Sunday, November 23, 2008

College GameDay in Norman


If I did this correctly, you should see my first ever picture on this blog. Who knows, maybe someday I will be able to post videos on the internet. Baby steps.


We survived the Hornets game!!! It was a very long day at the Ford Center but we made it through the big game against the Hornets. ESPN was there, we closed off Reno Ave out in front of the arena to set up fan interactive events and we had a full house for the big game that started at 8:30. Unfortunately we lost 105-80 and our head coach was fired after the game. I got off of work and left the arena just shortly after 1:00 am and went straight home because I made a decision to get up early the next morning for a little football fun.


Started off Saturday morning by getting up and heading down to Oklahoma University which is about 35 miles south of where I live so that I could watch the ESPN College Football GameDay live broadcast. For those of you that don't know, this is ESPN's live 2 hour show that is on every Saturday morning during the college football season starting at 7:00 am on the West Coast and is the show that for many years has prevented me from getting a good night of sleep in the Fall as I almost always get up to watch it no matter what time I go to bed on Fridays. GameDay always broadcasts live from a college campus and previews all of the big games and stories in college football that weekend. I didn't even know they were in town until Friday and decided at around midnight while still at the Ford Center that I really wanted to go. I asked my Thunder co-worker/friend and fellow Huskies fan Todd if he wanted to go also and he surprised me by saying yes. Todd has been busting his tail off lately at work and had a lot to do for the Hornets game so I figured he would rather sleep in on Saturday but he also wanted to check it out so I picked him up bright and early and we drove on down to Norman.


The GameDay broadcast was a blast, even if it did mean that I only got 4 hours of sleep. I wore my Jake Locker UW purple home jersey and Todd wore his Locker Husky road white jersey so we really did not fit in with the crowd that was 95% Oklahoma Sooners and the rest of the people were there supporting Texas Tech which played OU later on that night. I was yelling and cheering while they did a feature on the Apple Cup and everyone looked at me like I was nuts. Todd did overhear someone tell a friend that they thought it was cool that Washington fans would still show up in Oklahoma to support their team even though they had yet to win a game so I guess we had some respect. What can I say, I still bleed purple and gold.


One of the regular things that you see on GameDay is one or two large Washington State Cougars flags that are always waving on a large pole in the crowd. This was a WSU tradition that was started 6 years ago as an alum was upset that GameDay would never come to Pullman (smart move on their part) so he started finding other alums in each place where GameDay was going and he overnighted the flag to them to waive during the broatcasts. The tradition continues and now it is the only flag poll that the folks at ESPN will allow onto the grounds of the filming. Todd and I went over and found the flag and exchanged some fun Apple Cup banter with the Coug fans that were responsible for it. I even decided that I wanted in on it and since we share the state of Washington, I even waived the flag for a few minutes and had my picture taken with it. The Coug guys were really cool and I enjoyed hanging out with them for a couple of hours.


The Apple Cup was on national TV so I was able to go home and watch it. What a horrible loss!! It has been a while since I got that emotionally involved in a Huskies game and it felt like someone was punching me in the stomach when Wazzu kicked the winning field goal. Husky football is my favorite sports team and I have sort of become numb to all of the losing but this one was different. I really don't want to be the first Pac 10 team in 28 years to go an entire season without winning a game. Now we only have the Cal game left and I'm not giving them much of a chance in that one.


My main team lost a heartbreaker but my new adopted team had a much better night. Oklahoma beat Texas Tech 65-21 later on that night and are now ranked 3rd in the nation. The Sooners still need to win the big "Bedlam" game at Oklahoma State next week but look to be positioning themselves fairly well for a shot at the National Championship game. We will see what happens.


This evening I met up with Todd and his girlfriend Nicole (also a Thunder employee) to watch the last half of the Seahawks game. Ouch, the Seahawks, Huskies and Thunder have now combined to win 3 games and lose 33 games this season.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

You found the flag guys! That's so awesome.