Warts and all, college football game day remains a timeless ritual
By CARLTON REESE
GatorBaitMedia.com
Writing of days gone by and how the present represents a devolution of our sport, our culture and even morays, one risks playing the role of the bitter old man standing still while the world races past. His views deemed iconoclast, his ideas outdated, and his worldview cast not simply as irrelevant, but iniquitous according to the standards of the day, his musings of current affairs are not to be taken seriously.
As one of those born in 1960s, we witnessed the dawn of a new age without the realization of what was taking place. We knew not of segregated bathrooms, restaurants or schools except for what we read about in textbooks. We hit puberty after the great sexual awakening and just as AIDS entered the lexicon. We learned our cynicism of government and authority not from our parents but from Nixon, Boesky and Bono.
We were kids when Catfish Hunter signed one of the first mega-contract free agent deals and our parents scoffed at the notion of an athlete playing a children’s game earning such ungodly amounts of money. We all wondered if the innocence of sports was being replaced by selfish greed – was it all more business than play?
Despite the changes to sports – evolving stadiums, odd fashion trends, the tyranny of television revenues and media saturation – one thing remained constant: we learned that the reason we watched the games was because we enjoyed what took place between the lines. It was never the business of the game that drew us to the game, it was our love of the game that drew business to it.
Today, I reflect on what is happening in college sports and the laundry list stretches for miles all that we can decry as wrong, corrupt, unsavory or against the honor of sportsmanship loyalty. Legal bidding wars for high school players reach millions of dollars, players enjoy relative free agent status every year with the ability to cash in on a strong year by entering a transfer portal. Here today, gone to a rival tomorrow – do not become attached to any player lest you eventually see where their true loyalty rests.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but as I sit here on a Saturday watching a train of college basketball games, I contemplate a question Buddy Martin asked the other night: What brings you back? The question carries much greater poignancy than may seem unexamined on its surface. In other words, you cannot turn away despite all the changes you may hate, and there must be a reason; there must be something good that trumps all that makes you retch.
The question makes me think of the saintly father, who while holding his dying child in his arms, looked to the heavens and thanked God for all the love and goodness amid all that is evil and grotesque. Amid the greatest of tribulations, he was able to notice and acknowledge the beauty and virtue that still existed.
In that spirit, I answer Buddy Martin’s question, directing my focus to what is still beautiful amid the hideous trappings before us: Nothing beats gameday, especially in the south and particularly a mile in any direction of The Swamp. To observe tailgaters before and after a game, the timeless traditions taking place inside the stadium with the requisite sights and sounds that can only take place on Saturdays on a college campus – these moments charge the soul the same as they did 50 years ago.
On the field of play, the games themselves spark emotions just as fiery as when Tim Tebow, Emmitt Smith, Wes Chandler, Steve Spurrier, Charlie LaPradd or even Dale Van Sickel ignited during their times in Gainesville. The growing legend of D.J. Lagway has little to do with whatever NIL deal the young man has, but over his potential to lead the Florida Gators to glory and etch his name onto the pantheon of Orange and Blue.
The spirit of Mr. Two-Bits still roams Florida Field and fans still sway to “We Are the Boys” the way they have since, well, long before I was born. As comfortable couches may be, they will never be a substitute for game day at The Swamp. When Rudy Ruettiger’s father walked through the aisle tunnel at Notre Dame Stadium for the first time, he said, “This is the most beautiful site these eyes have ever seen.” The quote stands for anyone entering just about any college football stadium even 50 years later.
The sights, sounds, smells – the entire aura – of game day in a college town is still the intoxicating elixir it has been since the days of leather helmets. The enchantment surrounding college football remains unchanged while everything around it may be unrecognizable from those days of yore.
So while this bitter old man complains about the disintegration of amateurism, the total disregard for the academic mission of the institutions, the takeover of replay reviews at the expense of the natural flow of the game, the transfer portal rendering a roster unrecognizable from one year to the next, hurry-up offenses making a mockery of the original intent of the line of scrimmage, the nationalization of the game destroying regional rivalries, the playoffs dragging the season out another month and turning New Year’s Day from a college football religious holiday to just another Tuesday, at least there are still the timeless rituals of game days. Warts and all, still nothing beats college football.
By CARLTON REESE
GatorBaitMedia.com
Writing of days gone by and how the present represents a devolution of our sport, our culture and even morays, one risks playing the role of the bitter old man standing still while the world races past. His views deemed iconoclast, his ideas outdated, and his worldview cast not simply as irrelevant, but iniquitous according to the standards of the day, his musings of current affairs are not to be taken seriously.
As one of those born in 1960s, we witnessed the dawn of a new age without the realization of what was taking place. We knew not of segregated bathrooms, restaurants or schools except for what we read about in textbooks. We hit puberty after the great sexual awakening and just as AIDS entered the lexicon. We learned our cynicism of government and authority not from our parents but from Nixon, Boesky and Bono.
We were kids when Catfish Hunter signed one of the first mega-contract free agent deals and our parents scoffed at the notion of an athlete playing a children’s game earning such ungodly amounts of money. We all wondered if the innocence of sports was being replaced by selfish greed – was it all more business than play?
Despite the changes to sports – evolving stadiums, odd fashion trends, the tyranny of television revenues and media saturation – one thing remained constant: we learned that the reason we watched the games was because we enjoyed what took place between the lines. It was never the business of the game that drew us to the game, it was our love of the game that drew business to it.
Today, I reflect on what is happening in college sports and the laundry list stretches for miles all that we can decry as wrong, corrupt, unsavory or against the honor of sportsmanship loyalty. Legal bidding wars for high school players reach millions of dollars, players enjoy relative free agent status every year with the ability to cash in on a strong year by entering a transfer portal. Here today, gone to a rival tomorrow – do not become attached to any player lest you eventually see where their true loyalty rests.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but as I sit here on a Saturday watching a train of college basketball games, I contemplate a question Buddy Martin asked the other night: What brings you back? The question carries much greater poignancy than may seem unexamined on its surface. In other words, you cannot turn away despite all the changes you may hate, and there must be a reason; there must be something good that trumps all that makes you retch.
The question makes me think of the saintly father, who while holding his dying child in his arms, looked to the heavens and thanked God for all the love and goodness amid all that is evil and grotesque. Amid the greatest of tribulations, he was able to notice and acknowledge the beauty and virtue that still existed.
In that spirit, I answer Buddy Martin’s question, directing my focus to what is still beautiful amid the hideous trappings before us: Nothing beats gameday, especially in the south and particularly a mile in any direction of The Swamp. To observe tailgaters before and after a game, the timeless traditions taking place inside the stadium with the requisite sights and sounds that can only take place on Saturdays on a college campus – these moments charge the soul the same as they did 50 years ago.
On the field of play, the games themselves spark emotions just as fiery as when Tim Tebow, Emmitt Smith, Wes Chandler, Steve Spurrier, Charlie LaPradd or even Dale Van Sickel ignited during their times in Gainesville. The growing legend of D.J. Lagway has little to do with whatever NIL deal the young man has, but over his potential to lead the Florida Gators to glory and etch his name onto the pantheon of Orange and Blue.
The spirit of Mr. Two-Bits still roams Florida Field and fans still sway to “We Are the Boys” the way they have since, well, long before I was born. As comfortable couches may be, they will never be a substitute for game day at The Swamp. When Rudy Ruettiger’s father walked through the aisle tunnel at Notre Dame Stadium for the first time, he said, “This is the most beautiful site these eyes have ever seen.” The quote stands for anyone entering just about any college football stadium even 50 years later.
The sights, sounds, smells – the entire aura – of game day in a college town is still the intoxicating elixir it has been since the days of leather helmets. The enchantment surrounding college football remains unchanged while everything around it may be unrecognizable from those days of yore.
So while this bitter old man complains about the disintegration of amateurism, the total disregard for the academic mission of the institutions, the takeover of replay reviews at the expense of the natural flow of the game, the transfer portal rendering a roster unrecognizable from one year to the next, hurry-up offenses making a mockery of the original intent of the line of scrimmage, the nationalization of the game destroying regional rivalries, the playoffs dragging the season out another month and turning New Year’s Day from a college football religious holiday to just another Tuesday, at least there are still the timeless rituals of game days. Warts and all, still nothing beats college football.
