Go Rutgers!

I am neither a Rutgers grad nor a big football fan, but because the Smelmooo is both, I went with him yesterday to the Rutgers-Louisville game. I was initially sort of lukewarm about attending, even though I knew it was a huge game. Maybe especially because it was a huge game, I figured it'd be more fun for the Smelmooo to go with a bigger fan, or at least someone with a direct connection to the school. And when people asked why we wouldn't just sell our $15 tickets, which were going for hundreds of dollars on eBay, I sort of saw their point.

But sometime yesterday, I started getting excited. And then as I saw the huge snarls of cars heading toward Piscataway and the hordes of people -- decked out with red shirts and red jerseys and red-painted faces -- walking toward the stadium, I started getting really excited. But not particularly confident that Rutgers would pull a win.

We tailgated for a while (thanks, Brother of the Smelmooo, for our access to the Green Lot!) before the game, and I just loved taking it all in and people-watching. The group next to us had brought a giant flag stand and were flying a Rutgers flag high in the air; several groups had bouquets of black-and-red helium balloons. A guy with a giant Santa belly stood around with his torso naked but for the giant RU painted on his bare skin (there were also several of the more traditional groups of seven guys standing in a row to spell out RUTGERS across their chests, but that wasn't as compelling to me). A lot of people were drinking wine out of actual stemmed wine glasses during the tailgate, which I'd never seen before (at Colgate, where my first year the football team was 0-13, the classiest we did at tailgate was drink wine from a box; otherwise, it was Milwaukee's Best wide-mouth cans all the way). A more familiar sight: three girls walking toward the stadium, the two on the outside propping up the one in the middle as she puked and puked and puked, every 10 steps or so.

The game itself was another first; I can't ever remember being in stands with that much energy and excitement. There were little boys there with their dads, both generations decked out in their Rutgers gear, the kids with temporary Scarlet Knight or R tattoos on their cheeks. People we didn't know at all were our new best friends -- high-fiving and putting their arms around us when things were going our team's way; sharing despondent looks of commiseration when we were down; helping each other figure out what had happened on the field when we couldn't see the action or hear the call.

And when the Little Knights that Could came through in the end? I have never seen so many people spilling out of the stands and onto the field. I actually got choked up at the sight of it; so many people bursting with pride and school spirit and shocked excitement. Even after the last field goal, even after the final cannon was fired signaling the end of the game, even with a thousand or more people rushing the field, many of us were still kind of wide-eyed with disbelief that Rutgers won, blinking hard to make sure we weren't mistaken, or dreaming.

And then we smiled and cheered and clapped and whooped, and it felt like the whole world was cheering with us. And, judging from the media coverage last night and today, we might have been right.

I'm still not a big football fan, but I'm a very proud Jersey Girl today. Woohoo!