My sole interest in sports while at UBC was asking for my “recfac” fee back during the first week of school. Someone had the bright idea of funding the recreation centre by negative option billing: adding a “optional” fee to everyone’s tuition, and then obfuscating the fact that you could actually ask for that money back. Obviously I wasn’t very sports oriented then, and had little interest in varsity sports; and even then, I defy any Canadian reader (other than Leon) to name more than two university teams belonging to the CIS, the closest thing in Canada to the NCAA. We’d rather watch Hockey Night in Canada.
So you might understand how weird I still find the American enthusiasm for college sports.
Nonetheless, Susan and I went to Bayside Sports on Saturday to watch Georgia Tech (her alma mater) play at Clemson. I spent the last bar football outing talking to Karen, but this time was different. Surrounded by noisy Tech fans, fueled by an entire pitcher of beer, it wasn’t possible not to get caught up in the momentum. We watched a close game get very exciting in the last quarter with five touchdowns taking place in the last eight minutes. Then with less than thirty seconds left it was GT 21, CU 24 with Clemson setting up a field goal. Snap – and it was botched! The punter fell on the ball! Tech took possession, scored a touchdown with 11 seconds left on the clock! Bar went nuts! “Rambling wreck” chant at high volume!
I think in the end I’m still a hockey fan, but with the NHL lockout looming – well, I may have a backup sport to get interested in.
