Growing up in a football and OU obsessed town, I stubbornly avoided getting involved with and liking football. I didn’t even apply to go to the University of Oklahoma, knowing I needed to get out of town for college. For me, moving three blocks down the road for university, would be knowingly putting myself in a situation where I knew I wouldn’t grow and wouldn’t make new friends. I knew I would come home too much and I knew I would spend time with the same high school friends that weren’t always good for me. Some of them weren’t good to me and I knew I was not always confident enough to say no. I knew (as hard as my first year of college was) that I needed to get away and start a new life.
What I didn’t quite realize at the time, moving two and a half hours away from home let me ignore everything about college football. And it was the most glorious four falls of my life. I spent three of my four falls in college playing soccer so I never even had the chance to think about OU football. I reveled in the life of not having to base my Saturdays around whether or not OU had a home game or not. Things kind of took a turn when Facebook came to Austin College and I had to deal with BOOMER SOONER and #boomsoon all over my feed for approximately 12-15 Saturdays and weekends a year. Having recently deactivated my Facebook account, I realized I don’t miss any part of the social media circus that surrounds college football.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE team sports – the comradery, the teamwork and the fandom that comes about with sports and sport teams. I played competitive soccer through college and played recreational softball every summer I could. I loved being part of a team and loved playing and competing with my friends and teammates. There was something about the overpriced college town (and maybe I am/was biased by the drunk college students who repeatedly tried to break into my house) to really dislike football season. I loved going tailgating with my friends before the football games in Norman because there always is such a great party and enjoyment of hundreds (thousands?) of being around people who are in the same place to celebrate the same thing. Though I usually just tailgated with my friends and then took a nap during the game!
So here is part of my newest zine that I plan to mail to my nephews who are just as obsessed with football as their dad (my older brother). My nieces are also obsessed with football, but are also huge into dancing. Having never taken a dance class in my life, I might have to do more research into doing a dance zine to send to them… 😊
Standing Room Only 