Ever since I was little – I have spent many, many fall weekends hanging out at Wallace Wade Stadium watching Duke football. Some people would argue that Duke doesn’t have a football team – and, I would mostly be inclined to agree with them. But, since Duke hired David Cutcliffe to be the head coach, I have been really excited about what he is doing with the team. Plus, I don’t fee right supporting Duke basketball so passionately and not cheering for the football team as well.
As a sidenote – I did not attend Duke University. I went to UNC-Asheville, a small liberal arts university in the NC mountains. It was a great school, but, very, very small. I supported UNCA athletics, but, it just was not a big deal around campus. The one thing I really missed by going to a small school was the sports. Since Duke was my childhood team (and I grew up going to Coach K’s basketball camps) – I still support them.
Anyhow, before the game, we tailgated as much as you can for a game that has a noon kickoff.
I wore my totally cool hat that I bought last year and had forgotten that I had until Danny dug it out from the closet.
Before we left for the game, I had asked my aunt if she thought we needed to bring sunscreen. She replied, “No, I don’t think we will need it.” Big mistake! It was sweltering and the sun was pretty much directly on us the entire game. But, at least our seats for football are good!
At halftime I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore and had to head to the car to get out of the sun for a bit. I also had to pour myself some Gatorade in an attempt to make it through the second half without getting seriously dehydrated.
Duke was a lot more competitive in this game than I actually expected them to be. But, in the 4th quarter, Va. Tech started to pull away as Duke could not convert some good opportunities into points. Finally, with about 8 minutes left in the game, I told Danny that if Duke did not score on their current drive I was going to the car to wait out the rest of the game. The left side of my face, legs and arm was really sunburned and I couldn’t take it anymore. Duke didn’t score and off to the car I went. Danny followed me and my Aunt came along a few minutes later.
I declared a sudden need for water – and my Aunt provided it for me, football style.
Once my dad finally accepted Duke’s defeat, we headed back towards Wilmington. I spent the car ride back watching episodes of “Glee” (great show, btw) on my laptop. Once we got back to Wilmington, Danny and I proceeded to lay on the sofa catching up on the DVR for the entire evening. We were both totally sunburned – it was actually kind of pathetic.
more later…
