As college football stadiums around America get emptier by the minute, we need writers like Dave Bratcher to remind us why we so love those Saturdays in the fall.
As we made our way into the stadium, a few things struck me. These things are applicable to life and need to be mentioned. Across the United States, Saturdays in the fall remind us of what true equality looks like, teach us why keeping score is important, and loyalty is not to be taken lightly.
When fans show up to cheer on their respective teams, discussions about race, religion, wealth, or family lineage do not factor into the discussion. The things which sometimes divide us, even on Sunday morning, are completely irrelevant on Saturday. Nobody cares what color, what church, how much money, or who their parents are. The identifying factors and circumstances of our lives are completely forgotten about when the teams take the field. This is to be praised.
Guess ol’ Dave missed the $100,000 per box luxury seating! Look up, Dave! See the rich people up there, divided behind glass enclosures from the yahoos? Only the rich people in the stadium get to drink alcohol, Dave! These things are applicable to life and need to be mentioned.
October 24th, 2013 at 9:12AM
“Regardless of the win-loss record of your team, your support of them never dies.”
Nothing like a motivational speaker to blur the distinction between normative and positive truth-claims, is there? Loyalty shouldn’t depend on winning or losing, says ol’ Dave – and therefore it doesn’t, all the vast amount of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Don’t like the reality you’re seeing? Make up a better one!
October 24th, 2013 at 9:44AM
And lord knows race (race!) has never once affected any kind of college sports in the U.S. Not once. Ever.
Goodness.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:17PM
There is, of course, one thing that divides us on Saturday, and that is what color uniform we wear. If you wear the other one, prepare for verbal abuse to be the least of the problems you face.
October 24th, 2013 at 1:18PM
Reading that Bratcher blurb caused violent flashbacks of every football coach I ever had to deal with. I suppose the Romans put aside all their differences and reveled at the sight of gladiators killing each other, or people being torn to shreds and eaten by lions and such. Universities are facing the very real possibility that many of their brain damaged footballers may one day start demanding some compensation for their addled states. Does it occur to those remaining fans that their putative school loyalties are based on the real maiming of their supposed student athletes? Does it occur to Bratcher that abysmal grad rates of those athletes underscores that few of them are capable of doing grade school work, and should be now where near a college campus? Nah, all that matters is that we continue in this contrived allegiance to some myth of college sports being something far more important than the quality of the education produced by that college. Gotta run, gotta get me to the latest NASCAR end of race crash….