I’ll stop and leave you with this. One of my best friends is a UGA grad. He drove home every weekend from Memphis and went to the games with his dad. When he lost his dad he went to the home opener...walked up the ramp...saw the green grass and walked back to his car and hasn’t been back. Long live awesome Dads like mine.
I understand this.
My aunt introduced me to MSU athletics. Neither of my parents graduated from there, and if anything my Dad is a big Archie fan. She took me and my brother to our first games in the ‘90’s, not sure of the first. We were there for the Hazlewood kick, so that one probably stands out the most. Her sister brought her family from Arkansas to that one, and they waited by the car for a few hours while we wrote our names and cuss words we were dared to write by frat boys on the field goal posts.
Her family has donated a lot to MSU and went to everything. She always had great seats and let me use them; if she didn’t have enough, she’d send her BDC bracelet out and let us come in with it. She was kicked out more than once for this offense, but wouldn’t dare say who she’d given her bracelet to. She got to know Dr. Keenum personally, and he gave her his number to call him if it ever happened again, and he’d handle it.
The last game I attended, she snuck me and herself into the new Gridiron club seats near the end of the game of the final home game. She was never scared to push the limits for a little fun and would never apologize for that, and I’ll never forget that night. I hate she missed our #1 ranking, our Omaha run this year, and our girls basketball runs. She would have been on cloud nine with all of that and would have been rewarded for being a diehard all of those years.
She passed away suddenly the next year; Dr Keenum attended her funeral. I haven’t attended a game since, for a myriad of reasons, but certainly partly because it will just feel very foreign without her. Hopefully plan on making one this year, though.
Salute to her; if you knew her, you were lucky.