Last night I went with the guys to see undefeated ASU play Cal in Sun Devil stadium. Here are some highlights from the night…
1. Assault with a Deadly Frisbee. After the clock ran out and the Sun Devils were victorious, dozens of people in the crowd launched large Frisbees from their high-altitude seats over our heads and towards the field. Of course everyone in the stands watched the flight because we all knew it has to land somewhere, and it could end up hitting someone and cause drama.This one Frisbee could not have found a better victim. A pair of 40-year-old guys working with the media had just been let onto the field to record the celebration. They had cameras and equipment and they had to hurry to get onto the field amongst the football players. All they had left to clear was an open stretch of 30 yards before they would ram into the brute insanity of victorious football players.
The Frisbee hit the first of the pair (the fatter of the two) right in the forehead and startled the life out of him. He dropped his camera and reached his arms wildly up to his head. He packed 10 seconds worth of motion into a half second, and the crowd loved it. He had to have known that those 10,000 fans left in the stadium were cheering for him. He shook it off, picked up his camera, and went running down the field, more determined than he was 5 seconds before. The crowd kept cheering.
2. Angry security guards. I know these guys are just doing their job when they prevent students from charging the field, but I also understand they aren’t law enforcement. Their job is to intimidate students, rather than to prevent them from coming onto the field. They have no authority to arrest you or write you a ticket. Regardless of how intimidating they pretend to be, it always comes down to a game of numbers: 100 guards vs. 70,000 fans. Just kick down the fence and run and bring all your friends with you. Let them be angry, that’s their job. You go celebrate, that’s your job.
3. Characters on the field. This week is Halloween, so many students came to the game in costumes. One of the first kids to break the barrier and charge the field was a dude wearing a the head of a Woody costume from the movie Toy Story. This a large mask, maybe 2 feet tall, had a permanent smirk of confidence. So when he made it up and over the fence and through the security guards, he turned to the crowd and opened up his arms expecting an applause. How can you not cheer for Woody?Another student busted through the fence and was quickly wrangled but a short and stocky security guard with a lot to prove. The student pulled him from the end zone all the way 30-yard-line like Rudolph pulls Santa’s sled. It was there that his shirt started to rip. By the 40-yard-line, the tenacious guard had only a ripped T-shirt in his hand as the bare-chested student sprinted to the other end of the field, arms in the air victorious as the winner of the Boston Marathon. The thousands in the crowd cheered for him.
4. Why not? After seeing 100s more charge the field, I decided I was tired of being a spectator. Four security guards had forced the gate closed by the time I was ready to make my move. I tried to coerce some drunk fans to help me knock the gate open again, but they were too inebriated to cooperate with anyone. So I hopped the low fence near the goal post and sprinted through the guards.
As I ran across the 50-yard line, I remembered the last time I rushed the field was in 1999 when I was a student at Georgia Tech. Several photographers were taking pictures of me because I was putting on quite a scene dancing in the middle of the field. A few months later I ended up getting cast for The Real World, and apparently me dancing with that awful look on my face was the only photo the campus newspaper had of me. They published it several times that year, twice on the cover.That was eight years ago, and I am all the wiser. I crossed crossed the 40-yard-line with a pleasant smile and a dutiful trot, much like a victorious coach heading into the locker room.
5. Multitasking at the goal post. How things have changed since 1999. Back in the day at Georgia Tech, the students were concerned with one thing and one thing only: bringing down the field goal post. It was a thrill for soon-to-be engineers to unleash their inner lumberjack for one night. Freaks, geeks, and jocks all worked together until the giant came down. Nothing else mattered.This is just not how they do it anymore.
The students spent half of their time celebrating, and the other half recording and reporting through the cell phones. The mob chanted and cheered with reckless abandon, but they stopped in a second and arranged themselves for a big group photo. You need these types of photos to show what a party animal you are on Facebook.There was a lot of Facebooking* going on during the celebration. Guys were hooking their female friends with one arm, and with the other arm they lifted their phones up high and snapped a photo of the moment. I wonder how many dating relationships begin with this ritual. You have to admit, for something so spontaneous, it’s an intimate moment. There’s no room for anyone else in the picture–just the two of you–and you have to smash your faces close together to even fit in the shot. It’s a modern-day version of holding hands or carrying a girl’s books. At any given moment, 1 out of every 5 people on the field were in one of these just-me-and-you photo shoots.
I witnessed the most heroic of multitasking at the trunk of the goal post. I was in the sweaty mosh pit of students ramming the base try that tried to rock it back and forth with hope that it would give.
One kid had one hand rocking the post and the other hand texting his friend on his iPhone. His thumb attacked that iPhone and the buttons bubbled and bubbled again. It was such a contrast from one hand to the other. One hand did the blunt work of the primal man wanting dominance over the post, the other hand pecked out victory to his friends who weren’t cool enough to be there. I guess it really is the same thing.
*Facebooking. I do not know if this is legitimate lingo. I’ve found better things to do with my life than injecting new words into pop culture. But everyone knows that everyone takes photos today for one reason only: to look cool online.
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