We bought our tickets on Stub Hub. From the stadium layout, I was pretty certain we’d find ourselves on the Wisconsin side. That was fine since I planned to root for a Big Ten victory. Nick, however, said he was going to cheer for Oregon. Sure enough, when we found our seats (Section 13, Row 53, Seats 109 and 110), we had fancy white “On Wisconsin” souvenir towels waiting for us. Soon, it became apparent that our seats were smack dab in the middle of the Wisconsin student section. “This ought to be fun,” I said to myself.
The section quickly filled up with thousands of kids who had been spending the last few days enjoying a break from their Wisconsin winter. And, they’d spent the last several hours tailgating in advance of the game. The Rose Bowl is an awesome place to tailgate. You park on a golf course and spread your stuff out in the midst of sycamores, cedars, ponds, and sand traps. On a day like yesterday (80 degrees and perfectly clear skies), it doesn’t get much better. But, let’s get back to the student section.
Nick is a very smart boy. He very quickly took one look around, assessed the situation, and concluded he was going to join me in rooting for Wisconsin. Good choice, I thought.
As the game began, we quickly started to learn all the Wisconsin cheers. Some of them were amusing. My personal favorite was the one that followed each Wisconsin score. First, Bucky Badger would do one push-up for each point on the scoreboard. Then, the cheerleaders would start a chant of “We Want More,” holding up a sign for each word to get the crowd going. The faithful Wisconsin alumni would yell out each word when prompted – “We!” “Want!” “More!” At which time the students would yell out “Beer!”About the beginning of the second quarter, a random drunk Wisconsin student found his way to the spot two people over from Nick. He kept grabbing the other students around him (none of whom he seemed to know), trying to get them to join in some nonsensical cheer that he had just made up on his own. As they ignored him, he grew more and more frustrated. Suddenly, he yelled out “I need a Kappa Sig!” Taking the bait, I leaned over and said “Hey, I’m a Kappa Sig.” He pushed his way over to me, invited me back to the house (I think he forgot that we were in Los Angeles, not Madison) and said “We’re going to break stuff tonight.” Somewhat tempted, I told him I’d give that some thought. Soon, he’d disappeared. Oh, well. I wonder what I missed.
As the game wore on, I decided that Wisconsin fans were like a classier Maryland fan. Over one-half of their chants are profane. While I’m not a prude, I’m just not a fan of profane cheers. They don’t seem to take that much thought.The highlight and lowlight of the game happened at exactly the same time. At every home game, when the 3rd quarter ends, Camp Randall Stadium shakes as all the Wisconsin faithful sing and jump along to House of Pain’s “Jump Around.” The Rose Bowl was kind enough to give us the same experience. As Nick and I joined in, we had huge smiles on our face. It was pretty neat to look around and see everyone in red (students and alumni), bouncing up and down.
It was just then that the poor guy two rows behind us threw up. I guess it was too much jumping around for him. Both Nick and I got splattered a little but, hey, it wasn’t all bad. Luckily, we had our “On Wisconsin” towels to use for just such an emergency clean-up.
