Touchdown (in more places than one)!

Gameday 2 rolled around after only one week. We were home again, this time hosting another unranked team, Eastern Washington. I feel like I didn't really explain the little customs of what goes on in the Stadium last time I wrote about the football. So here goes:

It's all about crowd support. You get in early, get good seats, listen to the pre-game banter and watch the team warmup. There's one or two guys hooked up to the PA system, who are paid to fire up the crowd and lead the chanting and cheering. The marching band comes out first, playing its customary tune with the 'Grrr Rah!' chant and then the team comes out after much epic music.

One of the cool cheers we do is the Student-Alumni echo. Basically Memorial Stadium is split up into 2 end zones (where you score touchdowns) and the 2 main stands (along the length of the field). One of those is the student section and opposite that is the alumni section. So the students yell 'Go!' and the alumni echo back with 'Bears!'. See video on facebook :).

Anyway this time around I got to the game early so I had awesome seats, and seeing the players up close was pretty impressive. Watching the game was also much better, and you can hear their helmets clash and the pads crunch from the tackles. Our team has arguably the best running back in the nation - Jahvid Best. He's apparently got a sub-10 second 100m in full gear, and he is fucking fast. This game it was pretty amazing to see him run a 60 yard touch-down (which got chalked out 'cause he apparently stepped out of bounds), and then see him run again the very next play with 15 seconds of rest. We've also got a sick defender named Syd-Quan Thompson. He is referred to in chants as 'Sick One Thompson'.

The other custom we have at games is crowdsurfing in the student section after a touchdown. What? Did I crowd surf? Well did we score a touchdown?

Hell yes we did - 59 to 7 thrashing how could we have not? Was a dumb enough to bring my camera along for the 50m surf to the top of the student section? Yes. See Video.

OK the enthusiasm started dying down towards the end, but after a while it just feels about the same as being stuck in the middle of the M-City D-floor. Oh and I got close enough so you can see our cheerleaders this time. Enjoy!