The offending separated stubs--I swear ocifer, I didn't do it!

by Glen A.

It isn’t often that we take in a sports game in person, but every now and then we’ll go to a stadium or arena to take in a football or basketball contest.

We have friends who grew up as Utah Utes fans, something that is kind of rare to find out of the confines of Utah. It happened to be that Utah had Oregon on the schedule, and since Evan and I are Duck fans, we accepted the invitation to go to the game.

The day, as it can get in mid-September in the mid-Willamette Valley, was cool, cloudy and threatening rain. The rain did eventually show up, though it didn’t really pour, but we were able to enjoy our own version of tailgating before the game. We ended up parking several blocks away from Autzen Stadium and set up a covering and tables while the food got cooked.

Now, most tailgaters will do some kind of steak, or burger, or sausage, but in our case, since Angela was along, we cooked up some carne asada for tacos. It was very good, along with the chips, salsa and desserts. It was a great way to start our game day experience. It didn’t take very long to clean up everything and stow it away and then we were walking to the stadium.

Along the way we joyed the flood of fans heading to the stadium. Most were Duck fans, but here and there were interspersed Utah fans. For the most part, everyone seemed to be behaving themselves, but there were some Utah fans that apparently had started the drinking way before they were in their seats, as they were yelling different things, some of which didn’t make any sense. I’m not even really sure they made it into the game, as part of the problem seemed to be getting inside the stadium.

We had pre-ordered and pre-paid for our tickets, so we just followed the line pushing through the gates. The woman checking our tickets got after me because the stubs got separated from the main part of the ticket and somehow that was supposed to create a breach in protocol. Not really understanding what the problem was, I nodded and shrugged and said okay and went into the game.

While the game couldn’t be considered a rivalry, the stadium was pretty much filled to capacity. There was a section of Ute fans up to the right of the big screen behind us, but other than that there were smaller pockets of red within a sea of yellow and green. I had been to Autzen before for a 1A football championship game, but never to a college game before. The only other time I’d been in a college stadium was at Lavell Edwards Stadium in Provo, Utah for BYU Cougar games.

There is a pretty big difference between watching a game at home and being there. When you watch the game, you see the game, because the cameras in the stands and on the field concentrate mainly on the game. Yes, you’ll see the fans doing their thing and the cheerleaders and the mascots, but for the most part, the broadcast is about bringing you the game.

What you do when you’re there depends a lot on where your seats are, and what the crowd around you is doing. We were fairly close to the field, but in a corner of the end zone, so when things were headed our direction, you could see things pretty well. When they were going the other direction, it was harder to tell what was going on. So, instead of always knowing what had happened, you kind of had to wait for the reaction of the crowd to know if it was something good or bad based on who you were rooting for.

The game itself turned out to be pretty good. The Ducks had a 21-7 halftime lead, but then Utah scored 17 points in the third quarter to Oregon’s 7 to make it 28-24 Ducks heading into the fourth. The Ducks mustered a field goal to give them a touchdown lead at 31-24, and managed to shut down the Utes the rest of the way.

In our section of the stands, and I’m positive this was happening elsewhere, we found ourselves surrounded by drunken fans getting progressively worse. Some of them were incredibly friendly, others were incredibly rude, and any interaction with them turned out to be uncomfortable, particularly for our Ute fan friends. They had some Oregon fans sitting behind them that plain said and did stupid things. If you’re intense about football games to begin with, and then you drink, it doesn’t normally help to lighten you up. It just removes any inhibitions you might have had to begin with.

Fortunately, there were others around us that kind of balanced out the blithering idiots. It did rain on us for a while, too, but we did have some covering from plastic ponchos to keep most of the wet stuff off of us. All, that is, except for Evan, who decided he would just tough it out. He ended up with a cold for all his efforts.

All-in-all, I would call it a good experience, but I guess the allure of the stadium and being there has diminished for me. Maybe if it were some kind of championship game, or some kind of rivalry game with a bowl game at stake, that would be still be fun–or maybe it would just worse.

If you’re not into drinking or bashing with opposing fans, I’d say, save your money and your sensibilities and stay home and watch the game there. Let the idiots have their game, and then wake up under a bush miles from home wondering why and not remembering the last 12 hours.