Pigskin Panic

A while back, I was listening to the "Fresh Air" podcast on NPR, and host Terry Gross was introducing one of my favorite writers, David Sedaris. She mentioned that although Sedaris' writing generally tickles your funny bone, he also is not afraid to address subjects which may make readers uncomfortable. It occurred to me that my stories are typically innocuous, but to really stretch as a writer, I also should not limit myself. Hence, this post. What I want to write about today is sports, specifically football, and even more specifically, college football.

People get so excited about football. I have absolutely nothing against maintaining a healthy level of physical activity; in fact, I think that the more we sit, the worse we feel. The human body is just not made to remain in a still position for extended periods of time. But there must be something genetic about rabid fascination with football. What I mean here is the kind that keeps people glued to their seats for an entire weekend or screaming for their team to win, even suffering low-level depression when their team loses. It's all just a game, but it's a big game.

In this part of the South, college sports are front and center. When I moved to Atlanta, a female friend asked me, "So, who do you support in football, Georgia or Georgia Tech?" I replied that I had little interest in football, not to mention that having just moved from Chicago, I had little to no familiarity with either school, except that I knew Georgia Tech produced engineers. She said, "Well, you have to pick a side!" Believe me, it was years before I got around to it, and that was only when my oldest daughter enrolled at Georgia Tech. Then, the choice was clear.

Growing up in Memphis, we had a powerhouse basketball team at Memphis State (now University of Memphis), and of course, we had dedicated fans. The difference there was that basketball and football were pretty much on even footing -- you heard as much about one as the other. But honestly, down here, I don't believe the area would even function were it not for college football season. I am barely aware when teams start playing, but many of my friends, who are kind and decent people, know exactly when that first game is happening. Weddings (and probably even some funerals) get rescheduled around football games. It's amazing.

I went to Northwestern University, which back in the 70s did not have a winning football team. In fact, we were everyone's homecoming game, because we were so awful. That situation has improved greatly in the intervening years, to the point where Northwestern has played in several bowl games, including the Rose Bowl. But back in the day, we might get 9,000-10,000 fans at a game, and that was in a stadium that seated roughly 55,000. Down here, the stadiums are full to the brim and then some. At Northwestern, many Saturdays came and went without any evidence of a football game even happening. It was just quiet and peaceful on campus, and if it wasn't freezing, it would be nice to go outside for a while.

I have to admit that it's easy to get caught up in the whole thing. I have friends who say they are a "house divided" in that one person attended college (usually) at the fierce rival of the other. But going to a school is not a prerequisite for being a fan. For example, I have many friends who hail from points far north of here, but they are dyed-in-the-wool Georgia fans. Even me, myself, and I am entertained by LSU fans -- sure, I've been to Louisiana a number of times, but I didn't go to school there. However, I am totally fascinated by the level of celebration which these people are able to muster. I mean, it's Louisiana -- if you don't know how to party, you need to find another place. Also, I like the LSU colors.

So I just observe this whole thing and marvel at those people who maintain such strong ties to their alma mater or would-be alma mater. I don't totally get it, but I guess that if you like team sports, it's the bomb. Whenever I watch a football game, though, I am reminded of Andy Griffith's lines in his comedy monologue "What It Was, Was Football." In this piece, Andy plays a bumpkin sort of fellow who attends his first football game without really knowing what it's all about:

"I think it was that it's some kindly of a contest where they see which bunchful of them men can take that pumpkin and run from one end of that cow pasture to the other without gettin' knocked down or steppin' in somethin'."

We've only got about three months until college football season, so get your spirit wear while the gettin's good, amigos. Until then, review those stats from last year and prepare to make some party talk in the fall. May the best team win.

The Libes

It's good these days to hear about my alma mater, Northwestern University, even if it's just in passing. This past Sunday evening, I was shopping at Publix, and as I was searching for the perfect slider rolls, I overheard a conversation between a woman and a man, two friends who had run into each other buying groceries in advance of a predicted winter storm.

The woman's daughter was a senior in high school and had applied to a number of colleges. The daughter apparently wanted to stay close to home and had applied to the University of Georgia and a few other area schools, all very popular locally, but her mom, sporting a Nantucket sweat shirt, obviously wanted her daughter to venture North for higher education. Apparently, she and her husband had both attended Georgia and had, in her words, "done well," but at one point, she said, "You know, she really wants to go there...they all want the name, but those places like Northwestern...you never know." I'm not sure where her daughter's "there" was, but I had to chuckle a little inside, because when I went to Northwestern from Memphis, people weren't even sure where it was or why I was going "way up there." (For those of you who still don't know where Northwestern is, it's located in Evanston, Illinois, just north of Chicago. You drive up along Lake Michigan from Chicago, and you run right into Evanston. It's a beautiful community, very Midwestern, with lots of nice architecture.)

South Campus and The Arch

The thing was, Northwestern wasn't exactly known for having a winning football team, and in the South, football was and is a very big deal. One day in 1979, after we had both graduated and were living in Chicago, Karen and I saw a group of Northwestern kids carrying a goal post down Central Avenue in Evanston. We stopped one of the kids and asked them if they'd finally won a game. Turns out that they had just broken the nation's longest losing streak, which had previously been held by Columbia. These days, Northwestern wins football games and even goes to bowl games on a regular basis, but in those days, Saturday game attendance at 55,000-seat Dyche Stadium might average around 10,000. Not to mention that it was often freezing. You get the idea.

One thing about living up North is that you don't have any trouble staying inside and studying, and that was a good thing for Northwestern students. The academic pressure was intense. Most of us spent almost every evening and many weekend days (yes, even Saturdays) at the university library. And since we spent so much time there, the library, which was more commonly referred to as "The Libes," achieved destination status. It became so synonymous with my time at Northwestern that twenty years later, when my wife and I were giving our two young daughters a Parental Nostalgia Tour, The Libes had to be one of our first stops. The girls still joke about how how "exciting" it was for them to be shown the part of the library where I studied.

In 1971, two years before I arrived for my freshman year, Northwestern opened a brand spanking new student center called Norris University Center. It featured study areas, a theater, art galleries, a large cafeteria, and even three large "listening rooms" with floor-to-ceiling windows, each of which afforded a beautiful view of the Lake Michigan waterfront. You checked in to a central desk where you requested a particular LP to be played, and the music would be piped in to the room of your choice. But with all this, Norris still took a back seat to The Libes. The university was perpetually confounded that students elected to visit the second floor student lounge in library instead of using Norris. No one had time to visit Norris, because there was always some exam or other around the corner.

Library South Entrance

Both The Libes, built in 1970, and Norris were designed in the Brutalist architecture style. (Although the term may sound somewhat frivolous, it is a real thing, and it describes a style which features function over form. The most commonly used building material is concrete.) The library structure itself was divided into three similar five-story towers, one with walls painted brick red, one harvest gold, and one deep avocado green, perfectly matched to the aesthetic of the 1970's. On most floors, shelves radiated out from a central point, like spokes of a wheel. In the centers of the wheels, chairs and footrests were provided, with individual study carrels and private study rooms located throughout the floors. One of the first things that most students did upon arriving at Northwestern was to find a favorite place in the library which could be used as an elementary GPS of sorts. For example, in my freshman year, I preferred to study on the fifth floor of the green tower, so I would tell friends at dinner that if they wanted to find me, I'd be in "Five Green." In my sophomore year and later, I branched out to Two Gold at the Core Library, which featured unique, low-slung desk pairs. This was very nice if you found yourself studying with a friend.

One of the most important traditions at Northwestern was the 9:00 Break, during which time most people would head to the student lounge (Two Green) to eat snacks, drink bad but cheap coffee from vending machines, and socialize. This was the time when you would drop the econ, the neuro, the Kafka, whatever you happened to be studying just to hang out with your friends. People would even come to the library just for the 9:00 Break, and it was amazing: at any given time from 9:00 until around 10:00, there would be no seats left in the lounge, and people would have overflowed onto the floor. All this with the spacious Norris Center right next door. After the break, we'd all return to our respective study areas and hit the books until around 11:30 PM, when we'd pack it in and head back to our dorms or residences.

I spent so much time in The Libes that I can still fondly remember so many things: the way the fluorescent lights buzzed incessantly in the Green Tower, the way my roommate and I would sit in the halls of the Red Tower and quiz each other before neurobiology exams, the classic old periodicals on the lower level, the hidden tunnel to Deering (the "pretty library"), the way I would wake up in a study carrel and realize an hour had gone by, and the enormous card catalog that must have taken up a half acre. The memories are still so vivid.

The Campus Today

I don't know exactly how things are at Northwestern these days. There are a lot of new buildings, and the card catalog has long since been dismantled, but I'm sure that The Libes are still a nerve center, and if I'm thinking correctly, they're still something of a gathering place. But I do recall that every night when I left the library, I felt like I really was "at college," that this was something worth doing, and that this effort would pay off some day. In many ways, it has. I was fortunate enough to have much of the cost of my education covered by scholarships and grants, but my parents also contributed a sizable sum on their own. I'm so thankful to them for making it possible for me to attend Northwestern and to experience a life which they never had. I could never really thank them sufficiently, but when they came to visit, I made sure to take them to The Libes.

The Willard Swamprats

Imagine, if you will, the year 1973. Paul McCartney was cranking out hit songs without the Beatles, the Vietnam War was still going on even though Nixon had stopped the draft, Oscar de la Renta fashions were all the rage, Watergate was still an unknown entity, and double knit polyester was in full swing. There was a lot to take in, but for me, if was also the year I graduated high school and headed off to college. For many reasons, it was one of my favorite years of all that I remember, and when September rolled around, my life changed rather dramatically.

I left my home in Memphis and headed to my freshman year of college at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Evanston is a suburb of Chicago, but it does not look like one in the traditional sense -- it is located immediately north of Chicago, and its border is contiguous with the city. If you've been to Chicago and have taken the El trains, you may know that the Howard Street station marks the border of Chicago and Evanston. These days, it's not such a big deal, but I when I lived there, Howard Street was the "libation destination." Evanston was a much more reserved and conservative community than its urban neighbor to the south; for example, you could not buy alcohol at a restaurant unless over half the tab was comprised of food. This made for lots of unusual orders at local cafes: heaping plates of french fries with a pitcher of beer, for example. And so, it was into this environment that I matriculated. I had family in California and so had done some traveling, but this move was my first time living up North, and it was initially quite an eye opener.

Our dorm was named Willard Hall, in honor of Frances E. Willard, who had served for almost twenty years as president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and was a notable champion of women's rights and labor reform. The WCTU itself battled in her words "the devastation caused by the legalized traffic in strong drink." The cause was admirable and garnered widespread support. For our part, our dorm hosted an annual Frances E. Willard Birthday Party, at which a different beverage was served on each of our six dorm floors. Even though the legal drinking age in those days was 18, and especially because of that, I'm certain that Frances would not have condoned our celebration. (I still remember that time during the 1974 Party when in a state of artificially induced paranoia, Pete Birschbach and I thought we had seen a government spy.)

So, let me bring this back home. Here we all were, tossed from afar into this malaise that we called New Student Week, looking to put down temporary roots and find some direction before classes started. I believe it all started one evening when a group of us started talking and realized that the dorm name was the same as that of the 1971 horror movie "Willard," about a young man who has an unnatural fascination with rats. The theme song of the movie, "Ben," was sung by Michael Jackson and was essentially a love song to a rat, which in itself was weird beyond belief but was endlessly amusing to our young, malleable minds.

And that's when the idea hit.

Looking for something to bind us all together, someone suggested that we call our loose association of freshman males the "Willard Swamprats." One of our group, Rogoff, was an amateur cartoonist, and he sketched a dodgy-looking cartoon of a rat in a trench coat, wearing sunglasses, and that was it: we had an instant mascot. A few days later, my roommate Klein (some of us went by first names, others by their last) and I went to Chandler's stationery shop in Evanston and had custom t-shirts made. Klein's was dark green, and mine was orange. I still have mine, and it is pictured here.

There were seven Swamprats: Klein, Scott, Rogoff, Ron, Cliff, Danny and yours truly. We came from all over the eastern United States and brought our own idiosyncrasies with us, which we happily shared amongst the group. For a few months, almost everything we did was with the Swamprats or some subset thereof. We attended movies, lectures (well, we did have a somewhat genuine intellectual bent), went shopping, greeted the omnipresent Krishnas with "Hare Krishna, Hare Rama" when we would see them, and generally enjoyed each other's company. In many ways, it was like the cast of "Seinfeld," in that we would go off on some tangent and explore it to the point of ridiculousness, then move on to something else.

The Swamprats were a diverse group: among us we had pre-meds, pre-law students, journalism majors, radio/TV/film majors, and even a philosophy major, so honestly, we could, and did, discuss just about anything, and it was indeed a learning experience, albeit a casual one. Northwestern did not offer food on Sundays, so we were left to our own devices, and one Sunday, my fellow Rats decided that we needed to visit Askkenaz Deli on Morse Avenue in Chicago. This was only a 20 minute train ride, so it worked out perfectly. That first night that I went to Ashkenaz (there were to be many others), I had to study the menu. All the other Swamprats were raised in Jewish families, and since I was the lone Protestant, I was not familiar with many of the items offered on the menu. My fellow Rats were more than helpful: they steered me away from dishes they knew I would not like, and suggested that I stick with corned beef, which to me sounded perfect. Our waitress, a sweet older lady, presented me with an interesting beverage option:

Waitress: "So what would you like to drink, honey? Have you ever had a phosphate?"
Richard: "No, ma'am...what is a phosphate?"
Swamprat Member: "It's like syrup with fizzy water."
Waitress: "I'll tell you what, honey...you order it, you don't like it, you don't have to pay."

Perfect. I ordered my first chocolate phosphate and was both intrigued and delighted. The sandwich was one of the best I'd ever put in my mouth. Ashkenaz became a fast favorite of mine.

We went through the fall quarter, an inseparable bunch, attending movies, talking until all hours, and making runs to Howard Street for cheap beer. We all went home for the holidays and returned in January to an ice cold dorm that always took a day or so to heat back up. This Swamprats thing was quite the life, and unlike anything I had experienced in my only-child upbringing in Memphis, but it was good.

One afternoon in February, 1974, we decided to go to the movies in downtown Chicago. We wanted to see "The Exorcist," which had only been released a few days prior. Scott had a friend in town, so we took him along. I remember waiting in line outside the theater when suddenly, out of nowhere, a Chicago Police paddy wagon came down the street with its siren blaring. Within seconds, a group of policemen emerged from the van and approached an older black man. For what seemed to us no apparent reason, they began striking him with billy clubs, then threw him into the back of the paddy wagon. I was startled and upset by this, because he reminded me so much of one of one of the older men who hung around my dad's store in Memphis, carrying home groceries for the ladies. Within a minute or two, the van had driven away, and we moved on up in line to take in the trials of Father Damien Karras, but the incident we had witnessed was unsettling.

That night, we came back to the dorm and talked about the movie. Some of us had been scared out of our wits, and others had been amused, but it had made an impression on each of us. We stayed up until about 3:00 AM, imbibing and talking by the weird glow of a single desktop fluorescent light, and as we sat there, I began to notice that I didn't feel quite right.

The next morning, I awoke with a searing sore throat and headed to Searle, the student health center. Searle was always staffed with a group of physicians who looked as if they'd rather be anywhere else, but on this occasion, it made no difference to me -- I just needed a doctor. I was admitted immediately to the infirmary and shortly thereafter diagnosed with mononucleosis. I missed three weeks of classes, and even though I tried to keep up by getting notes from friends, staying in touch with my professors, and reading all the assignments, those three weeks hurt my grades, and it took a while to catch up.

When I returned to the dorm after my ordeal, the Swamprats were of course still there, but the wind had been taken out of my sails, and the group as a whole had frayed a bit as we all started to assimilate ourselves into college life. Danny had friends way up on North Campus, Scott had debate team gatherings, and others, including me, were going this way and that. We continued to get together for dinner or the occasional movie, but the Swamprats as a group had served its purpose, and I think we were all ready to move on.

In this age of social media, it's interesting to see where everyone has landed: one of the Swamprats is a public relations executive and published author, another is a teacher, and two are attorneys. One, sadly, passed away several years ago. I've seen a couple of the guys in recent years, and we still have that bond that came, strangely enough, from being a freshman Swamprat (although I would have to say, I think we've cleaned up fairly nicely).

Ashkenaz suffered a destructive fire in the 1980's and is no longer a presence on Morse Avenue, but I still think about that chocolate phosphate. I ended up paying for it.

Oh, also...we attended classes.