As a sea of red and white floods Camp Randall and the crowd's roar grows, I tremble a little on the squeaky bleacher below. I turn around to a fan resembling a drunken Ronald McDonald screaming ""Yeeeaaahh!"" in my face and giving me a hardy rock-on sign. I nervously laugh and look around the entire stadium. The energy immediately hits me—it's overwhelming, but I like it. The school spirit of UW-Madison students never ceases to amaze.
However, the concept of this spirit is somewhat new to me. Like wild barbarians—face paint and all—Badger fans are ready to defend their territory against anyone who challenges them. On Saturday home games they march into battle after a long morning training of beer pong, beer bongs and keg stands. And although I like to prepare as much as the next game attendee, I sometimes feel a bit like a phony.
Not a phony because I don't love Wisconsin or appreciate our hardworking athletes. But a phony because I'm not really doing any fighting myself. To be perfectly honest, I usually don't know what is happening on the field. Almost every game, I ask one of my football-enlightened friends or the man nearby with the neck resembling my waistline what's going on.
""OK, so it's third and goal and Stocco's about to run a play action. Jeez, I really wish Bielema would air the ball out more. He keeps..."" I respond by violently nodding and saying ""Uh huh"" and ""God, I know"" a lot. But approximately 17 seconds later, I spot something shiny across the stadium and proceed in directing all my attention to it. It's nothing against the person I'm talking to—it's just that all I hear is foreign jargon and something about bulemia.
In high school, I was even worse, and knew our football team far from dominated. In my mind, I asked myself, ""Would getting decked out in orange and blue or even attending the games make a difference on the scoreboard? No, so why bother."" And no, I wasn't too busy calling my fellow students neo-Nazi conformists if they were really into our games. But that just wasn't me. I wasn't a huge fan of our mascot either. Willie Wildkit was just this strange sort of lion/dog creature resembling an orange Chewbacca. Kind of weird.
So that's fine if you want to call me a fair-weather follower for buying season tickets to a sport I ignorantly and scarcely watch. I know I'm not alone. But now I've realized it's not the football I really want to be a part of—it's the sense of unity, community and pride. Nowadays, I find myself putting a sweatshirt with Bucky's protruding chest on my not so protruding chest and saying, ""Damn it feels go to be a Badger, yo... word to your mutha."" Well I don't say the second part, but I'd like to.
So from now on, I'm just going to jingle my keys, yell ""asshole"" and jump around with the football game in mind (actually, not really) and the school spirit in my heart. Maybe later this season, I'll even work up the courage to get up and surf during rowing. Then again, I can easily see myself wiping out big time and drowning in the stands. And N-38 is a long way from shore.
