Thanks Dad

We all remember things for different reasons and this is one of my memories and yes college football is involved.

It was an early morning September of 1979, I was 8 years old. I was loaded up into the Mercury Marquis station wagon by my dad and asked to sit in the puke seat, you know that seat that faced the wrong way, so that his friends could sit up front. It wasn't a big deal, I was eight, I was just glad to be hanging with the men and doing manly things and going somewhere that I had never been, a real football game.

It was nice that day, a little cool though, as we tooled up the road along the Hudson River. I still had no idea where exactly we were going. I sat in the back listening to my dad and his buddies laugh and talk about man things having no idea what they meant. I was oblivious to their conversation for the most part though because I was so excited that I was going to a football game. Again, I had no idea where this game was. All I know was it was about an hour and half drive from our house in New York. Talk about the longest 90-minutes of your life, especially sitting in the puke seat.

As we got closer I could tell this was a big deal. Why, because people had grills in the parking lot and were standing around holding beers and it was only 10 am. They were playing games, talking football and tossing footballs. I also knew it was a big deal because there were police directing traffic and a lot of military around most of them in really nice uniforms. We parked the car and all climbed out and as we rounded the corner of the parking lot I caught my first glimpse of it, Michie Stadium on the campus of the United States Military Academy at West Point. It seems that all the guys in uniforms were cadets as my dad would explain to me later.

As they took my ticket and I walked through the gates my senses were overwhelmed. There were bands playing, cheerleaders cheering, TV cameras, lots and lots of noise and the game hadn't even started. At kick off the real noise started as the Black Knights took the field against the University of North Carolina. I know that because I liked the blue on the visiting teams uniforms. My dad and his friends talked about some freshman that the Tar Heels had named Kelvin Bryant. They said he was going to be something special. Years later he would go on to star for the Washington Redskins.

My dad and his friends cheered wildly every time Army made a good stop or picked up some good yardage, they didn't cheer much, and they booed and hissed whenever North Carolin scored or had a big play, there was lots of booing and hissing. Meanwhile, I just stood there in the stands soaking everything in. At eight years old I though I was the man and had found my Eden.

Army lost that day 41-3. But it didn't matter to me. I was in awe of everything I had seen. The cadets passing each other around in the stands. The guys dropping on the field from parachutes. The fans screaming and cheering for the Black Knights even in defeat. I thought, darn they like these players. I had been to Yankee Stadium with dad to watch some baseball many times and if the Yanks were winning or losing big by the end of the game the stands were almost empty except for the few that wanted to hang around to sing Sinatra's version of "New York-NewYork" at the end of the game. But it wasn't like that this day at West Point, the fans stood to the end and cheered until the final second ticked off the clock.

From that point on I was hooked on college football. While my loyalties are elsewhere now I will never forget my trip to West Point to see Army play football. I can still smell and taste the air that day. It will do down as one of my fondest childhood memories.

For many years after that my dad and I would go to and watch college football on TV on Saturdays. Of course we would argue about which team was better and who should be number one. He would also mention, okay he would say it all the time, how Army was once a powerhouse that every team feared. And every December we would sit in front of the TV and watch the Army-Navy game. My dad would cheer for Army, don't know why because he had been in the Navy, but it didn't matter to him. Army was his home college football team. It was a dad and his son watching college football.

In 1992 just 13 years later, after witnessing my first college football game, I lost my dad to cancer. I never got the chance to say thank you to him for turning me on to the greatest sport I have ever known, college football. Do you need to ask now why I love college football.

They say it's never too late to say it , so I'll say it now: THANKS DAD...I LOVE YOU and miss our Saturdays.