Dear student body,
I have a confession. I, Samantha Eve Moskol, proud Wisconsinite and Badger senior, do not enjoy Badger football games, not the least bit. I’ve been in the closet for three years, but now I have to come clean. It’s true—I would rather spend a football Saturday in my bed, watching “Freaks and Geeks” and 17-year-old Martin Starr over whoever our quarterback is now. I’m sorry.
Why did it take me three years to admit this? Because it’s a big fat taboo to say you don’t really like the games. All media referencing our school portrays the Badger-game Saturday as the pinnacle experience that shapes our Badgerhood. I’ve been afraid of what you will think of me. I mean, the inception of this public confession was developed after a conversation in whispers with another fellow apathetic football person, whose identity I will not oust here. Whispers.
There are very specific attributes of the Badger football game that contribute to my overall distaste for it. I will dissect four of them here.
1. The 11 a.m. game drinky drink conundrum
I do not want to be sober at a football game, but I do not want to be drunk at 10 a.m. Here lies the cruel catch-22 of the 11 a.m. football game. What’s the answer? Should I just do lines of coke in the Camp Randall bathroom instead? (Kidding, never have I done a line of coke in my life, and I never will, potential future employers that are googling me. Now I’m getting meta. Meta meta.) The fact is, of all the state of beings that exist, (sober, drunk, asleep, other) there are none I would enjoy at an 11 a.m. game.
2. The Fifth Quarter is the last quarter
I’ll admit the only reason I ever went to a game in the first place was to watch the marching band (“Time Warp”!). But the Fifth Quarter is last, you tease. As it turned out, I befriended the former (stellar) drum major and thus settled for watching him march around his house with baton in hand. Sometimes he would let me hold his hat. That was all I needed.
3. Jump Around
The most exciting part of the student section experience! But really, Jump Around is TERRIFYING. I am terrified of dying. You know you are too. Let’s take all these drunk bodies and let them jump jump jump! Never mind that bleachers are unstable. Never mind that one leaves with cuts and scrapes. Never mind that the song is not actually musical. Let’s play Scrabble instead.
4. Rose Bowl
For three years in a row, we have made it to the Rose Bowl, and for three years, we have failed. Let’s turn our excitement to other things, such as Occupy Wall Street or the Memorial Union reinvestment. (Because “you can’t terrace anywhere else.”)
An epiphany
I have felt conflicted on previous football Saturdays. If I go to the game, I spend the whole time counting down the seconds until I can get my Potbelly’s T-K-Y Skinny. If I don’t go but see the red and hear the yells from afar, am I left out of the fun?
America has taught me that football is fascinating… if you are fascinated watching football. So why don’t I just step out of this groupthink for a second and realize I am fascinated by zoning codes, the mysterious sinking of the Titanic and Michael Jackson’s childhood.
At the end of the day, I still love Bucky. In fact, I have a Build-A-Bear version of him in my living room. I rub his belly when I need good luck. If he could speak, he would say “Samy, it’s OK you don’t like Badger football games. I still love you for who you are deep down.”
I know many of you make up a silent minority (majority?) of which I am a part. Speak and be free of your shame!
—Samy
Send all hate mail to Samy at moskol@wisc.edu.
