September
10, 2016
On September 10, 2016, Virginia
Tech and Tennessee matched up in a football game in a modified stock car race
track in Bristol, Virginia. 156,990 fans
attended the game which was a new record for American football game attendance. Such a number of fans at a NASCAR event is
nothing new. Charlotte, Talladega,
Daytona, LeMans, Indianapolis, and Bristol have all hosted larger parties for
auto racing. International soccer
(football) and horse racing have venues that hold anywhere from 150,000 to near
300,000. Some estimate that over 300,000
have attended the Indianapolis 500 in the olden days, but since the venue
allowed people to hang out in the infield, it’s hard to know for sure. Back in the early 1927, an estimated 123,000
saw Notre Dame crush USC 7-6 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. However, only 99,000
or so paid. The following year, an
estimated 123,000 watched Notre Dame beat Army at the same venue. Again however, only 105,000 or so paid. In 2013, Notre Dame played Michigan at “The
Big House” in front of 115,000 or so people officially making it the largest
crowd to watch an American football game live until the Tennessee and Virginia
Tech game in 2016.
The Trip
Getting to the remote coliseum was
quite the challenge that required a year of preparation for my family and
me. My extended family and I pooled resources
and bought blocks of tickets and charter bus passes. Tickets in hand, we loaded
our Rally bus at Gateway Plaza in Christiansburg and embarked on a party roll
to Bristol at 2:15 pm.
Traffic was light. In fact, we cruised to the state line in
about two hours. Then we crawled inside
our bus for another hour and a half as we inched toward the epicenter of the
football world.
Our
Rally bus arrived and parked in the tour bus parking area only about ½ mile
from the gate at about 6:30. All around
us were blaze orange Tennessee fans.
Thousands upon thousands of them. A little maroon sprinkled in.
We
grabbed a sandwich and a water and began our trek to the gate. Our late arrival meant that there wasn’t time
for proper tailgating. We followed the
stream of sojourners, eventually crossing the red bridge security perimeter. The crowd thickness intensified. Our stature as individuals morphed into the
collective like maroon pimples on an orange body. At one point, we found ourselves in a crush
of parking lot humanity as the crowd ahead was given a choice of splitting off,
left or right, on a narrow path to ascend to the gates. We wanted to go right. This meant positioning our bodies in such a
way that we could make a 180 degree turn onto the switchback.
As we
considered our position, turmoil broke out immediately behind us as some jungle
beaters pushed forward from behind to try to clear a path for a small bus to
move through the throng of humanity. “Move
out of the way! Clear the way! Got to
get this bus through” Slowly, the sea
parted, but only a little. I ended up
stalled with the bus, my ear to its side-view mirror, uncomfortably, for longer
than time existed. Fumes. Sweat. Smokers. Germs. Drunks. Secret flatulent gassers.
Bodies pressed against anonymous bodies.
We
moved slowly in unison, floating along some invisible treadmill. The point of
decision came upon us suddenly. I had
managed to stay beside my sister, who was dealing with a painful knee and
moving slowly, but I lost contact with my wife and son. I made the turn onto
the narrow switchback and a helpful Volunteer assisted my sister up over the
curb onto the proper track. We ascended at a more steady pace up and beyond the
insanity. Within a few minutes we were at our gate and passed through
efficiently without any fuss.
Stupor
As I’ve
recently grown older, I've begun to run further and further away from
alcohol. I’ve always known from the
first time I got drunk at age 13, that alcohol was a dangerous genie for
me. I felt under her spell for most of
my life, in the end becoming trapped in her cage. While I wanted to escape from the bottle, I
was firmly in the genie’s grip. Only complete
embarrassment saved me from destruction and allowed me to free myself from her
chains.
I’m not
writing this to preach. Rather, I just want to point out how sad I find it to
see so many ensnared by her spell. As we
entered the Gate 2, a young man was just ahead of us who was having difficulty
navigating in a forward direction. He
asked my son where he was and stumbled forward to the metal detector. The attendants were patient with him. They made him empty his pockets and told him
that he would either have to take his back-pack back to his vehicle OR
throw it away. He chose to throw it
away. I’m guessing that his wallet and mobile
phone were in there. After he went
through, the attendant had to chase him down to return his pocket contents.
Just
prior to kick-off, a young man and his friend made their way down the stairs
from the portal above us. The man in
front was fighting gravity to remain erect.
He was leaning heavily and sliding down the rail as he descended in a
warped wobble. At one point a few rows
below me, he stopped and his body began listing dangerously downhill. He
clutched the rail harder in a vain attempt to stem the massive downward
force. In slow motion he began launching
himself down and into turn1. Just in time,
his buddy grabbed him by the collar and arrested his demise. They both navigated the remaining steps and
disappeared deep into their section. My
thoughts went to the poor souls who drew the $131.60 short straw of sitting
next to them.
As I’ve
grown up and escaped my own shackles, I
feel sorry for those who feel that getting sloshed at a football game is
something for which to aspire.
The Last Great Coliseum
Bristol Motor Speedway is a massive
structure tucked in a tidy valley just outside of Bristol, Tennessee. There’s no obvious reason for its being in
that place. It’s rather an aberration;
something unexpected in the landscape.
Like a castle, it sits atop a small knoll with a moat of cars and
pavement surrounding it. Across the
street is Thunder Valley Drag Strip, which, true to its name, stretches through
a small, narrow valley.
The speedway is surrounded by a
massive metal stand structure, or rather, a collection of patchwork stands seemingly
assembled like a child’s erector set creation. Inside, tiny human ants moved
around the ½ mile oval and spectator ants milled about. I felt remarkably,
comfortably small inside.
The field, situated in the track’s
infield was green with lines on it. From
our seats low in Turn 1 (Pearson), the field
looked like some artistic perspective study.
Far from us, the lines all merged into a blob. Closer to us, their separation was apparent.
Going into the game, we were aware
of how our view would be compromised by distance and were counting on watching
much of the game through the giant video screen named “Colossus”.
Without a doubt, Colossus is huge. It’s a four-sided video cube suspended above
the fifty yard-line. That being said, one can really only see one side at a
time. So in essence, it was simply a really big television.
As a television, however, Colossus
was a failure for me. Considering the
distance from the action for most fans, especially fans at the corners and apex
of the turns, one might have thought that more consideration would have been
given to the Colossus program production. Many of us needed Colossus to follow
the game, but we were disappointed. The
production couldn’t settle on a consistent camera view. Sometimes we’d have extreme close-ups of one
player or another and miss the snap.
Other times the camera would be at extreme distance like an old high
school football video. Rarely, they
would allow us a true television angle, set tight to the line of scrimmage
showing the lines and all but the deepest backs on defense. It would have been best to stay with this one
consistent view instead of toggling between the three. In the end, I gave up on
Colossus and did my best managing the game view for myself based on limited
visual input, crowd reactions, and the
screaming field announcer.
Sound Wave
WHAT? Without a doubt, BMS was the loudest place I’ve
ever been. Apparently, the BMS game producers felt
the need to entertain us with blaring mindless fan entertainment during
stoppages. The volume levels, however, were set to an extreme sound level
which must have been designed to pierce the cacophony of speedway cars.
The bones inside of my ears still hurt. My wife had to escape to the
concourse to get out of the direct line of sound.
Patriotism
I loved the National Anthem tribute.
I was holding a blue card under a star to the right of the "A" in
USA. The rendition of the anthem was not over-done, and I especially enjoyed
singing with the crowd. The only quibble I had was that I wasn't able to place
my hand over my heart because I was holding a sign. My son, the Marine, was
with us and pointed out that he will not render a salute when he's not in
uniform, despite the popularity of the practice at stadium venues.
In contrast to the opening, the
halftime show was patriotic pandering at its worst, in my opinion. The VT MV's
performed a solid, shortened show which was followed by a most over-produced
"love- the-military" piece that bizarrely and tragically morphed into
a Food City commercial. They were reaching for tears and true to form, I saw
the lady Volunteer in front of me wiping tears after seeing the young uniformed
soldier greet his wrinkled, uniformed soldier grandfather in front of the long
front walk of their rustic country farm-mansion after a long deployment
protecting our freedom. I just rolled my eyes. Romanticizing war. Shrouding the
sacrifice in the flag of blind patriotic nationalism. The tear-jerking scene
faded to the president of Food City who, inexplicably, began talking about Food
City's support for our troops and low prices, which brought us to trotting out
Lee Greenwood for, perhaps, the worst rendition of his hit song, “Proud to be an
American”. Lee was the victim of a horrific
sound situation. He was amplified to NASCAR race levels while the accompanying “Pride
of The Southland Band”, which had previously been amplified in their first few
numbers on the field, was turned off. Thus, Greenwood was all alone, seemingly,
singing what to me has become a trite, empty, commercialized song; one that
sticks in my craw for featuring the word "ain't" so prominently. I
simply can't stand that song. Hearing it so poorly done was even more cringe-worthy.
Give me "God Bless America" or "America the Beautiful" any
day.
For the
first fifteen minutes of the game, we were treated to a Virginia Tech team of
our dreams. The good guys were flying around the field doing laps around
hapless Volunteers.
Then there was the rest of the game.
I am a compassionate person by
nature, and I believe in charity; helping
others whenever possible. But the VT
team to that concept to the extreme Saturday night. Our extreme charity bolstered and then handed
Tennessee a victory. I have no crystal
ball and don’t know how the game might have turned out if we were more
protective of what was ours, but I sure would have liked to have watched that
game instead of the three generous quarters in which we were treated.
“Loss is nothing else but change, and change is
Nature's delight.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Odds
and Ends
I always love observing people at events like
this. My absolute favorite was a bit
understated. I was minding my own
business and just staring out at the expanse of humanity before kick-off when a
young man dressed as Waldo (Where’s
Waldo?) walked up the stairs beside me.
It caught me off guard and I just couldn’t help but snicker. He never came back. I wonder where he
went.
Smoking
I’m generally not around smoking much these
days. I’m not sure if that’s because I
simply don’t associate with people who smoke or if fewer people are actually
taking up the filthy habit. Regardless, I’ve never seen more people smoking in
one place at one time. I couldn’t escape
the stench. It wafted into the coliseum from
the concourse and encased me. When I
went to seek a bathroom, it followed me.
When I went to get a breath or air or to escape the screaming PA system,
it was my companion. It was like I was a
chain-smoker. I used to smoke back when
I was in college, but I’m so glad I escaped its chains.
Blue
Lizards
The production team’s mindless time-out mini
productions were hard to watch. In
addition to their piercing volume, they were accompanied by piercing
stupidity. The weirdest and most stupid
was the “Blue Lizard Sunscreen Dance”. A
cluster of people were gathered together to dance to some music with a giant,
Barney-like blue lizard and one lucky participant would win…a bottle of
sunscreen.
Tennessee
Fans
As is usual for all fan-bases, I encountered jerks. But by far most of the people I encountered
were well-mannered and simply happy to be there. There were so many Tennessee fans all
around. I was miffed that so many had
gotten tickets in the Hokie sections. As
a group though, Tennessee fans weren’t
especially loud. Despite out-numbering
Hokies at least 60-40, they didn’t seem to get overly engaged in their team’s
success. It’s more like they were
expecting to be entertained by their team.
VT fans, however, have the ingrained notion that we personally affect
the game.
Frank
I love Frank Beamer. During one of the first time-outs, they
brought Frank onto the field and allowed for us to recognize him and show our
love. It was the most pure emotional moment of the game for me. By the way, Frank looks great. He looks rested and golf-tanned. I’m very happy for him.
The Return
We were
better at navigating our way to our bus thanks to our pregame experience and
made the trek quickly. Our driver was
bold and experienced. He knew the deal
and positioned our coach for the first possible escape. We ended up in the wake of the team bus cavalcade
which was flanked by a state trooper escort.
Soon we
were sliding down the road without interruption; our driver dodging drunks on
the road with aplomb.
My
bus-mates settled down for the journey.
My brother, sitting directly behind me, talked in a low tone the whole
way while most quietly dozed. Random
thoughts filled his head and he spoke out, “Are you going to get a cat?”
“Are
you talking to me?” my niece responded.
“I’m
just talking to anyone who wants to listen.”
The
young bearded teen in front of me spent the trip coming down from his drunken
close encounter with a cop in the concourse when he tried to steal the
Bud-Light table near the end of the game.
Cop: “Are
you stealing that table?”
Bearded
Teen: “No sir, I was just putting it
back.”
Then he
ran.
The guy
diagonally across from me spent his return trip checking TSL, crinkling beer
cans, and honking his nose.
Everyone
was coming down. Coming back to the status quo of life. Coming back from a most glorious and somewhat
unsatisfying or maybe somewhat glorious and most satisfying experience. Within five minutes of our arrival in
Christiansburg at 4:30 am, the cars and buses had returned the strip mall to
the lonely night.
