Down the gridiron urge the heroes of our Mighty Oregon

So now that football is pretty much in full swing again, I am back to judging my weekends based on my successes - in this particular instance, a phenomenal weekend is upon us because my Browns beat the Bears on Thursday (suh-WEET) and my Ducks beat Houston yesterday. Great game (and the only one I was able to watch) yesterday - it had all the makings of a typical Duck game in my life: emotional, nerve-wracking, nail-biting, ups, downs, highs, lows... I don't need to actually drink beer when I watch Duck football simply because by the end of any game I am spent, and it is generally time for a nap. I find it's best to watch Duck football with other Duck fans, and yesterday was no exception - Tom had the game on at his apartment, and Lori, Scott, Rachel and her boyfriend Ben were there to watch it. The problem with having people there that don't know me (in this case, Ben, because I don't really know him) is that they often view my emotional outbursts as some sort of symptom of craziness. I assure you I am not crazy - I am merely a Duck for life.

And I do mean life. I often say (okay, always say) I have been a Duck fan since I shot out of the womb. And it's true. When I was 5 years old on the first day of first grade at St. Cecilia's in Beaverton (have I told you this story before?), I spent my first recess running around the playground asking if the other first graders were Ducks or Beavers - it's important to start out establishing your social circle early on. Of course, most of the other kids didn't know what the heck I was talking about, which frustrated 5-year-old me, but I never gave up, and ultimately alienated all the Beavers and hung with the Ducks. Or probably convinced them to BE Ducks, ultimately, because while popular in my grade school, I was also pretty manipulative.

Being a Duck fan for life has had its share of ups and downs of course, but I almost prefer the times when for years we weren't even on the map. You knew pretty much where you stood when you were a so-so organization. Though you looked forward to the weekend with the same anticipation, you knew deep down that the odds of winning probably were not as strong as they should be now. I remember moving to Cleveland and having to beg Gonzo, owner of Gonzo's Party Bar in Strongsville, to search the satelite stations to find my game. And the tradition for calling Taylor's in Eugene every Civil War game that I lived outside of Oregon is legendary (one year I phoned from Ohio and they asked, hey, didn't you call last year from California?). But back then it was next to impossible to get any kind of score - the internet was just starting and in my opinion too geek-related for me to even bother. Not to mention computers were really expensive. Then came the Rose Bowl, and finally, living in greater Cleveland, I had a little respect.

We Duck fans have had our extreme highs in the last, oh, 12 years or so, but I think sometimes it makes a lot of us forget the lean years - the years that we were at the bottom of the bowl, when Phil Knight wasn't dumping cash into the organization and Autzen Stadium was just a football field. I find myself reminding Office Boy John that as disappointed as he might feel from the results of a Duck football weekend (end of last season, well, as far as I'm concerned it might as well have been sometime in the 1980s), he must ALWAYS REMEMBER that we are Duck fans, and we are used to this. It doesn't change the way we feel, it's just a part of being a Duck fan. We are used to getting our asses kicked emotionally, getting our hopes up just to have them dashed to the ground within a 3 1/2 hour period of time. It's what makes us strong and dedicated and true. Sometimes I get so fired up when I am giving him variations of this speech, I find him looking at me with awe (well. Probably not awe. Probably fear, or concern. Yeah, probably concern).

So though I could go on and on, I will just end with this: Go Ducks. GO DUCKS. Fall is coming, and that can only mean pull out the sweatshirts and long pants, stock up on soup, and go buy a big fat bottle of Tums.