Bowl Games

A very strange thing happened regarding the college bowl games.  Michigan State University will play Alabama's Crimson Tide at the Cotton Bowl, and Ohio State University will play Notre Dame at the Fiesta Bowl.  The Fiesta Bowl is held here in Arizona at the huge facility in Glendale.  What irony all this is!

I checked to see the costs of a ticket to the Fiesta Bowl.  There are plenty of tickets available in a variety of locations but they cost a small fortune in my opinion.  Now, if I were one of those who were smart, I might buy a group of tickets to try to sell on the day of the game if by chance they sold out.  But I am not one of those enterprising kind of individuals that does that. It might work for Super Bowl but not for a college bowl.

I was a bit surprised to learn that the lowest price ticket was $119 which is way up in the top level, the nosebleed section, where one would have to have a really good set of binoculars to see a player on the field on doubt.

I worked my way to the $265 section tickets but did not go past that.  I do not know how high they actually can cost.  Talk about crazy.  To me, it is all crazy!

But when I was a student at Michigan State University, a group of us traveled to Notre Dame to watch the MSU ND game.   That was such a shock and surprise to me, and it was fun but a bit perplexing.  Across the field from where we sat were rows and rows of seminarians all dressed in black.I have never seen so many men who at that time had sworn themselves to practice celibacy all gathered in one place at a time when we know that their hormones are racing.  They are young men after all.  The Catholic church is filled with stories about men who are trying to become priests and forgo sin.

So I am wondering at how many of those men are going to fly to Phoenix to watch this game this year.  What a strange color combination.  Rows of Scarlet and Gray versus rows of black.

A part of me wants to see this game in person just to see this unfold, but I balk at the prices that it costs to bother to go to so much trouble. I would have to pay an exorbitant fee to park, get caught up in all the traffic woes, and all for what?  Four hours of throwing a pigskin back and forth, kicking it uproariously into the  air, pouncing on it, and running up and down the field trying to carry it across a goal line!  I know the game of football very well, having grown up in Ohio yet to boot, and also wearing the same team colors of Scarlet and Gray, and also having the same alma mater tune as that of OSU.  It is called  Carmen Ohio for OSU.  For Van Wert High School, it is lyrics set to the tune of Carmen Ohio.   Oh Van Wert High,  the school we love, our true devotion we would prove, In our work and in our play, we will ever strive to lead the way, Oh school we love, on us rely, the loyal youth of Van Wert High.

So Buckeyes will fill the stadium I am certain, will pay the huge price of jet fair, hotel rooms, and even purchase a ticket to watch the team play the venerable Notre Dame team.  I do not think anyone doubts that OSU will probably win.   Ohio State University has owned football in the nation for many years.  I grew up on Woody Hayes dominating the big ten and we ate and lived football in our wee little town in Northwestern Ohio, having to win all our games for five consecutive years.

It is an irony because my alma mater will be playing the Cotton Bowl to defeat Alabama we hope.  The Big Team and SEC rivalry has a long history too, especially in the way of rating the teams.

One thing that few people understand about MSU when I was a student there, and that is that while football was important, it was not so important as it is today.  Duffy Daughtery was our head coach then, and MSU was known for being a cow college more than a football power.  That honor usually went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

So now finally, MSU has reached its own height in winning games, and it is a good feeling to know that the Green and the White of the Spartans is on the way to claiming a title.  Go Green! Spartans Will is today's chant.

Being an alum is a lot different from being a student.  The last two games that State played have been super fantastic, and both I managed to see.  Wow!  What strange things happen in the game of football!