I've lived near Columbia my whole life, and my sister even went to Mizzou, but I've never been to an MU football game. I've watched them on tv, and cheered from afar, but now I'm finally able to experience the phenomenon in person.
I have quite a few family ties to Mizzou besides my sister. My cousin Angela, my Uncle Denny, his son Stephen, and now his daughter, Elizabeth, are all proud Tigers. My Uncle Richard on my dad's side is even retired from there. I'm sure there's more, but I have a big family, and can't keep track of all of their alma maters. The good news about this is that Angela and I wouldn't be alone in our cheering efforts. (And Angela is now officially making it into the blog. She's been a regular commentor, but has yet to take part in any of the adventures. So, lucky for her, she also gets to experience a new thing!)
Angela is a season ticket holder, along with my Uncle Denny & Aunt Kayne. They don't sit together, but they'll often see each other through beer goggles at the tailgating extravaganza. Since my uncle is out of the country for business, I offered to pick Aunt Kayne up along the way. Roadtripping is so much more fun with other people. Especially if the other person is Aunt Kayne. She would be joining her friends for their tailgate, and Ang and I would be bouncing from their tailgate to Angela's friends' tailgate.
Me and Angela
My road trip buddy, Aunt Kayne, and Ang and I.
Now, I've tailgated before, but never to the extent that some of these people do. I mean they had RVs for crying out loud! We arrived at the parking lot around 2:00 for a 6:00 game. Which might actually be considered rather late since people had been there since the night before. The weather had turned from lukewarm in St. Louis to a balmy 50 or so in Columbia. I really wasn't prepared for the drop in temperature, but at least I had a light jacket and gloves. I almost didn't pack them since it was supposed to be in the low 70s. Stupid weathermen.
Good news is that MU tailgaters don't mess around, and they came prepared with numerous canopies to keep out the rain and some of the wind. Shortly after we arrived, the ladies started bringing out platter after platter of food. THIS is what tailgating is all about. Yes, drinking beer is always fun, but it's the food that I love. I started snacking relentlessly on the mixed nuts, Bugles mix, cookies, pulled pork, chips, salad... I think I ate a little bit of everything. It was magical.
Eventually my cousin Stephen stopped by to say his hellos and give some sugar to his family. He's a junior this year at Mizzou and finally 21. As evidenced by the case of Natty Light he was carrying around. I think he was a bit jealous I was drinking legitimate microbrewery beer, rather than the alcoholic water he was chugging down. Ahhhh, to be broke and in college again. I can't say I miss the cheap beer experience anymore.
I have a soft spot for this boy.
Stephen with his *favorite cousin. (*Angela and I are technically tied for the honor.)
Cousins! (My mom, Stephen's dad, and Angela's mom are all siblings...they are 3 of 8!)
Stephen and his mama!
I had to give Stephen a bit of trouble because he was put in charge of getting me a gold Mizzou t-shirt. I didn't have any MU apparel, and I couldn't find any gold t-shirts at the few stores I looked at in St. Louis. (They encourage fans to wear gold to the games.) Stephen, being the doting cousin that he is, offered to pick me up a shirt in the bookstore the day before the game. (It's 25% off!) I told Aunt Kayne I wasn't picky on the design, I just wanted to make sure it fit. He's a 21-year-old male. Not really who I'd normally want picking out a shirt to fit. Apparently, he stressed a lot over the design until he finally came away with a True Tiger t-shirt that says "Beat Western Illinois". I was completely fine with that, but I couldn't miss an opportunity to give him a bit of grief. Not that it mattered, since I wore my jacket the whole time anyways.
We eventually moseyed over to Angela's friends' tailgate so I could use their RV bathroom. The line for the port-a-potties were about 25 people deep, so I was getting a bit concerned with the bathroom situation. I wasn't nearly drunk enough to embrace the port-a-potty just yet. I felt a bit weird using someone's bathroom when I had only met them about 4 minutes prior. But, they were all nice people, and seeing that I was related to Angela, they welcomed me with open arms.
We weren't there for too long before it was time to head into Faurot Field to see a little football action. I mean, that is why we're here, right? We just missed the singing of the national anthem and the flyover, but another restroom break was pretty mandatory at that point. Once I break the seal, it's all downhill. Angela and I headed up to our seats, and I was thrilled to see that Angela springs for seat cushions with backs on them. They're not standard with season tickets, and you definitely have to pay extra, but they're well worth it. They stay up all season, so she'll always have a comfy place to park it for a few hours. They're also available to rent on a game-by-game basis. I hate bleacher seating with no backs, so it was lovely to not have to worry about a sore back all night.
However, the seats were a bit on the teensy side, and I was a bit concerned the guy sitting next to me might think I was getting a bit fresh if I sneezed. We were packed in like sardines, but at least it helped keep the body heat from escaping! After the first few minutes, it was nice to have the windblock of the people in front of me.
I'm here!
As the minutes ticked away to kick off, I took a ton of pictures of the stadium itself. I've only been in this stadium once before, and it's been exactly 1 year and two days since then. This is where we finished our 5K race last September, and it felt a lot bigger being up in the seats than it did on the track. The place was massive, but it kinda has to be to contain the massive amount of MU fans.
That area of the track is where the finish line for the 5K was last year.
The stadium itself was enormous, and reminded me more of a pro football team's stadium than a college team. But, then again, my college football experience consisted of Truman State University. We weren't exactly known for our football prowess. In fact, I think I maybe went to a total of 2 games in the 4.5 years I went there. So, needless to say, this was pretty impressive to watch. And kinda made me sad that I never experienced all the hoopla a college football game had to offer.
Even the team entering the field and the starting line up was a production in its own right. I've only been to one St. Louis Rams game, but I don't think it was even this big of a deal.
Getting ready to announce the team.
Pretty sweet scoreboard display.
Truman the Tiger making his way around the track to get the students pumped up!
This is a little bit more pomp and circumstance than I'm used to.
Well, this looks interesting. Are there people in there? More on this later.
See the vendor in the upper left corner with the reddish orange shirt in the aisle? Aunt Kayne is only a few rows up from him. I zoomed in and I can totally see her! I assure you she is not picking her nose.
You can sit up on the grassy hill if you want to. That's kind of an interesting way to watch the game!
Marching Mizzou.
Andddd, it's game time!
I was pretty excited to watch the game, but I didn't figure it would be all that action-packed since we were playing the Western Illinois Leathernecks. Which, oddly had a mascot of a dog wearing a bandana. I suppose that's a military symbol since leathernecks are what Marines are called. MU didn't disappoint in doing their job, and WIU didn't disappoint in their role of letting us pad our record. The cannon went off 6 times just in the first half.
The first few touchdowns were pretty exciting until we just kept scoring. With two minutes to go in the first half, we were up 35-0. I started to text my friend the score, but about a minute or so later we scored again. Good grief, now I know why they call it a cupcake game.
I'm not sure if they are members of Mizzou's ROTC or active soldiers, but they are in charge of firing the cannon after a touchdown. They got to fire it A LOT! I tried to get a photo of it, but I was never quick enough. Either that, or someone would walk right into my shot when I took the photo.
The cheerleaders run across the field waving flags that spell out Missouri. You can see the remnants of the cannon fire. MU goes all out each time they score. :)
Another thing they do is have these guys do push ups with Truman after every touchdown. But, they don't just do 6. No, they do pushups to equal the current score. Can you imagine what your arms would feel like after doing close to 400 push ups in 3 hours? I know these guys are used to it, but Truman didn't quite do all of them. ;-)
This thing was my favorite part. (Sorry about all the interference. People kept walking in front of my camera.) I don't know what it was about this giant helmet that people drove around, but it cracked me up every time. All they would do was drive it around in figure 8s after a touchdown. That's it. They just drove it around like they were drunk. It was hysterical.
The halftime show was exactly what I expected and was full of drums and dancing Golden Girls. What I didn't expect was the mass exodus from the stadium. By the time the second half was under way, nearly half of the fans hadn't returned to their seats. I know it was essentially a blow out game, but geez, they could have at least stayed for the whole game. And dangit, all those people left and took my windblock with them. Granted, it was later in the night, but there wasn't a whole lot to block the cold that I hadn't planned for. Good news for us, is that Aunt Kayne was able to come and join us for the rest of the game.
I'm a bit partial to flag girls since I was one in high school. They had pink flags for Susan G. Komen weekend in CoMo.
The Golden Girls also sported pink.
Can you figure out the song they're playing? It's a tribute to breast cancer awareness. And who knew they had baton twirlers?
We continued to watch the game and cheer on the team, even after the 5th string they probably put in. I swear, I think even the water boy was playing. Hell, I think I was the only one not on the field at some point. Some of the touchdowns looked like our guy was running in slow motion. It was almost like he was trying to get tackled so we wouldn't score again. It really was a bit embarrassing for WIU. But, surely, they had to know what they were in for.
Kinda like the 7th inning stretch, this is the Missouri Waltz. I think this happened between the 3rd and 4th quarters. I hope you don't get motion sickness, because I was swaying along with everyone else. :)
The game started to wind down and I noticed there was a line of people in yellow jackets lining up around the field. I asked Angela and Aunt Kayne what they were for, and they informed me they were there to keep people from rushing the field? Really?
Really? I highly doubted this was the night that the student body would feel the need to rush the field. Not to mention all the students had pretty much left the stands anyways. I had to laugh because when I zoomed in, I didn't really think the people they chose would be able to stop a mass mob of students intent on taking down the goal posts.
The last line of defense. They look pretty fierce, right?
I asked them if I could rush the field. Just because I wanted to say I'd done it. I wanted to know if they'd bail me out of jail. Aunt Kayne politely declined, but she did offer to take photos for posterity.
Thanks.
I decided not to, because they'd probably just think I was a crazy person and body check me or something. This is not on my bucket list.
Final score: 69-0. Does anyone else find it crazy that this my 69th new thing, and we won 69-0?
A BIG Thank you goes out to Angela for asking me to go with her, as well as a thank you to Aunt Kayne for being my travel buddy, and Stephen for the shirt. I "guess" it was okay. Love you all!
