Varsity
To start, let me clarify - due to three generations of genetic mutation, I am and will forever be a proud and deranged Buckeye. Like family, the state of my birth is not of my choosing, and by default, my attraction to Ohio State football is something akin to a bird’s desire to fly south for the winter: preprogrammed, unexplainable, and innate.
However, due to the fact that my wife and I have dug into the U. of Wisconsin for a run at advanced degrees, we have made an allowance: We are now Badger season ticket holders. Game 1 under our belts and I have to say, Camp Randall is the nuttiest stadium I’ve ever experienced. And I don’t mean the football. I’m talking about after the game.
The official rules of college football designate four quarters for a match. As history tells it, Wisconsin was once so terrible they needed an additional quarter to attract fans to the game, not for actual football – it was a lost cause – but rather a motley repertoire of bleacher-based antics led by an unleashed marching band.
It starts with the Polka, then the Pee Wee and the Time Warp, with the traditional Badger song book interspersed as the “marching mob” on the field sees fit for the swinging stands. A whole stadium is in sync with prancing tubas and drums, like a chorus line slapped together on a comedy club stage.
I imagine Ohio State fans still win for intensity: raw, brutish, and unwavering, like I imagine the Coliseum in Old Rome. But I think Wisconsin has them on creativity: lightning quick, irreverent, and funny, like I’d imagine if a football team had to try out for Saturday Night Live.
And then one day Wisconsin got good… and the 5th quarter carries on, following four quarters of quality football where the fans remain just as riotous, goofy, and fun.
Madison's State Street
Midnight Oil, State Capitol
Global Warming, Campus Power Plant
Monona Morning
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