ARCHIVES: What we mean when we say “Fight On!” or “Roll Tide” or “War Eagle” or…

Hello Fellow Football Fiends!

(This post originally ran on September 20, 2007)

This is gonna be a different kind of post for Gridiron Goddess. It focuses on the intangible feeling alums of certain universities get when they say “Roll Tide” or “War Eagle” or, of course “Fight On.” So read on, I hope you enjoy it and WAHOO Another weekend of football is nearly upon us. Oh, and I happen to think this picture of all the USC fans doing their Fight On thing here is a beautiful, sacred thing.

Some people have a security blanket. Some people have a teddy bear.

I have a security sweatshirt.

On Saturday morning, er, almost afternoon actually, as I crawled out of bed close to noon and grabbed my white hooded USC sweatshirt, it suddenly occurred to me just how many events in my life that particular sweatshirt has been witness to.

In February 1987 my father and I went on a road trip. It was my Senior Year of high school and we were off on the obligatory father-daughter bonding college campus trip. We loaded up the banana mobile (a yellow Oldsmobile station wagon that was the bane of my existence until I embraced it for its gigantic 8 cylinder engine) and set out for Southern California.

On our agenda: University of Southern California, California State University Long Beach and the University of San Diego, where one of my best friends was a freshman.

First up was USC, being the closest. It was also not a school I intended on attending. We got lost. We got lost in such a bad neighborhood that when we got to USC, its neighborhood seemed good. Anyone who knows about SC knows this is so far from the truth that it is laughable.

I wanted to go to Long Beach and major in Art. LBSU has a great art program. And if not there, to USD where Didi was and Jodi was going to go. USC was a VERY distant third.

Until I stepped foot on campus. Just seeing the carved rock entrance signs that say University of Southern California gave me chills. And they still do. Seeing the red brick campus and all the students and everything going on there— it was what college was supposed to be. At least to me. So I marched us to the bookstore and bought a sweatshirt. A white hooded sweatshirt with USC on it in Cardinal and Gold.

And it was this moment that I knew this was where I was going to college.

It was this sweatshirt I wore to my Long Beach State visit. It was this sweatshirt I wore to my USD visit. It was this sweatshirt I was wearing on the drive home when we got snowed in at Mountain Pass and had to backtrack to Baker to find a room for the night. And wore to bed because there was a hole in the window, the heat did not work, and the advertised cable television out front that we were so relieved about—well, every time the lobby TV changed channels, so did the one in our room. My Dad and I laughed and laughed and laughed that night.

It was this sweatshirt I wore to nearly every football game of my collegiate career. It was this sweatshirt I wore on every break home—just so that everyone knew I no longer lived there, that I’d gotten out and was going to a fabulous school.

It was this sweatshirt that was at the ready when my parents told me they were getting divorced. It was this sweatshirt that was there when nine years later, they remarried each other.

It is this sweatshirt I am wearing in my first ever picture with my newborn niece. She is now 15 and looking at USC in her future.

It was this sweatshirt I wore when I moved to San Diego. It was this sweatshirt I wore when I moved back to LA. And nearly every weekend for twenty years. It’s been to Chicago, to Las Vegas, to New York, to San Francisco, to Phoenix, to Tucson, to D.C., to Orlando, to Hawaii, to Philadelphia, to tiny Ely, NV; to Paris, to Cabo San Lucas, to St. Thomas, Antigua, Anguilla and St. Martin.

It was this sweatshirt that I wore when I went thru the not changing my clothes phase of breakups with the most serious and loved of my exboyfriends.. It was this sweatshirt that I again turned to when I made the difficult choice to leave The Philly Fan because it was healthier for me. It is this sweatshirt that until recently, I did not even realize had been such a witness to my life. And such a talisman of comfort and home and family. When I chose USC, I took the first step into my adult life. And it is fitting that this first purchase at my school would become my oldest surviving and still in use and most beloved sweatshirt.

Linus ain’t got nothin’ on me with his blanket.

FIGHT ON!

-Your Gridiron Goddess, who will replace this picture tomorrow with one of her in that aforementioned 20 year old sweatshirt. When I am not, you know, drunkity.

Goddess in Training: Kristen on Bama vs Arkansas

Let’s talk about Bama. The hiring of Nick Saban in January of this year was heralded by Bama faithful as proof that Bama will return to national prominence, and at this point I have to believe it myself.

I’m not one of those Bama fans who worship the Bear and talk a lot about the past, because let’s face it, I was born a week after Bryant died. I’ve never witnessed Bama as a national power, unless you want to count the ’92 national championship, during which time I was probably skipping rope and playing with dolls.

But as soon as I decided where I was going to school and stepped foot on the University of Alabama campus in 2001, I’ve been Tide faithful. I was in school during the (very short) Franchione era, then he decided he would do the reverse Bryant-from-A&M-to-Bama thing. Though Fran’s had yet to show any real progress over there at A&M. Then I witnessed the Mike Price debacle. No stripper jokes, OK? Then we hired former Tide quarterback Mike Shula on the fly. His honeymoon lasted a mere four years, and now he’s back in his home state of Florida coaching the QBs at Jacksonville, which is probably the only position he was any good at coaching in the first place.

So. Saban. So far this year, he coached us to an easy win over Western Carolina, and a pretty easy turn over Vandy. Then there’s last night’s game at home vs. Arkansas. Really, I think the game was vs. Darren McFadden and that’s about it.

I’ll admit I lost faith in the second half. I said to the boyfriend, “They’re not going to pull this off, are they?” But the boyfriend said kicking the field goal with 4:20 remaining in the game to put the score at 34-38 was a smart move by Saban. Luckily, we held off the gargantuan McFadden and co. near the end, and Alabama QB John Parker Wilson passed 4 yards for a touchdown to Matt Caddell with just 8 seconds remaining. 41-38! I couldn’t believe my eyes. I danced around the living room and our neighborhood erupted in shouts of “Roll Tide!” (We live just 45 miles away from Tuscaloosa, so there’s a lot of Bammers around).

To put the icing on the cake, Alabama’s two biggest rivals, Auburn and Tennessee, suffered bad losses to Miss. State and Florida, respectively.

At 3-0, I believe that Alabama can hold off Georgia next week, Florida State the week after, and continue on with no losses until LSU. Oh the irony! The team that Saban built could be Alabama’s downfall this year. We’ll see. Until then, Roll Tide!

-Your Goddess in Training Kristen