Chicat wrote:azcat49 wrote:CalStateTempe wrote:I'm actually over it.
We sucked, we stank it up again in a big game.
We have one lose, more will probably come this season. I'm ok with that. Not going to let it ruin my night or weekend.
Better man then I am. Sending my remaining tickets back to GB and telling him I will not be spending my money on such a shitty product. Started in 68 and it ended tonight.
Great run. Appreciate the south title last year. Life complete I guess. Will still buy tickets to support the dept. If you need one, let me know.
By no means is this a drunken rant. UCLA will play in the finsl four and I wish them well. Just we are what we are.
Sleep on it my man.
We slept on it, over at a Best Western at Orange Grove and Oracle. Had to leave by 11:30 a.m.
First game in person in the Rich Rod era. First game in person with wife, much less kids. I don't think the game experience could've gone worse, and the postgame experience been more frustrating and difficult, had I been at an ASU game. I texted azcat49 mostly just about the game, so I'm sure I was no help in restoring his optimism, but I wasn't happy, my kids weren't happy, and my wife, I think, had resolved by halftime never to return to Arizona Stadium again.
Oh, it all started great. Got into Tucson by 11 a.m. Saturday, spent over $100 on red caps, shirts, and a little cheerleading outfit for my girl at the Tucson Mall A Store. Lunch at Eegee's--everyone loved the pizza fries--then drove to campus and parked at Main Gate garage. This was to prove more than a little confusing to find coming back that night. More on that later.
Walked down Tyndall into the U. I pointed out my old haunts and the Old Main--it's almost impossible to picture Louie's Lower Level now, where my parents first met, as different as the Memorial Union is--on a leisurely walk through the library to McKale. Hot day, but enjoyable so far.
Was told at McKale that my print-at-home tickets weren't redeemable--they were just scanned at the gate. Cool. Asked about water fountains or restrooms anywhere nearby, because my kids were dehydrated. McKale Ticket Office rep said that we could go up the ramp to use the bathrooms on the main concourse.
Son stopped on the way there to ask if we could enter sweepstakes for an autographed football. While there, got into a chat with the rep, who thought daughter was cute. Mentioned I used to work in McKale and wanted to make sure it was OK if we went up the ramp to use the restrooms. He said no. I told him that's what the McKale Ticket Office rep said we could do. He said McKale was closed for business and that we needed to find somewhere else.
So now you have my email address and phone number and, in return, have told my family to go find water somewhere else. Really nice. Never mind that McKale has always had a concourse door unlocked for the public on game day with nary an issue for the last 40 years.
But things seemed to have recovered nicely when we walked past the RJ gym and ran into the fans with the teddy bears on chains. They got my son to punch the Bruin. Fun.
We then went over to the AT&T Fan Zone and saw Dana Cooper interviewing Antonio Pierce for a few. Brought wife up to speed by saying Antonio played with Kelly Ripa's co-host.
Then went over to Red Army tailgate. Found azcat49 and Dosia right before Wildcat Walk. No joke, the bus carrying Rich Rod pulled up right in front of my son and he didn't even know who was getting out until wife screamed, "Those are the players!"
So I'm thinking this day was on its way to being one of the great ones, but wife and son wanted to find somewhere to sit down and get a drink. Since the stadium was about to open, I said sure and grabbed a Diet Coke and a water at the tailgate.
"Why are you stealing my water?" a woman asked. Turns out it was Heather, who helps run Red Army tailgate, and she was not smiling.
Keep in my mind my son had just grabbed his own water out of the cooler and nobody had said a word. I've been going to U of A tailgates for over 30 years and had never been asked such a question.
I explained who I was and even said I was with azcat49 and Dosia. Finally, she smiles and says, "I'm just giving you shit. It's a hot day--go ahead."
So after apparently having to explain why I'm a thirsty Arizona fan, I guess we're cool. We get over to Gate 2, but nope--if you have a SEZ ticket, you can't go under the east stands anymore through to the Sixth Street sidewalk, you have to walk around. Starting to wilt a bit, but OK.
So we go all the way to the back of the line halfway down the street at Gate 9, and we're at security check. Apparently now that includes a purse search, because my wife got hers searched to the point where the security guard asked to search her wallet.
It was bad enough she had to throw out the water bottles we had just picked up at the tailgate and dump the rest of the water out of her bottle (but can still take it in the stadium?!?!?), but now a person's WALLET is a security risk?
There's no love lost between me and Tucson game security. Since I started going to football games there in '84, 50/50 shot you have to deal with an asshole, and the odds were never in our favor last night.
"It's for your own protection," the guard said, pawing through our credit cards and cash. Just when I'm about to opine we only need protection from lousy security guards like her, she lets us in and we're able to find our seats.
Have to take my daughter to the South End Zone bathroom before kickoff. Man, has that not changed, and I just pray my daughter doesn't ask me someday, "Dad, why did you take me to that room to see all those guys peeing out of their wee-wees?" Love those low urinals!
But we find our seats, stadium slowly fills up, then all of a sudden everyone wants to cram in five minutes before kickoff. It was all handled as if nobody expected a sellout, with fat guy, old wife and clueless-looking son going "plop" and taking all but about 10 inches of my seat.
"Season ticket holders" at the end of the row tell me to show them their tickets, even though we got there nearly an hour before them. I told them that we were in seats 28-30 and that I didn't need to show them any more than that.
So they call security to complain that we weren't in the right seats. I miss most of our first touchdown drive because I can't sit down--and, to top it all off, I'm screaming at this idiot at the end of my row "28! 29! 30! Clear enough for you now?"
Willie the security guard asks for everyone in the row to show their tickets. I do.
"So, sit down," he says. I point at the 10 inches let of my seat and then look at him, incredulous, and laugh, "You're funny."
"Well, seats are going to be tight tonight," he responds, as if that somehow justifies his handling of what is escalating into a more and more ludicrous situation. Then he begs the rest of the row (none of whose tickets he checks) to move down and make room.
So me, my wife, my son and restless, wriggling 3-year-old daughter are crammed into Arizona Stadium SEZ bleacher space equivalent to three seats. In fact, Willie said each ticket holder got 16 inches of space per seat. Are you kidding me?
With fat guy's giant right thigh snuggling up on one side and my wife struggling to keep wormy daughter between her legs on the other, we settle in to watch another shit-the-bed special under the sideline-to-sideline cameras for Arizona football.
Kids wonder why daddy is so mad when I scream for somebody to tackle and make a snap from center. How can I explain all the ways in which I've seen this implosion under pressure before? Mark Walczak or Cayman Bundage, the names cease to matter anymore.
At halftime, my wife takes daughter to bathroom again. Same security guard who smiled at them on the way down asks, on the way back, "Do you have a ticket to be in the stadium?"
Wife resists the urge to call this one an idiot, shows her papers and makes it back.
Fat guy and brood leave by end of third quarter. "We're out of here, brother. Spread your wings." Yeah, why don't you buy two seats so I don't have to?
My wife already has more medical issues than anybody should have to live with, she's suffocating in a stadium which no longer has a cool breeze for relief, and not one apology from anyone.
It was different when it was just me, or me with my Dad. I can live with a certain level of discomfort most of a game, but if it's too much for them, it's too much, period, as far as I'm concerned.
Finally, the shitshow mercifully ends and we leave to go back to our parking garage. We walk past two carloads of students wearing Wildcat red screaming f-bombs at each other about the meaningless Cincinnati Bengals game the next day. Loudmouth coed sees our kids walking by and screams to guy in car on Sixth Street, "What about that score, fucking bitch?!"
I had to check their colors to make sure these weren't Sun Devil fans. What has happened to "We're Arizona. We're better than this?"
Apparently we're not anymore. We get into what we think is the Main Gate garage, search up and down and can't find the car. I have to leave the family on Level 4 while I go find it. I ask a fan if this is the Main Gate garage. First he says, "Yeah." Then he says, "Oh, wait, no. This is the Tyndall Garage. Main Gate's up by the Marriott."
Neither of these garages existed IIRC the last time I was in Tucson for Oregon in '09. But I find the car. Drive back, pick them up, dodge the suicidal moron doing 70 down Euclid south of University with no lights on in his/her car at all, grab a late dinner up on Oracle and Orange Grove, get the kids in the Best Western nearby before they can see the four college girls dressed like high-class hookers in the parking lot below and catch a few Z's.
And so it went Sunday. Crap drivers almost running me off the road two more times, wife getting the stink-eye from people cutting her off in the Costco, counter jockey at the Circle K whining like a little bitch, "I'm just telling you, man!" after I tell him we're not going to pay for the extra large plastic size drink, that I just need four Polar Pops.
Wife just doesn't like what she experienced of Tucson, and I can't say I blame her. She won't go back. It's more than just about a game, it's about a family experience, and the one we had once the game started Saturday night was awful.
God forbid that experience is typical for families of recruits, because if it is, you won't see upgrades in our football recruiting anytime soon.
