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My first football game
or years, I wondered if I was
missing something.
As a little girl, I remember
he aring the voice of the football
announcer wafting over the city to
my front lawn. For two decades I've
lived in Ann Arbor without ever
setting foot into the Michigan Sta-
dium. I had seen old women swear
at Buckeye fans and grown men
paint themselves yellow, and I had
always assumed that something
magical must happen behind those
wrought iron gates on fall Saturday
afternoons.
But a few weeks ago, I realized
I hadn't been missing anything at
all.
Maybe I made a mistake by
making my first football game the
wholly unremarkable home game
against Eastern Michigan. I turned
down tickets for Appalachian State,
which at least I could have told my
grandkids about years from now.
My plan was to get in and take
my seat in the non-student section,
and then, once I'd acclimated to the
grandeur of the Big House, head
over to the student section, where
I had heard people stand up for the
entire game.
MISSION From page 7B
After some general mingling, the
partygoers played games, includ-
ing one that involved two people
trying to get the first bite out of an
apple on a string. When the games
quickly got old, or too awkward,
the group retreated into another
room of the office-like building to
watch a movie.
Bates said she easily found a place
among the young Mormons, whom
she's only known this semester.
The recent convert said her expe-
rience investigating and accepting
Mormonism under the guidance of
missionaries consisted of indepen-
dent research and soul searching
and was free of persuasion by mem-
bers of the church. Bates's Mormon
friends from home never suggested
Bates join her church, but when
Bates expressed her desire to learn
more, one introduced her to the
local missionaries, who started
her on her way in an investigating
process that she said lasted two
months.
Stoker and Macintosh said it's
In retrospect, I should have
headed into the student section
first; sitting wasn't too much of a
comfort wedged in between a man
who was tuning into another game
via his headset and a woman who
was givingher friend a play-by-play
of her hysterectomy last month.
After we sang the national
anthem, I couldn't help but feel a
pang of excitement when the foot-
ball team came barreling out of the
tunnel.
The players moved into forma-
tion, and I was instructed to draw
little circles in the air with my
index finger and make a low "Doo"
noise. I did it, leaning forward in
anticipation. The ball flew. Some-
one caught it. The game stopped.
It started again. I saw the Michi-
gan football team mount a graceful
charge across the field until it was
violently subdued by few Eastern
players. ~
Maybe it was the nearly 90-
degree heat, or more likely it was
my untrained eye, but eventually all
the plays started to look the same.
My mind wandered and I realized
the woman behind me was still
talking about the surgical removal
harder to find investigators, inter-
ested potential converts, in Ann
Arbor than in the mission's Detroit
station, where they said people are
more likely to talk for longer and be
more religious, but they said people
they get to investigate the reli-
gion here are more likely to follow
through with personal scripture
study.
"They're used to doing home-
work, I guess," Stoker said. "They'll
do what they say they'll do, buta lot
of them are honest that they won't
do it."
Despite frequent strikeouts with
students, Stoker and Macintosh,
both 20 years old, prefer Ann Arbor
to past assignments because of the
lively atmosphere and dense popu-
lation of people their age.
"There are crazy stories from
this area," said Stoker, who has
stayed in the Ann Arbor mission,
for six months. "It's one of the most
coveted areas in the mission."
Smiling a little sheepishly, Stok-
er told about how the missionaries
in Ann Arbor last year said they
were chased by bikini-clad mud
wrestlers. Stoker said talking to
of her uterus. I left shortly after halftime and
It wasn't until halfway through headed for the air-conditioned sol-
the second quarter when her nar- ace of Zingerman's where I consid-
rative came to an abrupt end. ered getting a cookie in the shape
of a Block M but thought better of
it. After the game, a friend told me
Ann Ar I had made two crucial mistakes:
An Ann Arbor First, I didn't go to the student
section. I actually sat across the
ctualyfinds the stadium and was too intimidated
and discouraged to venture over as
Big House a big planned.
disappointment. exat did I miss? He couldn't
My second mistake - I went
sober.
"But after the operation I - GET When I told my father, a musi-
HIM!" cally oriented person who can
I refocused then on the game I play "The Victors" on instru-
couldn't quite see, where a player ments whose names I can't even
in a white and green jersey had pronounce, about my experience,
taken off across the field, leaving I thought he'd be disappointed.
his pursuers behind until he was He didn't disown me, but he sug-
blindsided by a Wolverine. gested that my real problem wasn't
I cheered. She cheered louder. that I didn't know the difference
I realize college football is more between a defender and a receiver,
than just a game. And Iknew, sitting it was that I didn't fully understand
there in my only yellow shirt with a what it meant to be a Michigan
tattoo of a football helmet pasted Wolverine.
on my arm, that just by virtue of I recalled one night when I was
walking through the turnstile, I in high school, walking on Main
was part of something bigger. Street next to a group of old ladies,
at least in their 70s, who started
verbally assailing two men wear-
ing Buckeye jerseys walking out
of a bar, by chanting "It's great to
be a Michigan Wolverine!" Those
women, I think, might have known
more about the Ann Arbor college
experience - the rush of dopamine
when favored team wins, the col-
lective thrill of watching a burly
guy in maize spandex evade other
burly guys in white spandex - than
I ever will.
But I take comfort in the notion
that while football might be an
integral part of the Ann Arbor col-
lege experience, it's not the best
part - if that game against East-
ern were to qualify as the high-
light of my education, I would have
dropped out after freshman year. I
don't know if I'll go back. If I do,
I'll be sure not to turn down that
3-story beer bong or those maize
and blue Jell-O shots. And most
important, I'll go straight to the
student section, where the pill is
still the preferred method of con-
traception.
- Anne VanderMey is
editor of The Staterent.
mise must be made. If Stoker and
Macintosh don't enjoy each other's
company, they've had to learn the
grace to deal with it while sharing
a one-bedroom apartment, a cell
phone and a 3 to 5 p.m. mealtime
over an unpredictable number of
weeks or months.
' But strong friendships can be
made even in the face of binding
social codes. Stoker said a friend he
made here, one of the nine people
he says he guided toward convert-
ing, is visiting him over Christmas
Break after Stoker's term ends in
three weeks.
At that point, Macintosh will be
paired with a new partner. Stoker
will return to life as usual. At least
as usual as Halloween parties that
culminate in bobbing for apples - a
typical party for the singles ward
- are going to get.
Stoker, a clean-cut blonde who
enjoys playing the guitar and jokes
and smiles easily, said he's looking
into enrolling at Utah State Univer-
sity and pursuing a career produc-
ing rock music. It will be the first
time he's heard a rock song without
religious themes in two years.
people around the stadium before
and after football games has been
an experience.
"Saturdays are interesting with
football games and parties," he
said. "We tryto find sober people to
talk to. Never found someone who
was really interested."
Stoker and Macintosh said they
find it amusing when the atten-
tion of pre-gaming students turns
to them, like before a game a few
weeks when a group of guys tried
to get him and Macintosh to drink
out of their beer bong.
"I told them I was a designated
driver," Stoker said. "Then when
they found out we were Mormons,
one of them said 'Hey, respect their
religion."'
Lately, the missionaries have
received questions from students
about Mitt Romney, a Republican
presidential hopeful and Michigan-
raised Mormon. Stoker and Macin-
tosh said they aren't very qualified
to field those questions, though, as
missionaries are prohibited from
watching television, browsing the
Internet or reading anything but
scripture and selected religious
texts.
The Mormon missionary guide-
lines are similarly Draconian for
socializing. Part of the reason Stok-
er and Macintosh favor Ann Arbor
is that snippets of conversation
with hurrying students on the Diag
or maize and blue drunks has been
the majority of their interaction
with people their age. The uniform
hourly schedule dictating the Mor-
mon missionary life doesn't include
much time for communicating with
friends and family. A missionary
can only write to friends in letters,
e-mail family one day a week and
call home on Christmas and Moth-
er's Day.
The monastic set-up isn't exactly
lonesome, though. Each mission-
ary does have a companion with
whom to work, live and do almost
everything else with. Missionary
companions must never be without
the other, except during arranged
swaps, where one pair trades plac-
es with another in a different loca-
tion. If one missionary companion
wants to run duringthe mandatory
half hour of 6:30 a.m. exercise, but
the other likes palates, a compro-