Last Saturday I had an adventure. My wife and I went to Fort Worth for the BYU vs. TCU game.
My oldest son invited us. He and his wife live in Houston now. They drove up I-45 (about the distance from Cedar City to Salt Lake), picked us up at DFW and off we went for a 3:00pm kickoff.
I admit that I was just a little wary of entering “enemy” territory. After all, they take football very seriously in Texas.
Right up there with God and country, there’s football. In the Bible belt where mega-churches approach the size of small arenas, high school stadiums are often bigger than those at colleges elsewhere. Football as religion? They used to say the Dallas Cowboys left a hole in the roof of their old stadium in Arlington so God could watch His team play on Sunday.
So, there we are walking to Amon Carter Stadium wearing blue in a sea of purple and you have to wonder what kind of reception we’re going to get. We’re there to cheer a down-on-its-luck team that’s trying to derail the mighty Horned Frogs who are shooting for a perfect season.
The nerve of us!
But as I handed over my ticket, instead of a scowl from the gatekeeper and a few curses muttered under her breath, she smiles and wishes me a “blessed day”.
As we make our way through the crowd, most ignore us. (That’s typical anywhere there are a lot of people all trying to get where they’re going. It’s funny how sometimes anonymity increases with the size of a crowd.)
A handful smile. A couple greet us.
Huh. Not what I thought would happen.
The game itself was fun – we cheering wildly when BYU finally got a first down. When the team made it’s lone field goal, you’d think they just won another national championship.
Things did quiet down a bit when the wheels came off in the last few minutes of the first half and when any hope of victory was crushed by the middle of the second half.
But it was better than spending an afternoon in the dentist’s chair, the company was good and the sun hot. So all in all, it was a good time.
As we left, there were no mean taunts from the victors or bitter words from the vanquished. (Admittedly, we did leave in the 4th after TCU went up 31-3. Still, there were plenty of TCU fans who left with us. Apparently the rush to beat the post-game traffic jam is universal.)
The “enemy” that we encountered that day was not the enemy at all, just folks cheering for another team.
And there was that one bonding moment during the game. I’m not talking about the national anthem or even the opening prayer (Texas Christian University). No, it came when the announcer gave an update of the baseball playoff game being played close by in Arlington. The Texas Rangers had taken the lead over the New York Yankees. Blue and purple cheered together.
Damn Yankees! Now there’s a team you can hate.
