It is this week that I regret not going to OSU. I have regretted this exactly five times since coming here; once for every OSU-Michigan football game and once more for the national championship. It's not so much that I love football--I don't really like or understand the sport. It's that I was raised OSU like it was a religion. My dad and I had several talks when I was younger about why it wasn't okay for kids born and raised in Ohio to root for Michigan. It's not about making the "right" choice. It's about pride in where you're from. If you are from Ohio, you back Ohio State. Period. If you are from Ohio, you cheer for the Indians, you don't jump on whatever World Series-bound bandwagon is swinging around the block. (In the case of baseball, I suppose it's okay to support both the Indians and a team that might be successful.)
My memories of high school are entirely blue and silver. I attended every football game, every boys' basketball game and most of the girls'. I cheered our girls' basketball team in the state playoffs--we went to Columbus that year. "We Are the Champions" makes me cry, because I associate it with the Slate Sling, a miracle half-court shot made from an inbound pass with 0.6 seconds on the clock to beat our rivals (colors? blue and gold) in the state tournaments. We have it on video. It's times like these I miss showing up an hour early for games to stand outside in the cold in a customized t-shirt, shorts, and thigh-high tie-dyed socks. I miss screaming until I lost my voice, even though I couldn't hear a thing. I miss the mob mentality and the cheers and the feeling of losing yourself in the group.
So go bucks. I'll be getting text messages about the game while I'm at R's brother's wedding. Some people just don't have their priorities straight.
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