This year, your favorite wearer of the SportsPants was blessed with the ability to attend the National Championship game at the Rose Bowl between the Texas Longhorns and Alabama Crimson Tide. Here is my journal of my three-day stay:
Thursday January 7: Tired. My dad snores and I’m a light sleeper. Snoring center can do wonders, Dad. Doesn’t matter since he bought me a one of those caramel apple cider things from Starbucks. Plus it’s the big day and I’m ready.
We have to leave our hotel at 11:45 for a game that starts at 5:00 pm. The drive takes an hour and the beer is already being consumed at an alarming rate. These are 55-year-old people gunning beers like they’re back in college. I can only hope they will be alive by game time. I feel a simultaneous mix of awe and sadness for them. After all the beer was the piss water known as Coors Light. No one should be forced to drink that on a hot bus with the smell of bathroom chemicals wafting through the cabin. At least give us Shiner Bock. We’re Texas fans for God’s sake.
The Rose Bowl is nestled in valley surrounded by beautiful mountains. It really is a stunning sight and I’m mesmerized... right up until we hit the stadium approach. I’m used to stadium traffic, but the Rose Bowl is a whole new level of suck when it comes to this. The stadium was built forever ago when traffic jams like today weren’t even a thought. To get there, you have to go down tiny residential streets, which is needless to say, slow going. Slooooow going. Outside, every street resident stands outside holding homemade signs that offer parking for $10. Men are directing Range Rovers full of college football fans onto their undersized lawns assuring the drivers that their pretty cars will be safe.
All around the stadium, collections of fans have music blaring from their speakers, food grilling, footballs being tossed, and lots of screaming. You can’t walk more than six feet without hearing a “Roll Tide” or “Texas Fight” cheer. There is so much hounds tooth my eyes begin to cross. Apparently, the good people at the Rose Bowl weren’t ready for this crowd because trash cans quickly begin to overflow and lines to the portable toilets are forever (always get in line for the bathroom at these things as soon as you think you need to go soon. Don’t wait until your bladder is floating to get in line.)
The tailgates get old after a while, so my dad and I head into the stadium early. Again, slow going. The Rose Bowl can’t host this crowd, so we are forced to move like we’re at a department store on Black Friday. Except beer is sold. Nice idea for the department stores next year. Dangerous? Of course, but entertaining as well as store clerks can watch sleep deprived women swing flat screen televisions at each other.
Back to the game: I have a bone to pick with the Rose Bowl, ABC, or the BCS…whoever is in charge of the refreshment stands at the stadium. We had a choice of Bud or Bud Light for beer. That’s it. Now I’m not going sit here and waste time ripping on Budweiser. It’s for some people and not others. The point is that we didn’t have a choice. I don’t want just Coke, I want something else just in case (Dr. Pepper or Root Beer if your counting at home.) This is freaking' America and football is American. I know Bud is too, but I want a choice as my God given American right. If you don’t let me bring in my own yum yums, you’d better supply me with something.
Not that any of it mattered. To get a beer, you’d have to stand in line for basically a quarter of the game. Needless to say, I stayed sober as I watched the game.
The build up to these games are, in my humble opinion, the best part of the day. You can feel the electricity cruising through the stadium. The sun is just setting behind the surrounding mountains and the players come out for warm-ups. I’m listening to the Black Eyed Peas singing “I Got a Feeling”. I hate the Black Eyed Peas. Yet I enjoy this song today as Colt McCoy jogs out of the tunnel to thunderous cheers. The Texas players gather at midfield and begin slam dancing to get pumped up. It’s enough to make my punch someone. Luckily for my dad, I refrained.
Man, I’m ready to GET IT ON! Which is funny since I will be doing nothing more than standing and watching, but I’ll be watching with intensity reserved for puppies staring at a treat in your hand.
The bands explode as both teams come out and the moment has come. It’s time to put a stop to all of these S-E-C chants. I’ll put Texas up against any of them.
Bama gets the ball first and Texas blows the offense up on the first series. The Tide try a fake point only to get it intercepted which gives Texas the ball with a short field. We couldn’t have asked for a better start. The Horns begin moving the ball right down the field. Oh yeah, baby. Marching.
And then it happened. Colt McCoy, the Longhorns all everything quarterback, the guy who is the most decorated and veteran of any player on the team, runs a simple play to the left and takes a hit to his shoulder. It wasn’t a crushing blow. It looked like any other play. Yet it hit in just the right place. McCoy gets up and motions to be taken out as his shoulder hangs limply at his side. If you held up a microphone up, you could hear all of the air rushing out from the Texas side of the stadium. Talk about shock and awe.
*Attention Alabama fans: it’s not a real classy move to cheer when a player gets hurt whether he’s on your team or not. Code red for you because you showed no honor and God was watching.*
You know the rest. Alabama proved to be a solid team and built a first half lead that Texas couldn’t quite come back from. All us Texas fans could do was leave the stadium, heads down with just a dream of what might have been had McCoy been able to play. Them’s the breaks, but it still sucks.
We returned to our hotel to find a surprising amount of Texas fans at the hotel bar drinking heavily. No time for beer. Hard liquor now. Hey, it’s a way of coping. The pity party raged for a few hours until the bar television started to show a replay of the game. The Longhorns fans scattered like rats on the Titanic. It was the end of the night and no amount of liquid courage could distract us from reality. We just went through a season of ups and downs and took a pilgrimage out the Rose Bowl only to see our team lose. My dad summed it up when he texted his wife the word “sh*t” about 900 times in a row.
Bedtime on a saddened evening. There will be time to reflect, but now is the time to wallow.
Tune in for Part III coming soonish.
