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THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, November 17, 1968
Su.d.... November .,... 17.. . 16
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ootball Saturday - teheran
ago
red
pov
By FRED LaBOUR
"On Saturday morning I'd leap out of bed, and race to the
ball game,,twas good for my head."
Wilson Balloy
Since football's gentle inception in Abner Doubleday's back yard
in 1846, (an event only witnessed by two weeping nine year old
urchins and a rooster with a broken leg) the game has grown notice-
ably in size and stature.
And not only has the game grown, but coincidentally so have the
crowds. Crowds are now so large that occasionally, even a stadium
with 100,000 seats is scarcely large enough to provide icy little benches
for all of the partisans.
Now, when you get 100.000 people together under any circum-
stances, things are bound to be a little out of the ordinary. And when
the 100.000 are drawn largely from a college community, it's even
worse. In fact, college football crowds the world around have been
called by one notable scholar "the most incredible freak show I've
ever encountered, and I've seen 'em all."
Yessiree, football Saturday is sort of like the biggest town meet-
ing of all time. In corhe all the factions: the nyloned girls with tell-
tale Jello on their chins, fraternity men with flasks under their tweed-
ish coats, alumni ready to weep at two bars of "The Yellow and
Blue," high school kids waiting to get in on the action next year,
faculty members groveling with the common people for stimulation,
and an occasional hippy in the end zone.
In they come, separate people, islarnds, all of them. But then a
miraculous thing occurs. They become UNITED! UNITED! They
rally behind a common cause. They cheer together, they weep together,
they drink together, they fight together, they pass each other up over
their heads together. It's the kind of thing Richard Nixon must dream
about at night.
And if the teams are decent and the game is close, or atleast
entertaining, so much the better. But even if it's one of the classic
dull afternoons out there on the turf, there's still wine to be drunk
in the stands, girls to goose, and fights to fight. That, after all, is
what makes is all worthwhile.
Then the game is over, it all breaks down and the citizens stream
out the exits. Some of them might hang around to tap their feet to
"a Michigan tradition, 'Temptation'," and others creep around looking
for lost earrings.
Then they're gone, strollirng off to the traffic jam, ready for an
evening of drinking, not drinking, or anything else that seems ap-
propriate. Their flasks litter the stands, and all of the kids run
around looking for God knows what buried underneath the toilet
paper.
"I understand that a lot of people don't like football games,
but for the life of me I can't figure out why."
-Johnson Trail'ed
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photographed by
Sara Kruhcvich
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