The Granddaddy of em all!!!

With winning a National Championship, comes a lot of pressure, which makes this kind of thing even more hard to write about. I have had a ton of people ask me how it was in person, and the only answer I have been able to give is "Amazing!" I still don't feel like Amazing is doing the game and the feeling justice though. So here goes...

After about a month of scouring Ebay, Craigslist, and avoiding scams to send money to the UK, we finally found tickets for reasonable price. When I say reasonable, I mean we didn't spend $1k each. 2006 Rose Bowl Tickets were being touted as the single most hardest ticket to buy in the history of North American Sports!

Tuesday night, meant LA or Bust and after some delays at the airports, we were LA bound via a brief stop in Houston. I have traveled all over the world and have never seen so much support for a sports team. Every 3rd person in all of the airports/flights was decked out in burnt orange. We arrived in Ontario, CA around midnight and headed over to pick up our rental car. Jokingly, I ask the clerk whether she has any Burnt Orange cars in stock. "As a matter of fact, I do!" This was an obvious sign of good things to come.

Wednesday, January 4th, 2005: Game Day.
In all of my life, I have never been so excited and or nervous about one particular event. The Rose Bowl, The Granddaddy of them All, the National Championship Game! My first call of the morning is from Cody, asking whether he should go with his game day shirt from freshman year (a now funny shade of peach) or a true to the color, Burnt Orange. My immediate response, "This game is so much bigger than a shirt, Cody!"

We headed out to find our tickets around 10 a.m.. At this point, I am still nervous, because it is the day of the game and we still do not have the tickets in our hands. As were walking to the hotel, cars are honking at us and asking us for tickets, just because we are wearing burnt orange. Finally, we arrive at the door that our Rose Bowl tickets are waiting behind and at last we have our tickets in hand, hologram and all. Next stop: Pasadena.

After commuting via foot, subway, train and bus to get there, the old bowl they call "Rose," is finally in sight. We did have a brief scare along the way where Bita thought she had lost her ticket during the commute, which almost brought both of us to tears. That's all I am going to say about that. Cody and Kate had arranged a tailgate that was put on by the Texas team doctor. It was my first and probably last time to tailgate on a golf course. Thousands of people and cars trampling the grass just goes to show how much more important this game was.

It's really hard to put the excitement and energy surrounding the game into words. It was shoulder to shoulder, Cardinal to Burnt Orange, for about a mile in each direction of the stadium. There were people walking around with hundreds of dollars in the air and single tickets were going for $2400, making my tickets that much more priceless. We headed into stadium plenty early to make sure our tickets were real and that our seats were empty. To our surprise, we found ourselves sitting smack dab in the middle of about 50,000 USC fans with the nearest Longhorn about 10 rows away. It was going to be a long night if the Horns didn't show up to play. After LeAnn Rimes sang a stirring rendition of the national anthem and a deafening B1 Bomber fly over, the game ball was parachuted in and the Greatest Game of All Time was staged and ready to begin.

I will spare the details of the game, if you weren't one of the 68.5 million that tuned in, I suggest buying it on DVD. The final 6 minutes of the game were the most intense minutes of my life. A roller coaster of emotions, that left me completely drained in the end. All of the memories of being of a Texas fan came down to 4th and 5 and all my wishes granted by the legs of one, Vince Young. The USC fans were left stunned that their 34 game winning streak had come to an end and the Texas fans ecstatic that our 36 year wait was over. The USC fan next to us handed me a $20 bill and said, "Go buy yourself a bottle of champagne and celebrate, You two are great fans!" We celebrated over In and Out burgers instead.

I am going to repeat myself and say that words just don't do the game and the experience justice. It will forever be one of the most memorable experiences in my life. I left with the feeling I had just checked off one of the "things to do before I die." Light the Tower Burnt Orange, we are coming home National Champions!