In case you were wondering, the Jacks didn't actually "Axe 'Em" last night. There were no axes involved. If the truth be known, the only yard care tools used last night might have been a shovel to bury the dreams that some may have had of a victory.
But the tailgate was fun.... at least once we found it, it was fun. My wonderful brother got my sister-in-law, Eileeen and me a terrific parking pass and comp'd tickets. The parking was mere steps from the stadium. The seats were inside the stadium, which is all that is necessary at Gerald J. Ford Stadium since all vantage points seem to be good. I don't know if I have mentioned it previously in this forum, but my brother Rob is an Assistant Athletic Director at SFA. So last night according to my pass, I was a sideline reporter. Hey, if the need arose, I could have written a story. In fact, I think I am doing it right now.
We found our parking lot and parked around 4:45 yesterday afternoon. Then we began looking for the SFA Alumni tent. I had seen on line that it was to be located on University. But quite frankly, I never paid close enough attention to what I had read to know a cross street or what building it might be in front of or anything else. Eileen may have been the only person there last night who knew less about where the tailgate was than me. To tell you the truth, I was relying on Eileen to know exactly where we were supposed to go because Eileen is just that sort of person. But I don't think she had originally planned on tailgating yesterday.
So, once we arrived, we got out of the car and asked the first people we saw directing traffic how to get to the SFA tailgate party which we thought was located on University. The first man we asked didn't really speak English. So, he directed us to a second person who told us to walk north. That was pretty much all of his advice. So, we walked north. After a few blocks of walking north, we ran into several other people wearing SFA shirts. We all clung to one another. At this point we were in the heart of the SMU tailgate party and we needed a sense of SFA community. Our fellow Lumberjacks were Jasmine, Justin and Jessica along with Justin and Jasmine's cousin Chris. I know! After all of those "J's", Chris was somewhat of a let down. But never fear! He was an alpha male and went out on his own. FYI.... I was on my second beer before Chris made his way into the SFA tailgate area.
When we ran into the J's and Chris, they told us that the alumni tent was at University and Airline. So, Eileen immediately started looking for this magical intersection on her trusty Iphone. According to her Iphone, those streets did not intersect. After having found the alumni tent, I can tell you that Steve Jobs put a hell of a GPS in those Iphones and it was correct. Airline and University do not intersect. However, there is a courtyard between University and Airline that did contain the alumni tent. The problem is that those damn SMU people keep putting buildings up in the middle of roads and so the roads have to go around the stupid buildings. So, we followed the snake like Airline Rd. for several blocks around a few new buildings until finally two really nice SMU guys in a golf cart showed us the light.
The truly amazing thing that happened prior to finding the tent though, was that we found out that the people directing traffic may have just arrived in the country around noon yesterday. And yet they were already employed. None of them had any knowledge of the area. Only a select few spoke English. When you asked any of them for directions, they didn't have the slightest clue. Jasmine asked one while we were on Airline which way we should go from where we were. He pulled his map out of his pocket and then told her to ask someone else. Really! I am not making this up. The next guy we asked pulled an identical map out of his pocket and offered to give it to us. When Eileen and I got adventurous and struck out on our own, we asked one who told us to go the exact opposite way that we were headed and wound up to be the correct way. Fortunately, by then we already knew that they were more lost than us and didn't listen to him.
Somewhere along the way, Justin finally decided to ask a cop for directions since the traffic directors seemed to be more lost than us. Eileen and I waited a few minutes and then while Eileen was looking at her trusty Steve Jobs GPS I happened to notice an SUV of SFA people who were just given directions to go north. So, we followed them.... until they did a U-turn and started going back south. When that happened, we asked the two men wearing SMU gear in the golf cart behind the SUV for directions. They told us which way to go and even drove slowly for about half a block to show us. These were the first two people we found all day who knew what they were doing.
Just a few short minutes later we arrived at he alumni tent where we got in line behind the J's for free BBQ. Apparently, Spring Creek provided SFA with free BBQ for our event. Nice! Eileen and I got plates and took them over to a bench in the shade. On the way to our bench we found our other friends who we hooked up with after we had eaten. While we were eating Eileen discovered the bar which was serving beer. At this point we were both drinking iced tea. So, we threw our plates in the trash and went to the bar area. Turns out, the beer was free too!!!!! I love SFA!
By the time all was said and done, I had a knew SFA shirt, I had had a nice meal, more than two beers and had caught up with some people I hadn't seen in the last year, as well as meeting other people I didn't know before.
After the tailgate, we headed over to the game. The trip to the game turned out to be not so difficult once we knew where we were going. One kid of a couple with us got lost during the walk to the stadium, but only temporarily. She just walked faster than the rest of the group and had gotten ahead of us resulting in just a little panic by her parents.
We got inside the stadium a few minutes into the first quarter. The group we had been hanging with had seats on the front row around the 30 yard line. Ours were around the 10 yard line about 50 rows up. We did however, have a really nice breeze and there was no one sitting around us. So we were able to spread our stuff out and relax. Eileen and I chatted throughout the game.
Through the 1st quarter and into the 2nd quarter the Jacks were able to keep the score close. But as the game went on, it became slightly one sided. Okay, I have to admit it, SMU kicked our asses. The final was something like 52 to 0. Eileen and I left during the 4th quarter because her cell phone reception in the stadium sucked and we decided it we were going to get beat this bad, we would at least rather hear Rob's play by play than see the whipping and we could only do that through the use of Radio Pup, the greatest app ever! So once we were in the car, we got to listen to the rest of the game in the parking lot.
Basically, the SFA vs SMU game is one that SMU is supposed to win easily. All universities do this thing where the put a super easy non-conference game on their schedule at the beginning of each year so that they are able to win a home game for the alumni. SMU has to look a little harder than some schools to find a team that they can beat so easily. But SFA is their bitch. SFA's game like this was last week vs. some small school from Oklahoma. While we were getting our butts handed to us yesterday, Texas State experienced the same type of defeat at the hands of Texas Tech.
We all expected this loss yesterday. But the nice thing about being from a small school in a small east Texas town is that even having known going into the game that it was going to be an ass whipping, we all had a great time. We got together, we wore our purple, we drank a few beers, had some good BBQ supplied by the great folks at Spring Creek and we celebrated SFA. I had a great day. Thanks to Rob and Eileen for always getting me into the SFA events. And maybe next week, the Jacks will indeed Axe 'Em!
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