Sports Related Update

Go for it, you two - you're not in a stadium.

Organized sports and I have a peculiar relationship – I’ve been to every football and basketball game the University of Oregon has played this year, and my seats have been spectacular, and I haven’t paid a blessed thing for my tickets because, as a member of the marching band, I get a guaranteed seat. A lot of people would kill me in order to take my place and enjoy these games, and a lot of people would kill me because I’m really sort of an asshole, but interestingly enough I really am not that big of a sports fan. When God was passing out testosterone, I was last in line, and when God heard that I didn’t recognize his existence, he decided to replace my testosterone allocation with the ability to quote passages from Wayne’s World verbatim* in order to get back at me. Thus, when men gather in groups and I for some reason am caught in the crossfire, I’m forced to try and partake in a discussion of sports, where I do about as well as a blind guy desperately trying to act like he’s got an offhand knowledge of color. “Man, I can’t believe the Broncos traded Purple for Teal! Who’s running that team?”

*He also, of course, gave me a thick head of hair that continually upstages my every great achievement by simple virtue of being there. I would have put this in place of the Wayne’s World line, but it’s tough to talk about hair as an alternative to testosterone, since it’s typically associated with virility and confidence (both of which I lack in spades). Still, it’s sort of like the ‘ol man upstairs took all the hair follicles that would have otherwise been dispersed all over my body and just clustered them on my head. I’m not joking. Girls ask me if I shave my legs.

I want to be interested in sports, I really do. I want to memorize facts and figures that pertain to things that happen in the world I live in, but no matter how hard I try these things just don’t stick in my mind like other facts, such as the inventor of warp drive in the Star Trek universe (Zefram Cochrane). I’ve been to a lot of football games for someone who isn’t a particular fan – damn near every home game my high school played, plus every home game at UO plus an away game at the University of Washington and my harrowing descent into the heart of darkness in El Paso for the Sun Bowl, and as much fun as I have, most of it really isn’t so much about the game for me as it is the experience. Only the truly pathetic marching band devotees will understand thrill of being part of a musical ensemble that can drive 60,000 inebriated individuals to rise to their feet and clap their hands with some semblance of rhythm – Guns ‘n Roses may be in on that thrill too, if they can book venues that large anymore. There’s something about rallying a crowd that big around a fairly simple concept (“Ball go that way! Let’s get drunk! Fuck the Trojans!”) that I like, and then of course nobody can argue with the fact that it’s fun to put on a silly costume and make loud noises with your friends.

Yesterday, there was a scrimmage game in which the University of Oregon played the University of Oregon, and while I didn’t stay for the whole game I know that the University of Oregon won (sadly, it also lost). This game was rather sparsely attended because at this time of year most people here in “Track Town USA” are more interested in track and field events than football**, and since there wasn’t as much publicity I wasn’t required to take part in the pep band for this game. I decided to take the day off from band and instead went to the game with a few friends and sat in the student section. It was a strange experience to watch a football game without having to play the fight song every time the team did something right. Moreover, it was a strange experience to watch a football game without being surrounded by band people. Normally trombone players are behind me, but yesterday I had two girls talking about which team members they wanted to have sex with behind me. Instead of mellophones in front of me there was a young couple who was very intent on letting the world know that they were in a relationship, because whenever they weren’t engaging in graphic, sloppy makeout sessions they were instead very purposefully touching one another in intimate ways suggesting that maybe they didn’t know that they were in a god-damned stadium surrounded by people! Granted, I’ve known my fair share of amorous mellophone players, but this was just ridiculous. We were jammed into the stands like sardines and these two were going at it like they just didn’t care, much too close to me for my own comfort – hell, if they’d gone any further I could’ve gotten pregnant. Needless to say, a lot of people around me weren’t watching the game.

**And on that note, I’ve got to say, I just really don’t care about track and field. I don’t dislike it, but I also don’t like it. I mean, I do like it when University of Oregon people run faster than people from other schools, because that implies that we are better than they are, ergo I am better than everyone else, but I apply that sort of “Root for the home team” mentality in just about everything, right on down to insignificant events like competitive urinating or hockey. Please don’t take offense, track and field people – you probably care just as much about band.

At most UO football games, maybe 100 people in the stands are sober, and those are members of the 200-piece Oregon Marching Band. That might be how some of the fans cope with the terrible yet expensive food, or the elements, or the timeouts that have been known to stretch into infinity. I think that football is a very exciting and entertaining sport, but there’s times when nothing is happening on the field and doing the wave again just isn’t that entertaining. Seeing as most of the people who came to yesterday’s game didn’t have the forethought to bring alcohol, they started to turn to other methods of entertainment, such as one another’s tonsils. On the other hand, the friends I went with are die hard fans of just about any sport this side of competitive urinating, and whenever there was a break in the action they were hard at work discussing what the next play would be, and which of the guys on the field would be the BMOC next year.

These guys are married to football: they love it despite the boring interludes or coldness and would never think of getting a divorce. I, the sports bachelor, can’t get excited enough about football to love it like they do, but I respect them for it. Maybe, when they see me marching around in the rain during a Friday night rehearsal, they understand that I’m working to make my own hot-and-cold marriage work too, even though it abuses me sometimes by making me go to El Paso.

Truman Capps wants you to know that, just in case you were wondering, he doesn’t sit down at his computer twice a week and say, “Hmm – what crappy metaphor can I end my blog with this time?” It honestly just happens almost by accident, and he leaves it in because by the time he finishes his blog just about anything sounds good if it means he gets to go to bed.