My Fandom

There are so many reasons to choose whom you root for and they are all valid. Whether it is bandwagon or the team of your parents, the school you went to or where you grew up. I root for both the teams where I was born (Minnesota) and the teams where I grew up (South Florida) and my college (University of Florida). And while I would never root for another college my professional fan allegiances have worked out well. The teams in Miami and the teams in Minneapolis all fall into different conferences and rarely have I had to choose one side over the other. If I had to I would take Minnesota because those were the teams I loved first. I will never forget my trips to the Metro Dome to see the Twins as a little kid or my Mom taping me the final innings of the 1991 World Series for me. I still have my Homerun Hanky. My rooting interest in Florida sports came somewhat later and has never held the passion that the Minnesota teams get. But, when Florida got a baseball team I was a fan, same with the Heat and the Panthers. So, the majority of my sports attendance took place in South Florida and while I do not live and die with those teams I do care about how they do. Of course, none of the pro teams even come close to how I feel about the Gators.

 

I have an unhealthy obsession with University of Florida sports. I remember times in college when instead of going out on a Saturday night or afternoon after a loss I would just go to sleep. In 2001 when we lost to Tennessee at home and subsequently lost our chance at SEC and National titles, I sat in the stadium until we were forced to leave. I was physically unable to get up and believe it was over. Of course, a month or so later I would be in Charlotte when a Vol told me that Steve Spurrier was quitting. The following three years have made the losses easier to handle. And the past two years have made winning almost routine. And when I look back on all the losses and all the wins, not just for the Gators but for all the teams I follow, it adds up to one pretty special life of fandom.

 

In my nearly 27 years I have celebrated 9 Championships. That is quite a lot and even if you take away my secondary allegiances in South Florida I have still enjoyed 6 championship seasons. And it’s the Championships that is why the Minnesota Twins are my first love, how could they not be, I was 6 when Kirby Pucket and Kent Hrbek were beating Ozzie Smith in the World Series. I was 10 when they won their second and even though it has been a long time since they have won another  I still root for them and watch them every chance I get. Even through the down years I found something to get excited about. But, this isn’t about being a fan through the downtimes, every real fan goes through those times. This is about how fortunate I have been in my fandom and really I have done nothing to earn it. I was born into a small market that overachieved in baseball but has been disappointing in hockey, football and basketball. I moved to an area where the favorite team, the Dolphins, have not done anything my entire life, but the upstarts basketball and baseball franchises have won championships. The only fan allegiance I actually had to choose or try to get into was UF and even there all I did was apply, get in and go to class. Not that being an alum is even necessary to being a college athletics fan. But, I did apply to one school and one school only, I got into that school and joined the thousands of other students in becoming a member of that community. So, I had the time of my life there for five years and in return I have cheered on 2 basketball championships and went to one BCS title game. Even in a season where the Vikings are not looking great outside of AD, the Dolphins are terrible, the Timberwolves are playing for ping pong balls and the Heat look like they are slipping, how can I complain about a down year? The Gators are rebuilding and reigning Champs and since I am averaging a Championship every 3 years I am fairly certain that the down times will be outweighed heavily by the good ones.

Back from the Crescent City

I am home. Sick. Tired. And broke. But, even with the Gators losing, this trip was totally worth every cent. Here is my day by day recap of the trip:

 

Wednesday:

Mint and I left my house a little before 1 pm to drop off his car and then head to BWI. With the time change and everything we ended up landing in New Orleans around 8:50 pm. So, it was a really long day. At the airport we met up with Scott and headed to the W hotel on Poydras St. which is conveniently located right next to Harrah’s casino. The hotel was great, one of the nicest I have ever stayed in and we had a pretty nice view. After dropping our luggage we quickly headed out towards Bourbon St. After all, that’s what you do in New Orleans. As many would expect it was dead on a Wednesday night, there were people in the streets but most bars were pretty empty except for what looked like a convention crowd blowing off steam. After bouncing around for a few hours we decided it was time to hit the casino. Mint and Scott ended up at Caribbean Stud while I played Blackjack one on one with a dealer. By the time I sat down to play I was in that rare combination of drunk and tired where everything felt like a dream. It is entirely possible that I nodded off for a few hands but I still walked away with a few dollars of the casinos money before calling it a night.

 

Thursday:

We woke to overcast skies and lots of rain, the perfect day to just stay in and rest up. Even though we wanted to be out and about we just weren’t willing to walk around all day in the rain. We did make a few stops during the day, hitting the Harrah’s buffet for breakfast and getting a nice lunch at Mother’s. After lunch though, we spent the rest of the afternoon in bed watching TV and listening to the pouring rain outside our window while we waited on the rest of our crew to arrive. The second wave arrived around 6 pm, checked in to their room and settled in. We walked around the casino a bit before heading out to Port o’ Call for dinner. This place had amazing burgers and the look and feel of a place you would only see in New Orleans. It was all wood interior, very cramped and the clientele just oozed with Southern stereotypes, from the older suited gentleman at the corner of the bar to the drunken Cajun who looked like he had been there all week. After eating we headed out down some back streets towards Bourbon for another night out. Again, the architecture of the city was stunning, it is one of those places that just has a feel, a look, that if you were dropped into town blindfolded it wouldn’t take you long to realize where you were. And you don’t even need a landmark to do it, just the looks of the buildings all seems familiar and unique to this city. As the night wore on and our group grew larger, 7 total, we visited many of New Orleans famous bars, spent a couple minutes on a balcony, and drank some of the staple drinks like the Hurricane at Pat O’s. Again, we ended the night at Harrah’s where I won some more of their money before calling it a night.

 

Friday:

I awoke Friday morning to King and Scott discussing the arrival of more of our friends and as I was now awake I volunteered to join the trip. We got coffee and some food from the hotel before heading to the airport to get a second rental car and Shannon. All the while two other friends who had just landed in Baton Rouge decided to drive in for half the day. After meeting back at the hotel our group of now 10 decided to go eat lunch in the French Quarter. We took a long walk on a terribly humid day to the Gumbo Store where we had some of Louisiana’s finest cuisine. Gumbo, Jambalaya, Crawfish etouffee, you name it we tried it. Of course, combining hot sauce with the already stifling heat and forgoing water for beer might not have been the best plan but it did make for a great meal. After eating we headed over to Jackson Square to look at the art for sale and watch the street performers. By this time it was getting on into the afternoon and some of us had dinner plans in Baton Rouge so we had to get a move on. But, we could not leave before stopping at Café Du Monde for beignets. After the beignets, my car with Scott, Shannon and Mint left for BR. We luckily, just beat some nasty traffic and made great time. After arriving at Scott’s brother’s place we were treated to plenty of beer, tilapia and shrimp etouffee over white rice with a broccoli and cheese side. In short it was an amazing dinner, surprisingly cooked by an LSU grad student. Then we went out, which was just like any other bar in any other college town in America I imagine. Though, there were very few cabs in town and lots of drunk drivers, I am not even sure they have enough police to give out all the DUIs we witnessed. Though we did see a pretty entertaining one where the driver was so smashed the cop had to move the kids car off the road. And on that note to end our night we all walked home very carefully, staying as far as possible from the road.

 

Saturday:

Game day!!!! So this is what we made the trip for. Everything leading up to it was just an appetizer, an amazing one no doubt, but just a warm up. Our crew by Saturday had actually swelled to 12, but we were split up, with 4 of us staying at Scott’s brothers and the rest staying at another house. In this scenario where I stayed at sophomore’s apartment and slept on a reclining chair, I got the kind of sleep you would expect. But, I really didn’t need much. Mint and I woke up early, as did Shannon, so we strolled out while everyone else was asleep and got the best breakfast you can find without looking very far, McDonald’s. We also got a laugh out of the drunk drivers car from the night before still being in the same spot. We ate our breakfast and before we knew it we were on our way to the middle of the LSU campus right behind the Gameday set. On our walk wearing our Gator colors we really didn’t run into too many obnoxious fans. We hear Tiger Bait a lot but nothing really cruel until later in the day. Our first stop was at a Fraternity tailgate which was actually pretty impressive, a large tent in the middle of campus with a DJ and a bunch of kegs. This was even more impressive given that in Gville, kegs are not even allowed on campus and the fraternities do all of their pre-gaming in their respective houses. So, for what its worth I found the LSU set up much more enjoyable, obviously there are drawbacks to this but I think there are plenty of positives to having everything out in the open at a central location. Anyway, after spending some time at the tailgate we headed out to meet up with our Gator tailgate at another great location. We had a tent, a couple coolers and plenty of food. During the day, we drank, met friends and enemies, ate, and walked around. It was a beautiful day out and I don’t think any of us, especially those of us with tickets could have asked for anything more.

 

 

The Game:

At night we finally got to take in Tiger Stadium. This place seemed enormous and when they wanted to be the LSU fans could be insanely loud. We had seats very close to the field which were great but also made watching the game a bit difficult. Still, sitting in the Gator section and cheering on our team while they put up quite a performance was an awesome experience. I am now 2-2 on the road in the SEC and hope to continue going to games at new stadiums. But right now I have to say that the LSU experience will be hard to beat. Alabama was great, Tennessee was fun, but LSU was just a monster of a trip. Even with the loss it is not something I will soon forget.

 

Sunday:

 

Another long travel day. We left Baton Rouge early for New Orleans, had our final lunch and headed to the airport. Then I spent the rest of the day sneezing, coughing and blowing my now from one airport to the next and then on the long drive home. A day that started early in Baton Rouge ended very late in Northern Virginia. And now I think I will need at least a week to recover. Thank the scheduler for a bye.

Haven’t done this in a while

A couple of years ago I was working on the road over St. Patrick’s Day, when it also happened to be the opening weekend of March Madness. At the time I was alone in a hotel room watching games and had a lot of things I wanted to write about but nothing longer than a paragraph or two, so I just wrote about all of them in one monster post. Since, I have not been posting very regularly anyway; I figured why not try that again. So here goes. Feel free to skip to something you like.

 

 

On A Somber Note

I didn’t even realize it until I woke up this morning but it is the 6^th anniversary of 9/11. Granted I have taken a pessimistic view on the subject since day one but it has changed the country and it has resonated for some people for a long time. I prefer to listen to Colin Powell on the subject when he says that terrorism is not the biggest threat we face as a nation because acts of terror will not in themselves change the American way of life. Only we can do that, and hopefully we are strong enough to not let outside stimuli force us into giving up the tenets that we live by. Still, I doubt I will ever forget where I was that day, the way I felt and how the rest of that week unfolded. The mood that day in Gainesville is one that I have felt on very few occasions and it will stick with me for a long time.

 

On a lighter note

September is still my favorite month of the year and 1/3 of the way into it September is living up to the hype. After going for months without much activity in the DC area I have spent plenty of time going out, not making it home at the end of the night and just doing my usual drinking partying that comes with football season. Unfortunately, the Gator bar makes it really hard for me to watch games at all; I mostly just sit around drinking and talking to people until I lose my voice. After Labor Day weekend my voice was completely gone, after the Viking game on Sunday it was only half gone, thankfully the NFL is not all that exciting or I would have been done for.

 

Summer, what happened to you?

I don’t mean that in the sense of where did it go, it was definitely here, it was definitely hot and I did get to enjoy parts of it. No, my question is more about how summer has gone from my favorite time of year to my least. My childhood ranking system looked like this:

1. Summer
2. Summer
3. Summer
4. Summer

 

Adult ranking system

1. Fall
2. Spring
3. Winter
4. Summer

 

How the heck did this happen? I have two theories on the subject. The first being that as I grew up a Floridian the only seasons I knew of were Hot, Hotter, Hurricane and rain at 4. The second theory is what I like to call Summer Camp syndrome. To this day I will bump into people who will bust straight into summer camp talk. It happened on Saturday, it happens all the time, and the conversations are always the same, people talk about what camp they attended and what cabins they were in and then begin playing the name game. But, that has nothing to do with my theory, at least not directly, no; Summer time without summer camp is simply hot, rainy and bad TV. But Summer time with summer camp is the outdoors, new friends, lakes and kickball and if you go on to be a camp counselor it also means remote locations and drunken nights. Every June I seriously consider quitting my job to go work at sleep away camp, but every time I realize its not the best idea and decide to suffer through another boring summer with bad TV, bad weather and bad movies.

 

I am a bit of an introvert

I think I have always known that to be true, though I am not sure people who know me understand. So if you care, read this little article that I stumbled upon. I am not as bad as the description it gives but there are some definite similarities. I don’t consider myself anti-social as I do need social interaction as well as time alone but I definitely get that feeling sometimes of being overwhelmed by too much face time. This summer when I spent 5 of 6 weekends out of town either visiting family or working I was constantly with people. When I finally got back to being home for a while all I wanted to do was decompress and spend some time alone. So, I did that until September started.

 

I could keep doing these short things all day but I will stop here

I am going home tomorrow for Rosh Hashana. I have not been back to Florida in six months and I am really looking forward to my trip home. My mom ordered challah and is making homemade chicken soup and brisket and I just can not wait. It has been far too long since she has made me a home cooked meal, so I will forgive her for making me cook as well. I am also really happy that the holiday lines up perfectly with the UF-UT weekend so that my cousin and I can drive up and see our beloved Gators in person. It is sort of becoming a family tradition as we attended the game last year in Knoxville.

 

 

And on that note I am out, maybe I will put up some pictures after the game or something, it has been a long time since I have posted pics. I actually do not think I have put up any pics of myself, maybe I will. I can guarantee that if we barbecue you will see pics of what we eat and probably a bottle of Jim Beam.

It is Finally Back

Nine long months of waiting came to an end last night when the college football season officially began. Thus we are entering my favorite time of year, September, when fall is approaching and Saturdays are all for the Gators. It is the time of year when Orange and Blue are the only colors that really matter, when vacations mean taking a long weekend to a road game or heading back to Gainesville. I have already begun my preparations for tomorrow’s kickoff and have begun looking even further down the road. Flights are booked for Tennessee, rides to the game are being finalized and tickets are being searched for. Emails have actually been circulating for weeks amongst my friends in preparation for the season; we are already planning our tailgate on the first weekend of October. Some of us have flights booked to New Orleans for the UF-LSU game while others like me have made arrangements for Tennessee and FSU, but am waiting on a friend before finalizing my road game.

 

So what does a Saturday look like for me?

 

We have friends visiting DC for the holiday weekend but that hardly changes my weekly gameday routine. I plan on getting up early Saturday morning so hopefully tonight will not be too crazy. I will have my breakfast and drink my coffee out of my blue Gator mug. I actually used to have two mugs, one orange for away games and one blue for home games but the orange one broke. I also used this method at times when deciding on which Gator shirt to go with, but have since changed to going with the HOT shirt, so I will wear the same shirt to every game until we lose, then switch to another one. I am still unsure of which shirt I will be wearing when we kick off tomorrow. I could go with my grey Gator football shirt, that’s what I was wearing in the desert for the National Championship. It will just come down to feel and of course in two weeks when I am in Gainesville I will have to make a stop at the campus bookstore to purchase more gear, maybe a MNC T or a new coffee mug or a sweatshirt, heck I will probably buy one of each. You can never have enough Gator gear. Back to the topic, after I have finished eating I will probably hit the gym, I get too antsy before games and usually like to do something to keep my mind off it. Since the game tomorrow is early, 1230 kick, I will rush home from the gym, shower and throw on the chosen gameday outfit and head out for the Gator bar. Once at Baileys in Ballston I will order the greatest chicken fingers and extra honey mustard ever served followed by numerous buckets of beer. We will eat, drink, the Gators will win and then we will celebrate. Because its an early game most people will head home to relax after and then go out later. If it were a night game or a later start there is a good possibility we all head out in gameday apparel and annoy the rest of DC in our blatant obnoxiousness that comes with being Gators. We are after all the champs at just about everything. So, there you have it, a typical Saturday not spent in the Swamp.

 

Here is what I am looking forward to during my favorite time of year:

 

9-1: Kickoff of the 2007 season enjoyed with great friends

9-8: A relaxing tune up before the SEC season starts.

9-15: My first trip to the Swamp in over a year, tailgates, family and Jim Beam

9-22: No watching, no eating, no drinking, its Yom Kippur and some things are actually more important than football

9-29: Round out the great month watching UF get revenge on Auburn (hopefully)

 

And then one week later we kick off October in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. This fall is going to be great and it all starts tomorrow.

On Second Thought

At first glance that picture probably makes no sense at all. Bare with me and it will make plenty of sense in no time. You see, I am one of those people who can really over think just about any situation. I will go over things in my mind time and time again constantly going back and forth on one decision or another. Even decisions I have made in the past I will usually question in the aftermath. One that comes to mind often these days was the summer before my final semester in college. Due to a car accident the previous fall I was 12 credits from graduation. I was offered a job at a sleep away camp in New York and I took the job. Still, literally right up until I got into my car and began my driving up to NY I was having doubts. Shouldn’t I complete my degree over the summer instead of waiting until fall? That is the responsible thing to do after all and I like to do the responsible thing when possible. Anyway, I made it to camp, had an amazing summer and then a fairly stressful but enjoyable final fall.

With that little moment of nostalgia out of the way I will further explain that odd little picture at the top. Recently, I had made a decision to move out of Virginia, something that I have been attempting basically since I got here anyway. A few months back that decision was to move to NY and for quite a good amount of time I was very happy with that decision. Then one day out of the blue I began having these longings for a move to Florida. At the same time as my indecisiveness grew work became extremely hectic and my next project became unsure, making my move more complicated than before. So, during a rather boring and long meeting I began doodling that little list to compare my 3 current options and the ranking them as I saw them. As you can see I am quite an artist, but even with the help of my lovely little drawings and ranking system I am no closer to making a real decision with only a month to go. So, do I follow the example of my summer camp decision and stick with my first choice or do I give value to my little spreadsheet and make the most responsible choice?

Shacking up

When I was in college, must have been sophomore year, one of my roommates had a girlfriend who spent so many nights at our place she affectionately became known as just Shaq. To this day I can not remember which roommate she was dating nor what her real name was. However, what I am getting at here is less about the girl than it is about the roommates. As someone on the wrong side of 25 I am starting to desire my own place, not that having roommates for the past 8 years or so has been a bad experience, but I would like to enjoy my own space for a little bit. And as I get older I am beginning to wonder if that will ever happen. The only time I can remember having my own space was one semester in college that I had my own room in the fraternity house. So now I see two paths I could take.

 

On one path I could continue doing what I have been doing, going from roommate to roommate and on the other I could find my own place for a little while. The thing is to afford my own place I would be limited in where I could actually live. So, if I continue with my plans to move to New York then I ultimately have no choice but continue with the roommates. Or, I can declare my independence, move to Florida and live alone for once. And if that is the path I should choose I won’t have to worry about who my roommates are dating or what their names really are, I can just remember that Shaq plays for the Miami Heat and that is the end of the story.

Girls miss college more than guys

This is probably 100% incorrect, it might be rude and it’s almost definitely idiotic. Still, it seems to me that the girls I know openly miss college more than the guys I know. Sure, my guy friends and I reminisce and often times like to talk about how much fun we had but never in those conversations do we get to wishing for a return. It’s not that we are more mature or grown out of that partying stage; I think it’s just that we came to terms with it and realize that we can still date and get away with hooking up with younger girls, who sometimes are still in college. Girls, on the other hand, usually skew older in their preferred mates, making it harder to relive the same type of NSA enjoyment that came from long hours of $1 beers at the Salty Dog. Plus, it is much harder to be a cleat chaser outside of school. The big prize for guys is still the same, insert hot girl to make friends jealous, but for girls it is no longer the starting QB, some baseball player or the president of the fraternity, it’s your boss, any random rich dude or some other person in a power position. Not as glamorous as say for example hooking up with me would have been a few years ago.

 

Ok, Ok, hooking up with me would still be quite a prize, just not the same since I am now either younger or the same age as most of the young women I am surrounded by and no longer carry all that much influence. This still works well for me since my age range is anywhere from 5 years younger to 10 years older. I am hardly discriminating in the age category, as for everything else; well that is an entirely different story. But, lets get back on topic, frequently I hear my girl friends talking about how they want to go back to Gainesville or some year that they had a lot of fun in college and I really think it comes down to more than just the hook up factor, there is of course the lack of real responsibility, the carefree attitude and well, the drunken hook ups that were so much easier to pull off when everything you need is within 4 miles.  Unfortunately, for all of us there is no going back, and we can not get away with the things we used to do like proctoring an exam still drunk from the night before. But, we do have other things to look forward, and when I can actually think of them I might just write about it. Until then girls, keep on chasing cleats no matter how much harder it gets.