The Big Game

Homecoming weekend at William and Mary started out all wet. On Saturday morning, the Homecoming Parade was cancelled due to rain, much to our disappointment (we love a cheesy parade, plus the Pep Band was going to march). But thankfully, the skies cleared in time for the big football game against undefeated U. Mass. Passes were thrown, tackles were made, points were scored, yadda yadda, we lost. It was pretty exciting, though...high scoring, and we did much better than we were supposed to, scoring 34 points against a supposedly top-ranked team. They scored 48, but whatever.

Okay, who really cares about that? I was just there to see the Pep Band anyway. I was shocked, disheartened, dismayed and downright irritated that the band didn’t have the opportunity to do their traditional half-time scramble show. Instead, there was a lame non-show of introducing important people, presenting the homecoming court (Homecoming court? Are you kidding me? In 2007??) and taking photos, and that was it. There’s 20 minutes of my life wasted. This is what we missed seeing. The scramble show doesn’t involve precision marching or playing while marching. It involves the much less challenging running randomly all over the field, then getting in position, and playing while standing still. All the fun of a marching band, with a fraction of the rehearsal time. I’m not sure what all the formations are, but I know there’s a martini glass, the letter F, a clock, and the initials WM in there. Ending with, of course, the alma mater. Because at William and Mary, you just can’t have too much alma mater.

Here’s an interesting sidebar. When I was at W&M, we were the Indians, complete with goofily grinning Indian mascot. Political correctness axed the Indians and the mascot, and the team name was replaced with “The Tribe” and a logo that incorporated the tasteful use of feathers (see above). Last year, the NCAA ruled that the name “Tribe” was not offensive, but the use of the feathers was, and they would have to go. The Florida State Seminole logo of an angry Indian in war paint is okay, but our two feathers are offensive. I guess that’s just one of the perks of having a big-time, big money football program...the NCAA lets you do what you want. Of course, this enrages the W&M fans. Every scrap, every stitch of university-sponsored athletic sportswear has had to remove those two feathers (new logo to come, not yet ready). But in a wonderful show of Tribe Pride, folks show up to the games in all of their old feathered gear, wearing feathers in their hair. At the game, some group (I don’t know who) went through the stands with huge bags filled with green and gold feathers, and gave them out to everyone in the crowd. The place was silly with feathers. I enjoyed that part immensely.

Here's how we thumb our noses at the NCAA:

Here's the Pep Band playing for the arrival of the team. The arrow's pointing to my son.

This guy runs around the field with this giant flag everytime we score. He did it a lot.

This guy was wearing a green and gold kilt, which gave him a Braveheart look:

And here are the cheerleaders. There are 2 complete sets of cheerleaders, so they can cover both sides of the field at once. I appreciate that.