Saturday Night Lights

Stanford vs. UCLA, October 1st

My old student Tyler wrote to me two weekends ago and offered me three of his player’s tickets to the Stanford-UCLA game this past Saturday. I jumped. I love a good football game and had told his mom a few weeks before that it would be great to go. I knew that seeing Tyler play again after five years was just going to be so fun. We decided to make a weekend of it, since the game didn’t start until 7:30 at night and we live two and a half hours from Palo Alto.

We stayed at the W in Newark, in a very nice and yet reasonably priced suite, and of course, we took full advantage of everything there, including the pool, which thrilled Ellie to bits since our community pool in Davis closed a month ago. She was also amazed at what was, as she put it, its “no car, just walking?” proximity…it nearly confused her. But she had a blast splashing around. The only thing that was a little iffy was that the pool is encircled in sand (outside of a sidewalk-like ring around the lip of the pool itself), so it was out of the water and into the sand. She was pretty much breaded after a minute or two. That wasn’t fun.

This is an old movie theater. The university is open. :)

About a mile from the stadium, we had dinner for free at CPK because they were having a training night! All we had to do was fill out a survey at the end, and our $65 meal was covered by the restaurant. Score!! I’d have paid $65 just for the four distracting crayons they gave Ellie while she waited for her pasta, but to have our own meals and a glass of wine, too? That’s pretty much winning the dinner lottery.

Then we drove the world’s longest mile to the game. It turns out Stanford football gets a lot of love. It took a while to find parking, but I had fun admiring all the gorgeous trees that surround the stadium. They make it look like the South; you could have told me we were going to an Alabama game and between all the fans and the huge, droopy trees, I would have believed you. Thank goodness for the “pin drop” feature on our phones or we never would have found our car again.

The pom-poms were breast-cancer-pink!

The trees really shroud the stadium, so it kind of creeps up like a quiet giant. We made it around to the player’s will call, signed for our tickets and then went through the Special Tunnel, which is what we called the family entrance to the stadium. Mark asked Ellie if she felt like a rock star. She nodded. He said, “Good, you should!” It was very cool. (It’s obviously the little things for us. We're not ashamed.) We sat next to Tyler’s lovely stepsister, her husband, and her in-laws in what is clearly a whole section for players’ families. I can’t think of a more awesome place to be, especially in a stadium that holds 50,000 fans. It reminded me of watching my brother play at Muhlenberg, a tiny college with a handsome, but miniature, stadium. There, everyone was invested in the individual players, not just the outcome of the game, and in section 134 at Stanford Stadium, it was the same way. It was so endearing to see moms and dads and sisters jump up and wave their pom poms, wearing their family names on the backs of jerseys. It made me think of all the journeys it took, for whole families, to get that one player to a school like this. I’m sure there are some really compelling tales.

It probably goes without saying that the seats were amazing too. I could have thrown Ellie’s shoe at a Bruin. But I didn’t.

The girl loves sports. Yay!

Of course, I wasn’t sure at all that Ellie, who isn’t even three, would appreciate all the awesomeness of the evening. I apparently didn’t need to worry, since she had way more fun at the football game than she did even at the pool. She loved the music, the cheering, and the fancy camera they have hovering over the field to catch every play. She told me repeatedly that she wanted the camera and was annoyed when I explained that it didn’t belong to us.

She also clearly understood that we were there to see Tyler. “Mama, where’s Tyler? Oh! Go, Tyler!” “Tyler went away? Good job, Tyler!” She stood on her seat so she could see, and when everyone stood up, blocking her view, she’d yell, “Up, Mama! I can’t SEE!!” She even did the wave, thrice. She really is our daughter.

I'm six feet tall. Just FYI.

She did lean over about two minutes before halftime and say, “Mom, I’m all done with this soccer game…” I told her that that was okay, but that we were going to stay just a little longer. Then the marching bands came out, first UCLA’s, then Stanford’s. She watched with her huge eyes, rapt, took a five-minute rest on a little pillow we brought for her, and made it clapping and cheering to the end of the game. She was even awake when Tyler came out to see everyone.

The next morning, we all slept in until room service came. We figured we had saved our dinner budget, so we might as well have a picnic breakfast on the floor of our hotel room. It was such a memorable family weekend, and I’m so grateful to Tyler and his mom for thinking of us. I’ve always been very proud of him. He’s such a good 6’6”, 300-pound “kid.” J