Tuesday Thoughts 11/25: Perennial

I didn’t feel like writing but I did it anyway so now you have to read it. Fewer sections this week because I don’t feel like actually discussing the game itself.

5 Star (7 Star, 5 Star) Developmental Program Haiku of the Week

Hollow emptinessCrushed beneath the light so brightAs it always is

Perennial

On Saturday night I stood in front of the tunnel, camera at the ready, waiting for the team to run out. The music was thumping as the Reck rolled out to its starting point just ahead of the tunnel opening. The lights in the stadium were pulsing, thousands of fans adding their phone flashes to the luminous atmosphere. Standing in that perfect electric moment, my mind was completely devoid of thoughts about the game. Instead, all I could think about was how utterly cool living institutions are. To be one of thousands of people with a shared involvement, bigger than the sum of the parts, all brimming with the same anticipation. 50 years ago someone was standing in that same spot and 50 years from now someone will be there still. There’s continuity to this experience that lives beyond what happens between the whistles.

A few moments before, I was standing in front of Haynes King and his family, snapping a few pictures of the Senior Night celebration. College careers are brief; players don’t get long to endear themselves to a school or to leave a legacy. We’ve been lucky to have a guy like King for three years, but those three years are just a few links in the continuous lineage of players and teams that people like us have cheered for 133 years and will cheer for the next 133. That of course is not to say that King isn’t special – he is. But he’s part of a living thing that will survive long after he hangs it up. Players come and go, but Tech merely moves on and slowly evolves.

Maybe this is all just stupidly sappy and I’m tired and delirious, but this is why I’m here. It’s why I get so mad at games like this, but more importantly it’s why I keep coming back for the next one. I’ve tied myself to the institution, chosen to be one infinitesimally small part of it, because it’s a living thing. Not being a part of it was unthinkable as soon as I walked into Calc 2 on the first day. I could no more easily shed my emotional investment in this school and program than I could grow wings and fly. That’s the main reason that I write this blog in the first place; it’s an outlet for me to explore and make sense of that investment.

I’m furious now, but I know I’ll forget this game eventually. It might take a while but its memory will fade as better and worse ones replace it. Freshmen 20 years from now will show up to their first game at Bobby Dodd and begin their own entwinement without ever knowing it happened (hell, they might not know that we ever played Pitt if conference realignment doesn’t chill out). They’ll learn the same fight song that I did, and maybe I’ll even be standing nearby singing it too. We’ll all be excited about some new young quarterback or the return of our star wide receiver for his senior year or whatever other storyline the new season brings. Someone will kick off, the clock will start, and everything will cycle again. Energy never dies, it just transforms.