have grown to hate I-5 with a passion. All of my previous experiences with this particular interstate have been headache-producers, but the morning of the 16th seemed to be an exception. The only drag was that I had to set out at 7:30 in the morning for complicated reasons that needn't be elaborated on here. Point is, I was pretty tired.
The sun didn't last long, and neither did my good luck. Pony Boy suggested we park about a mile from the stadium and go on foot from there. We would dodge the incoming traffic, and, more importantly, the outgoing traffic when the game was over. The trek took us along a standard muddy Oregon path; scenic enough (see picture), and also wet enough. The walk took about a half an hour, but was really quite pleasant. It was only the last 300 yards or so when we saw any people, and then it was thousands in green and gold, streaming into Autzen. Pony Boy and I were in Gator gear, however (see picture).
We naturally did what any reasonable football fan would do (one that is not drunk, any way). We tried another ticket checker. I breezed past her, and was on the grounds of Autzen Stadium. I anticipated our next trouble, when I told Pony Boy that the ushers in the student section likely performed an additional check.
I'm the only Oregonian that doesn't own a rain coat. I was drenched except for my pants, which I would take care of at half time when I sat on the wet bench. Unable to leave the student section (they were checking IDs throughout the game), I asked Pony Boy to get me a hot coffee. Naturally that presented problem two, which was that I had to go to the bathroom the entire fourth quarter. (After leaving the bathroom after the game, I joked "No good. They were checking student IDs at the urinals." We managed several jokes in that vein, of course.)