Op-Ed: I Stayed in the Student Section for the Entirety of the Clemson Game, This is My Story
When 5 p.m. rolls around every Sunday, there is no place I would rather be than browsing the lawless seminoles.com, fighting my fellow classmates to the death for a chance to stand for three hours on bleachers even though there's nothing stopping us from just sitting down. After praying to my Bobby Bowden shrine and calling my friend who went to Clemson to tell him that his mother will never truly love him due to his abysmal choice of schools, I was confident that absolutely nothing could go wrong when playing the team ranked No. 2 in the whole fucking country.
“Jesus, Jessie, how much have you had to drink today? You can barely even call this a game,” commented my mom when I was able to finally achieve the coveted 0.2 bars of cell service in Doak this Saturday to call her to talk about the game. “I get that you’re a sports marketing major with a minor in communications, but isn’t this just self-flagellation at this point? I’m proud of you for breaking down the barriers that only the good ol’ boys like sports, but couldn’t you just use gameday as an excuse to ruin that $40 t-shirt we bought you at the bookstore to create a tube top--conceivably only held up by cheap, yet chaotic, body glitter glue--just like every other girl on campus?” After these questions, it became clear that the conclusion I came to about my mother in the 7th grade (that she was a total fucking bitch) was, in fact, not inaccurate.
At this point, I’m pretty sure the only men I can still trust are that one shirtless dude sitting and reading during the game and the astral projection of Jimbo Fisher that joins me whenever I drink too much at tailgates. "I guess this is what I get for making a deal with a demon to convince everyone that ‘Jimbo’ is both real and cool. But whatever deal Clemson head coach Dabo Sweeney must have made for his name seems to be cancelling it out. I had figured sacrificing that ginormous, sultry picture of me making out with the shiny football on the back of the stadium would have been enough to appease the dark powers, but I still couldn’t seem to put a single working defensive play into Taggart’s head. And if it wasn’t for this absolute scholar and certified babe of an FSU fan,” said Jimbo, projecting his aura around the shirtless man reading in the stands, “I wouldn’t have even had a copy of How To Possess 101 to give me the spell necessary to project a mental image of Clemson’s freshman quarterback doing the cha-cha slide at his senior prom four months ago into the minds of foolishly proud Clemson fan.”
To many, FSU Football has become what I am to my father: a disappointment who isn't even worth acknowledging anymore. However, those who are loyal or were completely shitfaced by the end of this game still see the small number of positives: not as many people passed out from alcohol-induced heat stroke and there’s going to be a ton of new FSU merch at Goodwill now. Unlike all of my ex-boyfriends, this is a group of men who I can continue to believe in despite their many, many shortcomings. Plus, it’s too late to get rid of the huge spear tattoo I got on my upper arm. Go Noles, baby!
Image Credit:
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/10/clemson-florida-state-fsu-reading-book-gillian-flynn-dark-places-blowout-meme
https://theledgesports.com/2016/10/14/jimbo-fisher-might-take-lsu-job/