Daddy and Luke's Big Bama Adventure

November 9, 2009


(Editor's note: I am honored to have a guest blogger today! My dear husband, Jason (who rarely even READS my blog), agreed to do a post for me. I hope you enjoy it!)

This is my son, Luke, in whom I am well pleased:Standing in front of Denny Chimes, Luke had already trekked across most of Tuscaloosa. During breakfast at Jack’s earlier in the day, I told Luke that he is "my buddy." He responded by telling me that I am the “best Daddy.” God has blessed me with a wonderful son!

This is the story of our Gameday Adventure.

Luke and I parked downtown and began the trek to the stadium to meet up with Uncle Joel and Christopher. We strolled along Bryant Drive from downtown. (Yes, I am one of those cheapskate people who park downtown to avoid paying for parking.) Unexpectedly, Luke and I stumble upon LSU fans in Tuscaloosa!?! Who do they think they are? However, after watching them for a few moments, I noticed that they do have a sense of humor: I thought labeling LSU fans as “corndogs” was supposed to be an insult. Somebody forgot to tell “Captain Corndog” (pictured with corndog helmet, in the middle). Also, I guess someone forgot to mention the open container law as well.

My admiration of their sense of humor quickly ceased when I noticed they had a fuzzy elephant on a string in the middle of the road. Reluctant Bama fans were driving over the elephant, much to the amusement of these LSU fans. Chuckle it up, corndogs!

After seeing the LSU fans, my pride in Alabama peaked as I thought, “Wow, glad we're not crazy like those LSU fans!” Until...

I think this group is proving the “Chaos Theorem”. I always wondered where and when the “painted people” got together and did this. By the way, “C” is for Crazy…

Round the corner behind the CBS Sports tent on the steps of the Administration Building, I ran into what appeared to be “Ace and Gary” from SNL’s skit:

I am not sure if the “A” stood for Alabama or Ambiguous. Either way, the strange-ometer was soaring off the charts at this point.

I briefly thought about having Luke take a picture with them. I am glad I decided to move on. Between the LSU corndogs and Bama-maniacs, I realized that this was no place for my son.

Joel and I decided to quickly move on to the stadium.

After walking up from downtown Tuscaloosa to the Quad and back to the stadium, then up the spiral “stairway to Heaven”, I was very worried I had worn out my poor six year-old-Luke. He looked tired as we took our seats. He studied the program we purchased going in the stadium. (Luke knows the scores of all the games.) I kept asking him if he needed to take a short nap before the game began. He refused. I thought, “Oh boy, I have really pushed him too hard.”

However, it did not take long before Luke was up from his seat. Like his Mommy, Luke is not really into the pre-game festivities. He was just saving up his energy for the main event. Once the game started, Luke was totally into the game, as you can see here from his stare.

“Go AL-A-BAM-AH!” screamed Luke during the whole game. He was emulating his Uncle Joel, who understands his role as a fan is to be yelling loudly. Joel believes that he is literally yelling into the opposing quarterback’s ear. He is a cheerleader of surrounding fans. Spurred on by Joel's ruckus, a boy next to us took his seat cushion and banged it against the metal bleacher, resulting in a sound like someone banging metal garbage can lids together. Apparently, all this racket results in delay of game, illegal procedure, and useless timeouts for Bama’s opponents.

From our seats at the top of the east upper deck, I am not sure that the sound can travel the “miles” to the stadium's surface. To put this into perspective, to get to our seats, we climbed the stairs and passed above the nosebleed section.

Whether or not this noise changed the game, I cannot be sure. However, it did create a ringing sound in both of my ears. As I covered my ears and became upset with Bama’s quarterback for missing wide-open receivers, Luke kept cheering. For me, the racket was a nuisance from being able to concentrate on the game; for those around me, it was music to their ears. Joel exclaimed, “This must be the loudest game ever for Bryant-Denny Stadium!”

For Luke, this showed his true college and family allegiance. Uncle Joel was proud of his nephew.

Luke would not stop even after I warned him of severe throat pain. His mission for being at the game was to yell and cheer. Maybe I could take a lesson in what a real fan is from my son.

(Editor's note: I told Luke the night before the game that I needed for him to cheer really loudly for the team to help them win. The boy follows instructions better than I thought he did!)