Yesterday was the first game day of the Cal football season. We played Maryland at home. We smashed 52-13 or something close to that. The atmosphere was amazing, and Berkeley was buzzing the whole day. Pre-game parties are known as tailgates here, but its pretty much what you would expect for a big sports day. You drink before, you go to the game and cheer like crazy, and then you go out and celebrate after (or drink the sorrows away...but not this time).
Of course people go nuts over American football here, and I think it gets a lot crazier than the AFL grand final (not that I give a shit) despite only being at the college level. I've got student season tickets, and the student section is just wild. You're on your feet yelling for about 3.5 hrs. You do get to sit down at half-time, which is a good thing since half-time entertainment is the best. That's definitely one plus about sports in the US, the entertainment is hell good. The marching band was awesome, they did a montage of Chilli Pepper's hits.
The gay thing about US sports is that everything is commercialised to the max. There would be breaks in play so that the TV commercials could run. On the bright side there was some pretty interesting video playback on the 'big' screen during breaks, and not just replays. They had little segments on the players in the Cal team such as: "who eats the most".
The game itself was pretty damn entertaining. I'm not into rugby or anything but watching a bunch of +250 pound dudes sack each other or our star running back make a 60 yard touchdown is worth it.
You can see all the photo's on fb (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=100045&id=764974345&l=c9e12c22dd), and some videos too (http://www.facebook.com/video/?of=764974345#/video/?id=764974345). The atmosphere is going to be even more crazy for USC and the big Stanford game, and I can't wait. Having said all that, nothing even comes close to the Kop in April, and I'm not being biased, I'm just being honest. Bring on 2010 South Africa!!
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