Game Day

Tonight the Canes play their first home game of the year, and I'm one happy Daddy in the USA. The team looks mediocre at best, but that's fine. I get to see my crew, well -- most of them -- Dr. Barry and family are up on LI attending a friend's kid's Bar Mitzvah -- and that's the important thing. For me, Canes football was love at first trip to the old Orange Bowl. It was September of 1979, and I had never been to a college football game. A bunch of us from the 1968 dorm boarded a bus, and it deposited us into the parking lot of the creaky old stadium. There was grain alcohol punch on the way, I seem to recall. There was laughter and togetherness. That team went 5-6, but ended on a high note -- beating the hated Gators, who went 0-10-1. I was hooked. As the undergraduate years passed, my friends and I tailgated. The team got better, under Coach Schnellenberger. In 1981 they went 9-2, and almost went undefeated but for s penalties against Texas and Miss State. But they were denied a bowl because of a continuing hobgoblin -- NCAA sanctions. Still, the week before law school started, we traveled to Gainesville to watch the hated Gators beat us, and then went on to win the rest of our games. We beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl game, for the national championship. Now I was REALLY hooked. My friend Mike's father was a fellow UM double alum, and he taught me the fine art of tailgating and hosting away game watch parties. I wanted to emulate him, and I have. And then, I joined the custom of attending away games, too. I went to Notre Dame, Rutgers, Ga Tech, and strangely, Tulsa, where I happened to be for a deposition when the Canes played their "Golden Hurricane." During that trip, my old boss Frank and I visited Oral Roberts University, which remains the most surreal place I've ever seen in my life. So this season is my 35th. The past 5, I have been lucky to be invited to my great friend Norman's tailgates. My close friends Eric, Dana, Barry, and Paul have joined me as we sort of drifted there from the parties Mike hosted, and this year Mike is joining us as well, with his core crew. Wifey's back's ugly head remains reared, so I have a substitute (not prostitute) date -- my sister of another mother, Mirta. She's due over today at 4, and we'll cruise up the Palmetto in my man sized Buick to join the party. Her high school buddy Maria is a close friend of Norman's, and that represents one of the many connections based on the love of our U. So the team may soar or stumble -- and this year it looks like the latter -- but our brotherhood and sisterhood never will.