WORLD CUP

:an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body

Some people never watch sports.  There are people who don't know what first and goal means (some of them may even live in the South!).  There are people who change the television station if Wimbledon is on, don't know the significance of the green jacket or have never kept score at a baseball game (ok, I haven't done that either).  These same people probably don't know what a vuvuzela is.  I'll admit I didn't know until World Cup 2010 started.  I'll also admit that while an MLS game doesn't hold my attention, I have been a bit of a World Cup junkie over the last two weeks.  I've watched all of the US matches and several matches where I had no connection at all to either team. Why?  That's a tougher question.

Part of the answer lies in the general excitement of this once-every-four-years event.  If you miss your chance here, you wait a while to get another shot (just ask Italy or France).  I also have become gradually more interested in World Cup as I've aged.  I remember twenty years ago being in England when their team failed to qualify for World Cup, while Ireland did.  There was a period of national mourning.  Not really, but close.  At the time, I didn't grasp the significance, but I understand it better now, even if my own national pride doesn't hinge on how well team USA performs in each match.

My enjoyment of World Cup has grown in nearly direct proportion to my understanding of the game of soccer.  Having watched B play soccer for several seasons, I understand the game much better than I used to.  This helps because I can more fully appreciate just how gifted these players are: stopping a ball in mid-air with no hands, kicking a ball in one direction while running in another, heading a ball to a teammate or into the goal.  Phenomenal.  Amazing.  Entertaining.  I watch these elite goalies and can see why B was best at this position - she was fearless, quick and smart in the box.

I watch to cheer on our country.  I watch to see some of the many amazing things the human body can do.  I watch to cheer for the underdog.  Apart from England, I nearly always cheer against the European countries.  I guess I feel they've had their fair share of World Cup success, so I'm happy to root for Mexico, Uruguay or, on any day other than today, Ghana.  Next time around, I may pull out a world atlas and make A and B watch with me (since K is willing to watch anyway).  We can have a geography pop quiz while also getting some soccer watching done.

While I'm sad to see the US World Cup run end, I have enjoyed seeing the 2010 team play and I'm sure I'll tune in with more enthusiasm and knowledge in 2014 than I've had this time around.  Perhaps I'll get treated to a bit less heartbreak then.  Regardless, I'll be watching.

LOYAL

: unswerving in allegiance

I cheated on my husband today.... with another football team. He knows I love football. He's known that for years. But I don't think he realized just how much I still love the Alabama Crimson Tide. They were, you see, my first football love.

If I met you, I'd tell you I'm a Vanderbilt fan. And I am. We have season football tickets for our entire family. We have Vandy gear that we all wear to the games - a cute black-and-gold striped dress for the five year old, fuschia t-shirts for the eight and nine year olds, a black & gold tee for me and VU golf shirts for the hubby. We go to every home game, watch every away game on TV. But, Vanderbilt, oh, Vanderbilt. They lose. They lose games they should win. And they do this with alarming regularity.

I start every game excited, fired up to be there. I clap. I scream. I jump up and down when we convert on third and long. And then my team puts me back in my seat. Because our quarterback throws a pass to the wide receiver's knees. Our running back runs straight into a heap of defenders for no gain. And, far too often, we simply self-destruct. Because this has been happening for years - I've been a Vandy fan for nearly two decades - I begin to disassociate when things get bad. I keep watching, but the emotion drains out of me. I half-expect the dropped passes, the near-fumbles, the three and outs. I watch, but my mind wanders. I find this makes the nearly inevitable loss easier to bear. Part of me has already accepted that we will lose, so it doesn't hurt quite as badly.

But today, before the pain-inducing Vanderbilt-South Carolina game came the Alabama-Tennessee game. And watching Alabama is a different story. This wasn't their best game. They didn't score at will, as I would have liked. In fact, Tennessee, the hated University of Tennessee, held the Tide to field goals when I wanted TDs. But, man, is Bama fun to watch. Mark Ingram is simply stunning. I've never seen someone get so many yards after contact. He's quick and he just carried Bama down the field on his shoulders more than once.

And here's where the cheating comes in. While watching Ingram & Co, I clapped, I yelled, I said "Rolllllll Tiiiiide Roll!" with my five year old. And during the painful last half of the last quarter when Tennessee showed signs of an upset, when they actually recovered that onside kick (!), I was beside myself. I yelled, "NO!" at the TV after the aforementioned onside kick. My daughters looked at me like I was a bit insane. My husband looked at me longingly. Because HE yells at the TV - but he does it during Vanderbilt games. That's when he said to me, "You're cheating on me. You're cheating on Vandy. You don't get this excited during their games!" In the heat of the moment, I wasn't sure he was right. And I couldn't stop to analyze it then - the game was on the line! But after Alabama hung on to block UT's field goal attempt and I could think straight again, I could see his point.

I love Vanderbilt. Seeing them win their first bowl game in a quarter of a century earlier this year was thrilling. But when the Vandy game started and my husband was pacing the floor, trying to help players tackle and yelling, I knew he was right. I am loyal to Alabama football. My heart races when I watch those crimson and white players march down the field. My blood boils when a team like Tennessee threatens to thwart what I think might be another national championship season. I am active when I watch an Alabama game and I care all the way through the game. There is no emotional disassociation going on.

So while I live Vanderbilt football, going to every home game, wearing the black and gold, indoctrinating my children to love Vandy and hate UT, I breathe Alabama football. It holds a special place in my heart, and likely always will.

DISGUST

1 : to provoke to loathing, repugnance, or aversion : be offensive to
2 : to cause (one) to lose an interest or intention

Vanderbilt lost today and disgust just about sums it up. Our play during the game provoked loathing, repugnance and aversion more than I can adequately recount and I only wish it could make me lose an interest in future games. You see, we didn't just lose. We lost to a terrible UT team and lost our last chance to beat a Phil Fulmer coached team. To properly put this in perspective, this is a UT team that lost to Wyoming, yes Wyoming (!), at home a few weeks ago.

It's hard to know exactly where to start processing my thoughts on the game. We admittedly played terrible and didn't look anything like the team that managed to beat UK last week to become bowl eligible for the first time since 1982. It's been so confusing to be a Vanderbilt fan this season. We have sometimes been improbably good. Early in the season, our players seemed to believe they could win - and they did. Then things went predictably, terribly wrong and we lost four games straight including a mind-numbingly painful homecoming loss to Duke. As a Vanderbilt fan, I am used to my team losing. It's the five wins followed by four losses that cause confusion. When I had given up all hope, we beat UK last week to seal the deal started in the 5th week of the season.

Even with losses to teams we should have beat like Mississippi State and Duke, today's game was the worst of the season. While watching, I was in the kitchen working on dinner, so I wasn't watching the game closely. When I heard the crowd roar, I would check in to see what was going on. This was a home game for Vanderbilt, but more often than not, the crowd roar was for a UT play. It sickens me for there to be more UT fans at a Vanderbilt home game than VU fans. This should NOT be the case. It's bad enough to live in a state that swathes itself in a hideous shade of orange for a large part of the year. To not be able to fill our own stadium with black and gold for a game like today's is a travesty.

During the fourth quarter, I had to restrain myself from telling A, "Don't be a Vanderbilt fan. Cheer for a team that wins, honey."

VANDERBILT

noun
1) nationally recognized university located in Nashville, Tennessee
2) historically, a source of great pain for its football fans
3) the team ranked 13th in the AP College Football poll as of Sunday, October 5

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am a lifelong college football fan. However, until I was 18, I was a fan of winning football teams. That all changed in August of 1991 when I enrolled at Vanderbilt University. Growing up in southern Alabama, the comment I most often received upon telling acquaintances that I was going to Vanderbilt for college was, "Oh. You mean that team Alabama beats every year?" Yes, that's the one.

I didn't go to Vanderbilt for its football team (few do), and until this year, I've mostly come to accept that we were doomed to be at the bottom of the best conference in all of college football. The problem is that now I've begun to believe that we can actually win. This is a whole new universe.

Let me recap some of the emotions I've experienced thus far this season:


Stage I, Acceptance: Before the season even starts, I've accepted that Vanderbilt will self-destruct during at least two close games, manage to pull off an upset, lose to someone we should have beat and end the season with great disappointment. This is in sharp contrast to my husband, whose Stage I emotion is always optimism that THIS will be the season. Before the season started, some of my husband's college friends passed around their predictions for the season. The most optimistic prediction was 6-7, with a loss in the Music City Bowl to finish off the season. I'll admit I thought our friend was a bit delusional to think we could win 6 games. I have been a Vanderbilt fan for more than 15 years and we've never been to a bowl game. If we couldn't manage to do it with Jay Cutler quarterbacking or last year, with Earl Bennett, why would we be able to this year?


Stage II, Anxiety: Vanderbilt won its first three games of the season, including a second game upset of nationally ranked South Carolina. Our 4th game was Ole Miss, in Oxford. No sane, informed Vanderbilt fan thought we would win this game to go 4-0. We have self-destructed with far less grand opportunities than this. For those of you who don't follow this sort of thing, we beat Ole Miss. That's great, but my immediate emotion was great anxiety. The last time we started 4-0, we crumbled in the 5th game (to MTSU, of all people) and finished the season a greatly disappointing 5-7. That's right, in recent memory, we went 4-0 and then 1-7 to finish the season. My overwhelming thought after beating Ole Miss was, "How are we going to blow this?" I truly did not enjoy the Ole Miss win because of my anxiety about the rest of the season. This anxiety was well-founded. Up next, after a one week bye, was nationally ranked Auburn, who boasted a stifling defense.


Stage III, Hope: During Vanderbilt's bye week, Auburn played Tennessee. It was clear from watching that dismal game that while Auburn's defense was fabulous, their offense was, well, not much of an offense. They didn't seem to know what they were doing or how to do it. That they managed to beat UT was more of a reflection of UT's ineptitude than their own strength as a team. Maybe we could beat them? No, of course we couldn't. Then it was announced that ESPN Game Day was coming to Vanderbilt for the Vandy/Auburn game. This was huge - and a huge opportunity for us to blow it on national television. The anxiety returned and stayed with me until near half-time of the game, when Auburn led 13-0 after scoring two quick touchdowns.


Stage IV, Pride: But shortly before the half, Vanderbilt put together a drive and scored a touchdown to make it 13-7 going into the half. We had momentum on our side and one of the biggest differences in this Vanderbilt team and the teams of the past was that we were BETTER in the second half than in the first half. I think for years, Vanderbilt's football team didn't really believe they could win a close SEC game. This year is different. I think our players know they can win. I was so proud of our team's play through the rest of the Auburn game. We won 14-13 and our defense and offense both did their jobs. It wasn't a comfortable win - a victory margin of more than 1 would have been nice - but I think the team believed we could win, the crowd believed we could win and Auburn beleived we could win. We did and it was glorious. I was somewhat amazed that my primary emotion was not vindication - it's hard to lose close game after close game, year after year and not be a little bit bitter. But I was proud. I was so proud of our coaches, our team and our fans.


I can't wait to see how the rest of the season plays out. I know we will lose games - as of right now, we play two teams that are ranked higher than we are in the AP polls. But this is a new Vanderbilt and my word for right now is: "Expectancy." Let's see where this season takes us...

FALL

noun

1) the time for a huge pot of chili
2) a respite from the heat of summer
3) the time to watch football
4) the herald of wonderful things to come, i.e. Thanksgiving, Christmas and a New Year


I love fall. This time of year is my favorite because it brings with it so many of my favorite things. I suppose my love of fall started back when I was in school and I looked forward to returning to classes. Sure, I couldn't wait to see my friends, but also because I loved (and still love) learning. Fall meant new things: new classes, new teachers, a new football season.


It's interesting to write a definition of what fall means to me now and see how different it is from what I would have said or written 15-20 years ago. Growing up on the Gulf Coast, fall didn't exactly mean a respite from the heat... that didn't really come until late November, if at all, but it is truly one of the reasons I love fall now. I clearly remember my first fall in Nashville and realizing that trees do actually have leaves that turn colors and fall off. When you're surrounded by Southern Pines and the occasional Oak, you don't really get the stereotypical colorful foliage.


My mother hated cooking, so a huge pot of chili as a harbinger for fall wasn't added until I grew to love cooking (somewhere within the last 7 or 8 years).


Football has always meant fall and it's been fun to talk football with my mom as an adult and realize that my love for the game came from her. I can remember her sitting and watching whatever the SEC game of the week while folding laundry. I'll be doing that myself in a few hours and will think of her.


Finally, fall is about what comes next: extended family gathered around a table and giving thanks for our many blessings, celebrating Christ's birth and a new year that reminds us of all of the possibilities that await. Each of these holidays focus our attention on a different aspect of life. Thanksgiving makes us look back at what we have to be thankful for, Christmas is a holiday grounded in the present (and, all too often, in the presents) and the New Year encourages us to look forward. As someone who needs introspection to feel alive, this trio of holidays clustered so close together feeds my soul.


I have so much to look forward to.