Something gold, something blue... and something new

Visited the Big House on Saturday for our first college football game: Wolverines vs Eastern Michigan. What a spectacle - so over the top. It had all of the hysterically devoted fans and colourful displays of cult-like mass behaviour I was hoping for. The stadium is the largest college stadium in the land and seats 110,000. That's pretty much the population of Ann Arbor.

Like anthropologists on a field trip, we witnessed bizarre rituals by the inhabitants: the kids rattle their keys at certain parts
of the game, they do a "claw" gesture on mass at another juncture, they share a complex language of songs and chants, and abusing the opposition (even their marching band copped it). I've been in sporting crowds in Australia with obnoxiously one-eyed fans before but I've never seen such a homogenous display of team pride and sheeplike adherence to the group behaviour. And I'm not sure how passionate I could be about a game where you know in advance you are going to pulversive the opposition, but the kids loved it! The final scoreline was 55 to 0 and yet the fans were still baying for blood.

Inhaled a $1.50 hotdog from one of the myriad hotdog stands set up outside the stadium prior to the game... the bun as soft and almost as sweet as a marshmallow.

The actual game? We left after halftime and the amusing marching band performance (the uni brass band performed a Monty Python and the Holy Grail act - complete with the songs, formations of different shapes on the field - including the monty python foot - and many injokes about opposition teams that had to be explained to us).

I'm also amused to report I have now played Beer Pong at the student house tailgate prior to the game. It's a game played at EVERY student house in town on game days where you try to throw your pingpong ball into half-filled cups of beer at the other end of a table. If the other team lands a ball in one of your cups, you have to drink the beer. The Knight Wallace Fellows (pictured above: Coach John lines up his shot while Thomas from Rwanda looks on) took on some kids (from whom we procured our football tickets) and showed them age beats smooth and youthful skin any day. One of the kids was even named Scooter. A tailgate, by the way, is a party on a football game day. Think Melbourne Cup day, except every Saturday. It's an alcoholic BBQ or picnic, so named because folks set them up in the carpark of the stadium out of the backs of their cars. The term can also apply to parties on golf courses, private gardens, and front lawns of student hovels.

After we left the game we adjourned to a bar for much pizza, sangria and beer before Min-Ah, the South Korean Fellow, fell asleep at the table. Stumbled home, crawled into bed at 6pm and awoke 4 hours later feeling dazed and wondering if writing
off an entire Saturday when I am not a sporting fan was such a good idea. But I am glad I went - as ignorant foreigners we had to see all the razzle dazzle once.