Tomorrow will be like any other fall day in Boston. The leaves will continue to turn, hoodies will be the garb of choice, and concerns about the Red Sox will be on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
Yet, just outside of Brighton and Allston — in the heart of Chestnut Hill — the two major college football teams in Massachusetts will face off. One is a Division I-A team that receives all the press and all the hype. The other is Division I-AA, the flagship university and a huge underdog.
Man, I wish I could be there.
Just over a year ago I was living in the Allston/Brighton area and began to realize why so many of my college colleagues disliked Boston College fans. I’m not going to sit here and list the yellow-tinted generalizations, but let’s just say that I started rooting for Boston University just to be different and to annoy some of the squawking Eagles.
This game has been the red circle on my schedule. I have never once thought that UMass had a chance, but, for some reason, that’s when teams come out and surprise everyone — just ask Michigan.
This is different though. This game carries with it underlying connotations that no Boston College fan could understand because the façade of athletic success has been handed to them. This game means another step toward D-I, it’s another chance to be featured in the biased Boston media (I’m looking at you Globe) and it’s a chance — albeit small — to claim Massachusetts bragging rights on the gridiron.
All of this falls on a very important day for me — it’s the day I take my GREs and attempt to solidify my residence in Colorado as a grad student. I’m going to sit in that CU classroom, rack my brain to conquer the analogies section and think to myself:
UMass is to Victory as Boston College is to ____________.
I’ll let you fill in the rest.
I had so many things I wanted to say about this game, but I don’t want to jinx it any more than I already have. This was not meant to be a huge defining column, it’s just a small attempt to let you know what this means to me.
If UMass wins tomorrow, it will be the biggest win for me since I started wearing Maroon and White in 2001. Well, maybe second biggest — UConn of ’05 will always have a special place in my heart.
So, tomorrow will be another fall day in Boston and much of the same out here in Boulder. What matters is Sunday and whether or not I wake up feeling that youthful sense of exuberant pride that goes hand-in-hand with an upset.
Here’s to Sunday.
Posted by bmcgovern 