The Big House

If you’ve grown up in Michigan you couldn’t avoid the fall phenomena known as UofM football. The Wolverines play in Ann Arbor in a gigantic stadium called “the Big House” because it will seat more than 107,000 of your closest friends.

I’ve never been. There are a couple reasons, most of which revolve around the fact that I didn’t attend any of the universities in Michigan. When I was attending college football games cheering on the Black Knights in our rock-bound highland home, our team wasn’t competitive enough to schedule any games with Big 10 teams. We did defeat the Michigan State Spartans in the Cherry Bowl during my senior year of high school but that was in the Pontiac Silverdome, which no longer exists.

Anyway, the brave old Army Team is scheduled to play in the Big House next September so I figured it’s high time I started thinking about attending a local game. Not enough to actually purchase a ticket, but why not drive over there and see what the pregame hype is all about. Baby steps, you know?

The scheduled opponent this particular Saturday was the Penn State Nittany Lions. What is a “Nittany”, anyway?

The tailgaters are impressive in a lot of ways.

I even found a young man who said his grandson is currently attending West Point. Instant kinship.

After my jaunt around the stadium I had lunch at an Irish pub and bought tickets to the Red Wings game that evening. Leopards don’t ever change their spots…

~ Freddy