As some of you know, my wife is the academic advisor for Sociology, Behavioral Science, and Health. Those three departments happen to comprise the vast majority of all football player's majors. This being so, the Director of Football Operations, whose name is Sonny, called my wife and told her that she had been chosen as the "Honorary Academic Coach" for this year's Homecoming game. As Honorary Academic Coach, she had been awarded a sideline pass for the Homecoming game and her name would be announced at halftime.
My wife, who is not at all a football fan, told Sonny, "Great, but I'm not going to the game without my husband. Can I have another pass?"
He squirmed in his chair and said, "No, but if you tell the gatekeeper that I said he could get in, then there won't be any problem."
I laughed when I heard that. I refused to believe that I could get in based on a "Sonny said so" argument. But it worked. We got past the guards at the field gate without a hitch. We asked where we should stand, but they didn't know. They directed us toward the south end zone. We stayed there for about 10 minutes. Coach McBride popped his head out of the locker room and shook hands with some of the people. Apparently, they were family members of some recruits here to see the game.
I said to UtahGirl (my wife), "Let's go meet the coach."
She resisted, saying, "No, no, no."
I pulled her with me. I walked over to McBride and said, "Coach, it's good to meet you!" I presented my hand for shaking.
He looked at me with a "who the Hell are you?" kind of look, but he shook my hand regardless. Then he shook UtahGirl's hand. I wanted her to introduce herself as the Honorary Academic Coach (mostly to see if he had any idea what it was all about since Sonny didn't give us any details), but she didn't do it. She just mumbled something about how it was nice to meet him, too.
I don't remember if he said anything. I think he just smiled and nodded. A strange man, indeed.
I took a closer look at the sideline pass and it read "ACCESS BETWEEN THE 25 LINES". So I said, "let's go over to the sidelines." We walked past the cheerleaders and found a spot between them and the mass of big men and photographers. We stood at the south 20-yard line. It was interesting. On my right were the biggest, meanest men on campus. On my left were the littlest, giggliest women on campus.
At first we watched the game while standing behind a row of big tall guys. But it was hard to see, so UtahGirl got bolder and nudged herself toward the front of the sidelines. I warned her that she'd better watch out, because when those big guys wrapped in plastic gear run out of bounds, they can flatten you like a pancake. Fortunately, the closest we got to pancake was when Steve Smith (#7) broke loose for a 50-yard catch in the 2nd quarter and was pushed out of bounds near the 10.
From our vantage point, we got great looks at Utah State's first two scores. The defense came back to the sidelines pissed, for sure. Hunter the Punter trotted past me on his way out to the field. Damn, what a big man he is!
By the time the score was 0-10 for the Aggies, the sidelines were a little restless. Players were upset, cheerleaders were bummed, and coach Mac was swearing up a firestorm in the ears of the referees. But things only got better from there, as you know from watching the game.
Putting the game aside, I found the happenings on the sidelines just as interesting. The fraternities had staked out all of the front-row seats. The front rails were bursting with testosterone as the cheerleaders egged them boys on. With the catcalls and flirtations, the party was just getting started.
The one thing I could have lived without was the constant bad mouthing from the students: "Hey, number 25, you suuuuuuuck!" "Hey ref, you suuuuuuck!" "Hey, number 32, you suuuuuuuck!" All game long. The players and coaches must learn to block that stuff out, or else it's all they can hear.
Halftime drew near and I watched with curiosity as Dave Fox of KUTV News pointed his camera and microphone at the guys on the front row. It was one of those rowdy, obnoxious fans shots that you see for half a second at the start of the game recap on the local news. Dave and his cameraman came over and stood next to us and watched the remaining seconds of the half.
The sidelines cleared and we moved over to the wall below the stands and sat down. It was pretty cool. I had stood on the sidelines for a complete half of football and nary a blue shirt had questioned my presence. It was a far cry from the militant blockade that formed at the close of Senior Night that stopped us from partying on the floor with Andre and Co.
I
watched with curiosity as the frat guys in the front row beckoned to the
cheerleaders with chants of: "Water, water, water!" "Please can I have
some water?" "Please, please, please can you get me some water?" "Water,
water, water!" So they did. Booze dehydrates, you know. Cup after cup of
water was passed to the front row by the obliging cheerleaders. One of
the cheerchicks (pictured) even gave a cup to the fratdude whom she had
dated on Friday. His friends razzed him and she blushed. It was like soap
opera city down there.
I watched with even more curiosity as the obligatory gang of mostly naked students streaked across the field and tried to escape into the student section. All but two got away. One of the unlucky was trying to climb the wall, but an ROTC guy (who had been operating the cannon) charged over and bear hugged him so tight that he couldn't get away. Some Event Staff came over and helped pull him down. It was a tug-of-war between the Event Staff and the Fraternities with this mostly naked guy as the rope. The bouncers won.
Halftime passed without UtahGirl's name being announced. That surprised me not at all.
The players filed back onto the field for the 2nd half, so we got up and moved back to our spot on the 20. Unfortunately, most of the action was at the north end, so the players moved up there for a better look. The cheerleaders had vacated to elsewhere in the stadium, so we were left standing by ourselves. It was then that one of the more militant staffers noticed my lack of a sideline pass. We were approached and asked to leave.
"But Sonny said I could bring him along," pleaded UtahGirl.
"Who is Sonny?" asked the blue shirt. (Ten bucks says that Sonny knew that his name wasn't going to mean shit to the blue shirts on the sidelines.)
"He's the Director of Football Operations."
"Well, I don't know any Sonny. Steve is in charge of passes. You'll have to talk to Steve."
Who the Hell is Steve?
So we bailed off the sidelines. We found my brother and FlushBoy in the stands and watched the rest of the game from there. We had to put up with a large group of Aggie fans that had somehow managed to get a large chuck of student seats. But they were quickly subdued as Jay Hill's 2nd interception helped cap a 14-point swing that sunk the Aggies.
I'm not sure where these Aggies were from, but they were breaking out their "drunk Utah fans" and "uneducated Utah fans" takes. They even broke out some "Feterik, we want Feterik!" smack. I couldn't figure out if they were stupid or were Zoobies in disguise. My confusion was compounded by the fact that some of them had been in the stands for last year's Utah-Zoobie game. They talked a lot about how Jenkins was flattened by Olevao, right over there (pointing at the 40). Two of the Aggie fans knew more about this year's Utes than I did. They knew about Brandon Dart's 7th year of eligibility (as Dart was being carried off the field -- AGAIN!!!). They knew a lot about the local players. They knew Mike Anderson's numbers and abilities. And they also mentioned something about being at the Zoobie-CSU game on Thursday. I couldn't tell if they were Zoobies, Aggies, Utes, or just plain old football junkies! And they were all wearing navy blue Aggie gear!
Anyway, the game ended and we left. I forgot to go down to first row to check how many empty bottles of rum and vodka were left behind. But we went home happy, waving our Ute flags and "Utah #1" foam pointy fingers to anyone who would look. Thus ended my evening of complete emersion into that bizarre subculture known as University of Utah Football.
UtahBoy
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