September 2, 2000 was a sunny Saturday at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis. Just after 10:30 AM that morning, I and 270 of my new best friends run-cadenced out of the Metrodome tunnel for the pregame show. It was my first time on the turf where my Minnesota Twins idols had played, and my first Gopher football game.
2000 was supposed to be the year Minnesota took the “next step” after going 8-4 the previous season, Minnesota’s most successful since 1967 and first bowl game since 1986. Talk of the Rose Bowl was in the air and even the pockets of Twin Cities media was starting to shrug off their cynicism and believe that maybe Glen Mason was going to finally do it.
That day in early September, the Gophers walked over the University of Louisiana-Monroe 47-10 and looked forward to another tune-up against Ohio (no, not that one, the green one) the next week. Instead of a walk-over, the Gophers sleepwalked to a 17-23 loss that set the tone for a season of extreme swings from hope to devastation. It firmly ended with devastation as Minnesota gave up a 24-point first half lead to NC State in a drenched MicronPC.com Bowl.
That season turned out to be an apt metaphor for the decades to come. I loved it immediately.
Thursday at 1:00 PM I will walk into Lot C37 on the University of Minnesota campus and my 25th season of Golden Gopher football fandom will begin. I picked this university out of a combination of pride and spite. The pride was in my state, the Northrop Mall, and the marching band. The spite was all the people I went to high school with who were herding to Wisconsin, chasing the newest, latest thing. I thought that was taking the easy way out. I wanted to be part of building something, not jumping on the bandwagon because Ron Dayne was on SportsCenter.
25 years later there’s been a lot of joy and a lot of pain. The pain has often been stronger. But it was never strong enough to drive me away; likewise the joy on the field wouldn’t have been enough to keep me. Much of what is good in my life is thanks to the University of Minnesota. I met all my best friends here; without it I wouldn’t have met my wife, had our son, or the rest of the life I currently enjoy. I found who I really was, for good and bad, at this place. The community has brought me through the hardest times of my life, and been there cheering with me for the greatest.
I’ve reached that point in my life where time sometimes takes more than gives. My best friend from 2001 Spat Camp died last year, her bright light dowsed decades too soon by cancer. Other friends are facing challenges of their own. I lost my dad. I turned grey and got fat. The world got…well, look around you. It’s easy to lose your North Star.
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Time also gives you perspective to see that while the product and result on the field matters, what a bunch of 18-24 year-olds trying their best on 12-15 weekends in the Fall shouldn’t dictate your wellbeing. Tomorrow I will celebrate. I will see friends I haven’t seen since December, but it will be like we saw each other yesterday. Campus has changed a lot but the memories are there, nurtured like the saplings planted by freshman year that are now strong trunks. My North Star is embracing the change without forgetting the past.
We’ll drink beers, eat hot dogs, and joke about the bad times…about Tracy Claeys and Tim Brewster, close losses and bad calls. But our hearts will be full again with hope, the sadness and challenges of the world outside campus will fade for a few hours, and we’ll feel like kids again, just for a few hours. We’ll sing the Rouser, criticize the coaches, yell for Koi Perich, do The Gopher, cheer for the dance team, and then we’ll go home to dream about coming back next week.
Life, and our University, moves on.
But the hope abides. It lives through us, and it lives because of us. And through these things we will pass it on.
Football is back. We’re back. I can’t wait to see you all. Row the Boat, Ski U Mah, Go Gophers.
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