Go Trojans!

No, I did not have a bad parenting day and decide to publicly celebrate birth control (Trojans...condoms...get it?). No, today we went to our first ever college football game! It was one of the things on our list of things to do while we're in L.A. and as a USC student David thought he should support "his" team.

As you probably know, college football is kind of a big deal down here. There is a very fierce rivalry between USC and UCLA. When I auditioned for my choir the conductor, a UCLA alum asked what brought me to L.A.. When I told her that my husband was going to USC she said, very scathingly, "oh... the other school". I laughed but she wasn't kidding. I'm kind of surprised that I got into the choir! Well we weren't able to go to a USC vs. UCLA game but we thought a game against the Washington Huskies would suffice.

So to get in the spirit of things we went a bit early to check out the tailgate party which consisted of about a bazillion tents set up in the quad at the university. Pretty much every club, group, and organization had a tent set up. There was one for Latino USC students, USC parents, Jewish students, etc. Not to mention all the sororities and fraternities such as phi kappa sigma not to be confused with sigma kappa phi. It got me thinking about belonging and how we all want to feel as though we're a part of something. Apparently it isn't enough that they all go to the same school and cheer for the same team, they need to compartmentalize themselves even more. I'm thinking about started my own group for wives of USC students that like hummus.

So the tents were surrounded by people milling around and eating and drinking. Every tent seemed to have food but I was unsure if it was free for the taking. Can I take hummus from the Gay & Lesbian student tent if I'm not a lesbian nor a student? We saw a couple of guys shotguning cans of Coors light which made me comment "is there any point in shotguning light beer? Is it just like drinking normal beer at a normal pace?"

From the tents we headed over to the stadium. We were immediately struck by how seemingly sedate the crowd seemed to be. We found our seats and looked around. Then David noticed it. Nobody had beer! We were shocked! We had really been looking forward to eating some popcorn and drinking $10 watered down beer! Isn't that what football's all about? Suddenly I was wishing that I had shotguned a Coors light.

I'm not what you would call a football "fan". I understand the general rules. I get it that you have to get the ball across the field and you only have so many downs and you have to gain so many yards in a down and all that. My problem with football is that there so much downtime. There's about 5 minutes of set-up for a play that lasts 10 seconds that may or may not actually be exciting. I find my mind wandering when everyone's just standing around and then I miss the action. I don't know if it's my years of watching hockey (a game that actually has constant action) but I had a hard time staying focused. At one point David said "what these guys need are some skates! Then things would get interesting!". And what's with all the penalties? The whole point of the game is jumping on top of eachother but heaven forbid they should grab someone's facemask! For a game with so many stops and starts, I found all the penalties unbearable! I think the penalties in hockey are if nothing else more impressive sounding. Slashing! Roughing! Cross-checking!

But enough complaining about football! It turned out that USC were the far superior team. They made some really impressive plays and there were some very exciting moments. Of course, when a touchdown was scored the fairly calm crowd when wild! They have this thing they do that is hard to describe. It's sort of like a hail Hitler salute but with a peace sign (kind of contradictory, I know). The band would play a song and everyone would wave two fingers up and down to the beat. I felt a bit like I was in a cult or something but it was sort of fun. Another highlight was that whenever the Trojans got a touchdown their mascot came onto the field. Was their mascot some big freaky furry animal suit? No! Whenever they got a touchdown a white horse named Traveler would ride out with a man on its back wearing a full Roman warrior costume complete with metal breastplate and drawn sword.

The horse, if you can believe it was not my favourite part of the touchdown (or the 6 points scored for that matter). My favourite part was what I like to call the "stranger high 5". Everyone around us would jump up and start high 5-ing eachother like we were all best friends. It made me think again about that feeling of belonging. Yesterday I didn't give a crap about football, let alone this particular team but there I was today high 5-ing strangers like the happiest thing in the world had just happened. It was kinda nice.

So if you ever get a chance to see college ball I highly recommend it! I didn't even mention the marching band that had about 500 people in it. David kept talking about how dorky they were. I couldn't really disagree but I'm guessing it's not easy to walk around with a tuba on your shoulder playing a song, marching in time, and lining up with 499 other people to spell the word "Traveler".

Fight on! That's what people in the USC "family" say. You wouldn't get it. You're not part of the club.