Ties That Bind

When summer starts to fade, it does so into the vibrant colors of college football.  Bands begin marching, cheerleaders start dancing, Lee Corso slips on some mascot’s head, and suddenly battle lines are re-drawn in permanent marker from Florida to Oregon and all spots in between. Stadiums and the towns who house them percolate. The air just feels different, even if the temperature hasn’t changed. Such is the enduring power of college football. Little has as much societal adhesive for a throng of people as the colors they are bound by in the fall.

During the height of Covid, as rituals were suspended and activities were put on hold, we learned there were lots of things we did on a regular basis that we could really do without. As a result, quite a lot of popular habit that got pushed to the sideline never got back in the game. College football was not among the abandoned. 

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Across campus parking lots this past week, tailgates took over the landscape.  They confiscated green spaces… and parking lots…and the front lawns of nearby houses…and the streets that typically flowed with traffic but for game day got shut down… as thousands upon thousands of clamoring people wearing their university flags descended upon stadium grounds to stake their claims. At the pre-game paloozas, people dressed in sameness shuffle around like giant blobs. Everywhere you look there’s food, and booze, and tents, and television screens, each spewing the smells and sounds they carry. In the microhabitat formed, strangers shout obscenities at one another and yet, become fast friends--sometimes because of the colors they’re wearing and sometimes in spite of them. The walls that typically separate folks are rendered invisible by the fervor of the contests they rally around. 

College football is a $14 billion industry. It’s also a game played by a bunch of tough young men whose frontal lobes aren’t fully formed. And though we could debate the juxtaposition of those two irrefutable facts, the ludicrous pressures associated with wearing the jerseys, and the distortion the game’s prominence places on the educational track, it’s hard to argue with the spirit it produces. I don’t mean rah rah spirit. I mean soul seat spirit. That “something something” we feel but cannot name. The magic that bleeds out along the seam lines when people sew their hearts together for a cause outside themselves.  

Sports have long been a galvanizing force for those who play them and for those who cheer for them as they play, yet college football often binds for life. From the addictive “clicky clacky” of the pads that sets up camp in our heads like the refrain of a catchy song, to the heroic circus receptions that remain vivid when we close our eyes at night, the game gets in our veins. Perhaps something about its primal nature gives us permission to unite. And stay together. Despite our differences. In a society that picks up and moves a lot, college football keeps us anchored by its roots.

Several years ago, in a rare pre-season match-up, Alabama came to Oklahoma to play at Owen Field. It was a heavyweight battle for the ages waged in September, a brave decision by both institutions and their football coaches to put their early seasons on the line. Norman oozed with magic in the days leading up to the game.  These two football powerhouses had not played since 1970 and what would happen on the field that day some 30 some odd years later would prove to be worth the wait. Oklahoma lost its quarterback early to a knee injury, Alabama had an explosive second half, and in the final minutes of the 4th quarter on a reversal of fortune, the Sooners scored two touchdowns to go ahead and win the game.

Final score: Oklahoma 37, Alabama 27.  

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But what is tattooed in my memory is not what happened on the field (I had to look that up), what’s vivid in my mind is what happened in and among the people who surrounded it. It was Dickens’ best and worst of times. Elation and dejection mottled on a field of green and on the rows of bleachers that entombed it. From my spot on the field in the south endzone, I marveled at the thousands of people who stood, physically and emotionally spent, in the stands.

 Nobody wanted to leave. 

As the players and coaches shook hands and hugged, Oklahoma fans jumped and clapped and screamed and danced. And Alabama fans stayed and stood. And they stayed and stood. And stayed and stood. 

When the Crimson Tide players finally made their way toward the tunnel to exit the field, the south endzone of standers erupted. With pride and appreciation, the Alabama fans seemed to forget for a moment what the board showed as the final score.  Their ovation for the brotherhood that left it all on the field was steady, strong, and resolute.  It was a show of intimate connection and support typically saved for only those we’re related to by blood. An osmotic doggedness traveled from these people wearing semi-cursive A’s to the sweaty band of brothers still in their fighting clothes and back up to them again. I watched as this feedback loop of valiant behavior, unrelenting respect, and the kind of foxhole loyalty born long before any of those transmitting it ever lived, encircled all of us lucky enough to watch. 

These are the ties that bind.

In the swirling challenges currently nipping at college football’s nose, it might be easy to surmise that it has seen its better days.  The beginning of the 2022 season, however, seems to beg to differ. Even though 44% of the nation’s quarterbacks are wearing different clothes this year than they did last, the fans remain obsessed.  Despite conference affiliation fickleness, age old rivals are buying the other’s season tickets to be guaranteed a seat at just one game. The emergence of NIL legislation that many thought would disenfranchise supporters has seemingly only legitimized the professional status that had been cloaked for far too long. The powers that be are even tinkering with the college football play-off system to try to capitalize on a more intriguing end.

The game bubbles with collagen that keeps it ever new.

College football has staying power. Its tentacles still reach places we’ve forgotten how to go to in the world of every day. It’s not without its warts…and dangers…and bad behavior that finds a way into all things, but the glue that it emits feels like a commodity we need to find a way to mass produce. In a society full of gaping fissures, a little more adhesive couldn’t hurt.

P.S. OU vs UTEP