Will Richardson

Speaker, consultant, writer, learner, parent

At Last…

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When ESPN says that my alma mater’s football program is one of the worst in collegiate history, rest assured it’s not hyperbole. In fact, I found it hysterically funny that in the story about Ohio U.’s mega-upset over Pitt last night, they told a truth I’d known since I went to school there way back in the…well…a few years ago:

There was reason for pessimism. The Bobcats hadn’t been on national television since 1969. In the last 35 years, they’ve had 29 losing seasons, spawning a local tradition. Students go to games, watch the band at halftime, then leave en masse.

But as I just happened upon the game last night after an evening of 8-year-old kareoke (don’t ask), and as I found the ‘Cats winning 10-7, and as Pitt drove down to tie it with eight seconds left in the game, and as then, in overtime, OU picked off a pass and ran it back 85 yards for the winning score, and as tens of thousands of fans poured onto the field wanting to make the most of their first nationally televised game since 1969, even with all of that, I still found myself bummed that I’d missed the band…

Comments

  1. Tom Hoffman says

    Good lord, Will’s alma mater beats mine. At least the Grays beat Flemington four times this year.

  2. John Rappold says

    As a graduate of Marshall University, I’m fairly familiar with the OU football program. However, I’ve never heard the OU Band. I was in the Marshall band, and we were actually going to Athens in 1970 for a game when the famous airplane crash happened the week before. Then, Marshall got kicked out of the MAC.

    I became a band director, and several of my students attended OU and were in the marching band, and they loved it. What you said about fans leaving after halftime was a story I heard many times from these ex-students. NPR even did a story on the OU band camp several years ago.