Listening to players and coaches, you wouldn't know they are approaching their final home game of the season. Surprising, only because such an occasion each year brings the final home game of many players' careers-the final jubilant charge through the tunnel onto the Camp Randall turf. For 20 seniors, Saturday will be the last time they will play at home in a Badger uniform.
\It doesn't seem like three games left. You don't think that this is going to be the last one here,"" Head Coach Barry Alvarez said. ""But I guess I wasn't even thinking about it ... this is the last time [the seniors] will play in Camp Randall.""
While this occasion's significance has yet to dawn on Alvarez, it is in the back of some players' minds. This is not to say there is dissention among the ranks-for his ""1-0"" mantra is successfully instilled in the minds of all of his players-but his seniors are aware that an era in their lives is about to end. In spite of the emotional aspect inherent to such a game, the Badgers refusal to let that distract them from the task at hand: the Minnesota Gophers.
""It's kind of emotional. The day that I never thought would come is approaching quickly,"" said senior tight end Tony Paciotti. ""But it's not going to be emotional to the point where it breaks my concentration on the game.""
Regardless of whether it will be a distraction, they will have to say farewell to the one forum on campus where one's achievement is rewarded immediately-where the root of fan response ranges from adulation to acrimony-but every time, in either case, conveyed with reverence. After all, Badger faithful love this team. Paciotti remembers the first time he set foot in Camp Randall.
""I'll never forget my first camp here my freshman year,"" he said. ""When my parents dropped me off, my mom waved goodbye-I was fine until she waved-then I started crying. I remember going all through camp thinking I'm not going to make it, and how it was really hard.""
But as Wisconsin takes the field in pursuit of the Axe this Saturday, some seniors such as Paciotti can use their memories of the home game atmosphere and its majesty to energize and inspire themselves and their team to play hard.
""When I walked out that tunnel when we played Western Michigan it was a night game. It was really hot, I'll never forget it,"" Paciotti said. ""When I walked out onto the field, all that stuff I thought through camp went away.""
""I called my dad up after the game, and I said 'Dad, what I felt when I walked into Camp Randall is enough to make me go through five weeks of camp.' That was how unbelievable the feeling was,"" he said.
The seniors hope to, for now, resist the temptation to reminisce about the past, and the seductive smell of roses in the future. But that does not mean there is no time for reflection in the present.
As freshmen become seniors, players become accustomed to the aspects of playing football at UW; and their initial ambivalence turns to sentimental attachment as surely as summer turns to fall.
""The thing I'm going to miss most about the home games is 'Jump Around,' definitely,"" Paciotti said with a smile. ""But what I'm going to miss the most about playing football is the close relationships that I have with all of the football players. I don't think I will ever be around as many friends as I am now when I'm done playing football.""
He can, however, take solace in the fact that for one last Saturday, he will be engulfed by approximately 82,000 of them.
