It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's been a little while wince I've posted something. But I have been busy. Very, very busy. Last week it was OU-Chattanooga, Mizzou-Illinois, and East Carolina-V. Tech. Then Labor Day it was UCLA-Tennessee. Thursday was Vanderbilt-S. Carolina. And then it started all over again yesterday: Ohio-Ohio St., BYU-Washington, E. Carolina-W. Virginia, and (of course) OU-Cincinatti. I said that after the Olympics were over, I no longer had an obsession. I was wrong. I forgot how obsessed I am with college football, mostly because of moments like this:



I love football. I remember sitting and watching games on Saturdays with my dad when I was little. It was our little Saturday fall routine - wake up super early, get your chores done, and watch football until Mom makes you get up and do something else. And when she is distracted (and you have finished the task, of course) go back and watch football. When we were little (before I was born) my mom got so tired of my dad sitting around watching football that she told him he had to do "something constructive" while he watched the game. So my dad learned how to knit. He was so fast (and watched so much football) that he was knitting more sweater pieces than my mom could put together, so eventually she quit making him be "constructive".

OU-Texas weekend our applesauce making weekend. We set up tables in the garage for our apple coring/cooking/squishing/pouring/canning assembly line (when you have nine kids, you can have an assembly line). Then on a separate table we hooked up our ancient, rabbit-ear (foil-covered, over course), 10" screen TV - the kind where you have to turn a dial to change channels. It was the perfect set-up. And freshly made applesauce on a cool fall day is soooo delicious. Mmmmm....my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

When I was on my mission, I did not carry contraband, such as pictures of my boyfriend (I didn't have one) - instead I posted an OU football schedule on the wall in front of my little desk - next to our daily scripture study schedule. Once, on my first Saturday in the mission field, my little Peruvian companion asked me what I would be doing if I was at home (why you would ever ask that to a new missionary, I do not know). Well, duh. Of course I knew what I would be doing - watching OU football.

As much as I love OU football, I am not your typical Sooner fan. I don't really hate Texas - I just like it when we beat them. Otherwise, I wish them well - after all, the better they are, the better we are when we beat them. There are teams, however, that I always like to see lose:

1) Notre Dame - nobody should get to have all of their games nationally televised when they are terrible. And I don't like their helmets.
2) Miami - I think this is leftover bitterness from the 80s.
3) USC - bleh. I was on my mission when pretty boy Matt Leinart was so rude about beating us. And I got to watch Texas beat him the next year - the very same day I came home from Peru.
4) Oregon - possibly the worst call in college football EVER:






And just to be nice, these are teams that I always root for (except if they are playing OU, of course)

1) Michigan - My dad's alma mater. And they have cool helmets and an awesome fight song.
2) Nebraska - What a great rivalry we always had with them. Again, I like their helmets.
3) Missouri - It's been really exciting to see them do well these past few years. And even more exciting when we beat them.
4) Any team that Steve Spurrier coaches. He gave us Bob Stoops, for which I am forever grateful. Thank you, Steve.

Kenta and I pretty much always end up rooting for (and against) the same teams. The one exception is BYU. He really likes BYU. I don't get it. I feel no moral obligation to root for them, based solely on the fact that 99.9% of the student population is the same religion as me. My dad's from Utah, five or six of my siblings and their spouses have attended BYU. But I couldn't care less if they win or lose.

Another difference between me and your typical OU fan is that I don't really like going to games. I much prefer to watch
them in the comfort of my own home. I have suffered a great deal of emotional distress due to years of cleaning up trash, tobacco, nachos, hot dogs, and peanut shells, and sticky Lemon Chills at Owen Field (or shoudl I say Gaylord Familiy Memorial Stadium?)after people like this:

Most of these people are drunk before breakfast, and their condition only worsens throughout the course of the game. There is a lot of cussing and coaching from the stands, so I just prefer to stay at home. Kenta, on the other hand, really likes the games. Last week his friend came up from Houston and they went to the game together. Here's a little of what they saw:

The Pride of Oklahoma marching band

OU Cheerleaders - if you look closely, they are spelling "BOOOMER"

In a sad twist of fate, Kenta packed his camera away prior to what could have been the most classic shot EVER taken of a cheerleading squad - two cheerleaders, apparently oblivious to the fact that no one else around them was doing the same cheer, simultaneously lifted their cards to spell "OKLAHOMA". Unfortunately for them, the letters they were holding spelled "HO".

So there you have it. I loves me some good Sooner football. Every year since 2000 I've been waiting for another championship. But the last two seasons have left me feeling a little like this:

C'mon, boys. Don't let me down.