Write on: Running for glory

It was a brisk January night, perfect for a run.

So my friend Emily and I laced up our sneakers and took off through the Garden District.

Eventually the run became a power walk, and somehow we ended up talking about football.

That’s when I learned about what my friend considers the greatest night of her life.

It was fall 1997, and Emily’s dad took her to an LSU football game. She was 12, and her memory of that night is so vivid she even knows what she was wearing: purple corduroy overalls. She is a Baton Rouge native, and it wasn’t her first time at an LSU game. But it was the game that changed her life, the night she says she was baptized in the LSU religion.

It was LSU versus an undefeated Florida—a matchup that, as she puts it, the Tigers were sure to lose. But there was something in the air that night, she says, and as the teams traded touchdowns, LSU seized a 28-21 lead. With less than three minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Tigers took the ball.

The whole stadium held its breath as the clock slowly wound down, and the Tigers kept possession. She remembers the booming “Tigers win!” announcement. The students rushed the field and tore down the goal posts.

Emily was filled with more excitement than she’d ever felt before. She turned to her dad and asked, “Daddy, is it like this every time?”

He told her it wasn’t, that this was a special win. Today, though, Emily says her dad was wrong. Because for her, it is like that every time. As soon as she hears the first notes by the Golden Band from Tigerland, she is 12 years old all over again, filled with wonder and awe.

But the most amazing part, she says, is knowing that she’s not the only one who feels that way. There are always more than 100,000 people in Tiger Stadium riding the roller coaster with her.

As I listened to my friend talk, I felt like I was at the game with her. I understood how she’d felt, because her story reminded me of one of the best nights of my own life—except I was rooting for the other team.

It was 2006, and I was a homesick freshman at University of Florida. A bright spot was watching our underdog football team fight its way to the national championship.

On game day, we watched the broadcast from the basketball stadium. No one gave us a chance against Ohio State. Things looked more grim after Ted Ginn Jr. returned the kickoff for a touchdown, giving Ohio State the lead 16 seconds in. There were 10,000 of us watching the broadcast together, but you could’ve heard a pin drop.

Our team, though, turned things around to the tune of a 41–14 win. Elated and vindicated, thousands of us poured onto University Avenue. I had never felt so alive. My homesickness vanished that night.

Back to that cool January night in Baton Rouge: Emily and I agreed that even though our teams were rivals, the emotions we’d felt during those games were the same. 

For both of us, our memories represented the first time we felt like we belonged to a community, something greater than ourselves.

And that’s how college football games create bonds that can never be broken—between teammates, between players and coaches, between fans, even between rivals.

That’s what I think of when I read Derrius Guice’s declaration in this month’s cover story that he’s “running for glory.”

Because that January night, after listening to my friend talk about her deep love for LSU football, I’d never felt closer to her.

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of 225 Magazine.