Flashback

Today is the official kickoff to the start of college football season, a formal holiday as celebrated by my husband. Now, as I've divulged in the past, football season in general leaves me widowed for months on end. I have explained my absolute dread for the Fall, knowing that it would bring months on end of constant cheering, yelling, and couch-dwelling for my significant other. This year is no different; I know from today until February I have lost my husband on Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and whatever random days they stick games these days. I know this, I'm prepared for it...but it doesn't make it suck any less.




However...



Today is also the first home game for my South Carolina Gamecocks. I don't know yet what it was, but I was flashed straight back to this exact same day, eight years ago, when I attended my first game sporting Garnet and Black. I remember as we stocked up days before at the bookstore, grabbing anything and everything we could to rep' our team. I remember the day of the game, pressing temporary tattoos on the side of my face with a dripping wet cotton ball. I remember filling our 64oz coffee mugs with Cruzan Coconut Rum and pineapple juice (now I know where those 30lbs came from). I remember driving in Lee's Blaze through the gates of the Fairgrounds and emptying out into a sea of people, gathered from all over the state, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. Up until this day, I had never attended a college football game. I definitely hadn't attended an SEC college football game. I don't think anything anyone could have said could have prepared me for the 100,000+ people filling the entire fairgrounds, adjacent streets, parking lots, front yards and driveways. I learned a lot of things that day; extreme heat and humidity can lead to monsoon-like rainstorms mid-game, garnet colored bandannas will bleed like crazy when soaking wet, and wearing more cocktail-appropriate attire was mandatory. I also learned that some people get freaking crazy serious about their team spirit (I couldn't count the number of Gamecock tats), tons of sugar+alcohol=massive headache, and the chills that run down your spine as the final chords of 2001 Space Odyssey play and Cocky emerges from his smoke-filled platform will rival nothing else.

Fall 2002

Over the next three years, our tailgating style changed...64oz mugs of sweeter than saccharine cocktails turned into a flask of bourbon in my purse, Gamecock branded gym wear morphed into strapless dresses and strappy heels, parking in the 'grounds became unnecessary as we (oh so intentionally) moved into an apartment across the street from the stadium. We went from walking around aimlessly to hanging in the frat tents to partying with one of my all-time favorite families and half the city of Graniteville, SC in the BP parking lot. And yes, you could RENT spaces at a gas station parking lot to tailgate for the low price of $100+/game. South Carolinians don't mess around. I learned that an 8pm kickoff means 9am tailgating, Tequila Rose shoots easier than amoxicillin, and that a true Southern football fan will arrive with no less than 14 containers of deviled eggs, barbecue, chips, dip, steaks to be grilled, pies, cobblers, assorted cheeses, a relish tray, and even a gosh darned smoker pulled behind the car.

Fall 2004

Fall 2005...Yes, I flew in for a football game a week before leaving for Dublin

I remember when I finally made the decision to study abroad, one of the first things that came to my mind was "Holy crap, I'm going to miss my last football season at Billy B". I didn't love football then, and I most definitely still don't, but something about the camaraderie, the team spirit, the sense of togetherness that a football game brought to the University of South Carolina for those weeks in the Fall had me hooked. As Kiel and I put the game on (at 4:30 our time) and watch the lights of "The Cockroach" shine onto the thousands of fans wearing garnet and black, dizzy from one too many bourbons, and jumping with excitement as the notes of 2001 are belted out from the band I'll feel a pang of jealousy and sadness that I'm not still a student, that my year doesn't revolve around those 8-12 games at home. I'll think of how far I've come since that first game in 2002, how much I've accomplished and how many places I've been.

I'll still get those chills.