College Football Anticipation

This is a hard time of year for me. As a high-school student, I’m praying for time to slow down so that I can enjoy the last moments of summer before school starts up again. But then again, while I watch ESPN reports on college training camps and tear through team and conference previews online, I can’t wait for Saturday, September 1^st at 8:00. That’s when the University of California’s 2007 season starts. At home. Against Tennessee.

One year after their season-opening 35-18 embarrassment at the hands of the Volunteers, Cal now takes on the SEC powerhouse at home. This one’s gonna be good.

The Tennessee game opens a very exciting year for Cal. Their tough schedule sees the Golden Bears take on Oregon (in Eugene) and USC, four years removed from Cal’s stunning upset of the Trojans in 2003.

Cal’s season isn’t the only thing that has me way more excited than I should be. College Football makes the fall fun. During the week I spend five days in school staring out of the window, pleading for the bell to ring and release me. Saturdays are my day. I choose to wake myself up early (which, on a Saturday, means 9:00am) so I can sit on my couch and watch college football for about twelve hours.

My day starts with the East Coast and Midwest games. Since I have about ten channels that have college football games, I spend my mornings bouncing around from the SEC to the Big Ten to the ACC. By noon, if I’m not going to a Cal game at Memorial Stadium, I’m watching the Big 12 and Pac Ten. Once it’s evening, I take in the “Game of the Night,” which generally lasts until 9:00pm. By the end of the day I will probably have seen a part of at least a dozen games.

For me, there’s no better way to spend a Saturday in the fall, and that’s why I’m thinking this September might not be so bad. Cal comes into the year with a ton of promise, the Pac 10 promises to be one of the best conferences in football, and USC’s coming to Berkeley. And not only is the local football season shaping up nicely, other conferences across the country have a ton of promise.

In the Big Ten, three teams - Michigan, Wisconsin (my 2^nd favorite team), and Ohio State - could take the conference championship. The SEC is, as always, an exciting conference. LSU and Florida are #2 and #3 in the USA Today Poll and Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas are all in the Top 25 as well.

A new college football season is upon us. Thursday, August 30^th sees the first teams take the field. From that point until the bowl games end in January, this college football season promises to hold plenty of excitement.

I’m already singing Cal’s fight songs in my head…

Best. Lunch. Ever.

As the title might imply, I just had the best meal of my life. It was a cheeseburger (thin patties of beef that had been sitting under heat lamps, a cold bun, and a slice of rubbery American cheese), some cookies (which were actually pretty good), and a cup of root beer, all served at a Northwestern University cafeteria. What made this lunch so great was not the food – which was awful – but the company. Michael Wilbon, co-host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption was there. Sitting at the same table as me. Talking about sports.

You see, right now I’m at a journalism camp (which, by the way, doesn’t look very impressive when you write it down…) at Northwestern. One of the people on my floor happens to be a friend of Mr. Wilbon and got him to come to this camp on Thursday. For an hour and a half, he talked to the group about reporting and his views on the future of journalism. Then he had lunch with us. Awesome.

In the week leading up to Wilbon’s visit, all of the sports fans (in this case, that means all of the guys) were going crazy. It’s Michael Wilbon! From Pardon the Interruption! The night before, we were all giddy with anticipation. We even made little masks with his face on them, like the ones PTI uses for their segment, Role Play. Needless to say, we were a bit excited.

But one of the coolest parts of the day (and this was a pretty cool day) was right after the lecture. Standing in the lobby of Northwestern’s McCormick Tribune Forum, the guest of honor realized he had a text message. “Looks like we’re going to be neighbors in Scottsdale” the message said. It was coming from Grant Hill, who was letting Mike know he signed with the Phoenix Suns.

Honestly, how cool is that? Before 99% of the sports world knew about what happened, we found out because the man gets text messages from Grant Hill.

For the next hour, he sat around a big table in Hinman Hall’s cafeteria, taking questions and shaking hands with the twenty guys gathered around him. Through this conversation I learned that Mike has had dinner with Barry Bonds, that Barry doesn’t like Hank Aaron (“It’s complicated”), and that, despite being on ESPN almost daily, Michael Wilbon is afraid to sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” at Wrigley Field.

What an awesome day.