The roar
I'd attended college football games before, including several at Chapel Hill (so a vaguely major program), but yesterday we went to our first pro game, the Giants at the 49ers. I decided at the beginning of the season to start following football a lot more closely this year, and my teams being the 49ers and the Steelers (in that order) it's been a very rewarding season so far, at least in terms of the quality and drama of the games I've been watching. That kept up yesterday, which was probably my favorite specific game of the year so far; for general games, it's hard to match the early season when our wins were still surprising, but I do think this one was better than our games against (say) the Lions. At any rate, it is something we should do again, possibly to the point of getting season tickets for next year.
Since so much of my audience here comes from Pittsburgh (including me, in a very real sense), I feel the need to carry out the rituals of justification: why am I rooting for the Niners, or at least, why would I root for the Niners over the Steelers? Actually living in San Francisco is a good reason, of course, but it's a still-newly-acquired one. But actually I've been a 49ers fan for essentially my entire life; I picked it up from my parents, who lived and married in San Francisco. Southern Oregon, where I born, is still 49ers country as well, although like most rural areas it's dominated by high-school and college football; and when we moved to Virginia, that fanship became (yet another) thing separating me from most of the kids there (Redskins fans, when they cared). So I do have a strong connection to the team.
I may have to root for the Steelers over the 49ers in their game, though, for complicated playoff reasons; for the 49ers, it might make the difference between a first or second seed, but for the Steelers it might determine whether they go at all. We'll see. I'll actually be at that game, although unfortunately I could only get one ticket.
The stadium's in the southeast corner of the city; we'd bussed there, but on the way home we walked out. My sense of geography betrayed me a bit, though, as apparently the San Francisco grid on Candlestick Point veers even further off the cardinal points; we ended up trudging through the parking lots and along long lines of cars until we finally broke free into Bayview, where we caught an excellent sunset.
We were debating a where to go for dinner on the way home when I finally got a long-delayed voicemail from cpride inviting us to a dinner party with him, Zoe, edanaher, and mkehrt. That was also very good, but it was nice to finally stumble over our threshold and call an end to the day.
Since so much of my audience here comes from Pittsburgh (including me, in a very real sense), I feel the need to carry out the rituals of justification: why am I rooting for the Niners, or at least, why would I root for the Niners over the Steelers? Actually living in San Francisco is a good reason, of course, but it's a still-newly-acquired one. But actually I've been a 49ers fan for essentially my entire life; I picked it up from my parents, who lived and married in San Francisco. Southern Oregon, where I born, is still 49ers country as well, although like most rural areas it's dominated by high-school and college football; and when we moved to Virginia, that fanship became (yet another) thing separating me from most of the kids there (Redskins fans, when they cared). So I do have a strong connection to the team.
I may have to root for the Steelers over the 49ers in their game, though, for complicated playoff reasons; for the 49ers, it might make the difference between a first or second seed, but for the Steelers it might determine whether they go at all. We'll see. I'll actually be at that game, although unfortunately I could only get one ticket.
The stadium's in the southeast corner of the city; we'd bussed there, but on the way home we walked out. My sense of geography betrayed me a bit, though, as apparently the San Francisco grid on Candlestick Point veers even further off the cardinal points; we ended up trudging through the parking lots and along long lines of cars until we finally broke free into Bayview, where we caught an excellent sunset.
We were debating a where to go for dinner on the way home when I finally got a long-delayed voicemail from cpride inviting us to a dinner party with him, Zoe, edanaher, and mkehrt. That was also very good, but it was nice to finally stumble over our threshold and call an end to the day.