College Football

Fall is my favorite time of year.  I love the colors, the crisp morning air, soup suppers, and...pause for a cleansing breath...college football.  I cannot describe it to anyone who doesn't "get" it.  If you don't experience it first hand, you usually don't get it.   There is a feeling, a smell to college football.  It smells like grass and sweat and grill smoke and bourbon.  We've held season tickets at Mississippi State for at least a decade.  We count down the days until the first home game, and our kids are happier on opening day than on Christmas morning.  And as I sit in the stadium with 57,000 of my closest friends I wonder why it is so wonderful.  I mean, hello, it's not like State knocks on the National Championship door every year.  Why does it make my pulse race and put a smile on my face?  Because we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.  My kids sing "Hail State" (yes, they know all the words), ring their cowbells, and smile, and laugh, and smile some more.  They are a part of something I alone couldn't give them.  It's a common bond  that on that day at that moment, there is nowhere else any of those 57,000 people would rather be.  So, we trek again this Saturday to Starkville.  And, for another Saturday, we get to be a part of the nirvana that is college football.  Ah, sweet nectar.  Go State.