CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: Kris60 on March 31, 2019, 12:36:41 PM
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I wasn’t sure how to title this. I could have also said “The Friend or Family Member You Have Pissed Off The Most For A Game.” My inspiration came from finding out Bwarniaby didn’t watch the Purdue game because it was his anniversary. My wife envies his wife because my commitment to watching big WVU games is well established.
I have a few stories but this is probably the best. In 2010, WVU was set to play Kentucky in the Elite 8 to try to get back to the Final Four for the first time in 51 years. The game was on Saturday night and I had been out of town for work since the previous Sunday so I was already operating from a position that wasn’t advantageous. But there were a few other factors that went against me as well.
-We had an 18 month old daughter
-Our social life was pretty much non-existent at the time
-We had tickets to a Humane Society fundraiser and a babysitter lined up for Saturday night and the plans had been made weeks in advance.
-To further weaken my position my buddy called me Friday and said they absolutely needed me Saturday morning for our church league game or we’d have to forfeit.
Despite all this working against me I told my wife, “You know I can’t miss the game tonight.” She said that many other husbands had expressed the same sentiment and the Humane Society had arranged for a projector screen to be brought in and they were going to stream the game through a laptop while the auction was going on. My level of skepticism at hearing this was through the roof.
My suspicions were proven correct when we got to the banquet room of the hotel and there was this little screen held up by a tripod at the front of a room where 200 people were to be seated. I immediately told my wife that wasn’t going to work. At this point she had lost her patience and said it was going to have to. The dinner started about 30 minutes before tipoff and during dinner I told a buddy at our table that when the game started I was bolting to the hotel bar and asked him to come with me. He said his wife would divorce him.
About 5 minutes before tipoff I took a deep breath, walked up to my wife who was mingling at this point, and said , “Honey, I’m sorry. I’m going to the bar” and walked off as she stared a hole through me.
I was literally the first person to the bar. Then a few minutes later a couple other husbands wandered over to check the score. Then a few more, then a few more. By halftime about half the fundraiser attendees were in the bar. A few minutes into the second half the place was packed. My wife had come over with some other women. At first she gave me the cold shoulder but eventually she was living and dying with every basket just like everyone else. WVU won and it was one of the best atmospheres I’ve ever watched a game in.
Oh, and my wife and I had sex later that night.
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A lot of the experiments I run require me to be present (with a lot of down time admittedly) 10+ hours daily for 1.5-2 weeks at a time. And though I don't intentionally quit them during the fall, a pattern has appeared. I run ~6x fewer of these during football season. Football > graduation rate, I guess. #acceptstheconsequences
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With DVR, I don't even mind it. My wife won tickets to a Penguins game Friday night, neither of us really loves hockey, but we had the tickets. I watched MSU-LSU yesterday morning. I watched a Final 4 game against Duke delayed so we could see Book of Mormon.
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My buddy got married the same day as Florida vs FSU. Not sure what he was thinking. I'm a groomsman, the reception's going on and on, drinking, having a blast - all that. The bride's dad is loaded, it's at Ponte Vedre or Sawgrass or whatever - major venue.
I wait and wait until I think it's safe, I walk across the whole building to a little bar they have with a little TV to check on the game. I was thinking I was being a bad friend and was being sneaky - there's like 30 other people there doing the same thing! This was when we had Zook and he was out the door, but Florida won @ FSU the night they were dedicating it Bowden Field.
So that happens, people are going back and forth all evening from and to the reception to the TV, and it's a great night.
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I've been known to develop an illness...
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With DVR, I don't even mind it. My wife won tickets to a Penguins game Friday night, neither of us really loves hockey, but we had the tickets. I watched MSU-LSU yesterday morning. I watched a Final 4 game against Duke delayed so we could see Book of Mormon.
Were you able to avoid the score? It’s just not the same if I already know the outcome and with cell phones these days it is really hard to avoid scores.
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My buddy got married the same day as Florida vs FSU. Not sure what he was thinking. I'm a groomsman, the reception's going on and on, drinking, having a blast - all that. The bride's dad is loaded, it's at Ponte Vedre or Sawgrass or whatever - major venue.
I wait and wait until I think it's safe, I walk across the whole building to a little bar they have with a little TV to check on the game. I was thinking I was being a bad friend and was being sneaky - there's like 30 other people there doing the same thing! This was when we had Zook and he was out the door, but Florida won @ FSU the night they were dedicating it Bowden Field.
So that happens, people are going back and forth all evening from and to the reception to the TV, and it's a great night.
Similar story. My damn cousin got married the same day that WVU was playing Oklahoma St in 2013. I’m the best man. The game started at noon and the wedding started at 2 so we were actually able to watch the entire 1st half in the upstairs of the church. The ceremony and a few pictures caused me to miss the entire 3rd quarter. I sprint upstairs to check the score before sprinting back down because they are introducing the wedding party as we come into the reception hall. We do that, I make a plate, and go back upstairs to watch the game as, again, my wife is staring holes through me. She then comes upstairs and angrily tells me I have to make my best man speech. I come down, do that, and go back upstairs to finish watching WVU upset the Pokes.
I, ahem, didn’t have sex that night though.
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Were you able to avoid the score? It’s just not the same if I already know the outcome and with cell phones these days it is really hard to avoid scores.
Yup. I either turn it off, or mute any conversation who might text me.
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Yup. I either turn it off, or mute any conversation who might text me.
I never have any luck avoiding scores. We are coming back from Disney in ‘09 on a Saturday. I get my cousin (the same cousin who got married) to go to my house and set my DVR so I can watch the WVU game when I get home. I keep earphones in my ears all day, avoid airport televisions, and tell anyone who normally texts me during games I’m taping it. I make it to the airport in WV without knowing anything that has happened. We get our bags and load them in our car. I’m home free. I’m finally in my car, away from the public, where I can control my environment until I get home.
I pull up to the parking booth to pay my parking fee when the attendant sees my WVU hat and says, “Boy the Mountaineers really pulled it out today, didn’t they?” I was crushed. I told I was taping it and you could tell he felt like shit. Then I felt like shit for making him feel like shit. Today that wouldn’t happen because it’s all automated to pay your parking there. But then the very last human I was going to have contact with before I got home spilled the beans.
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I feel for you guys. I must have the most understanding husband in the world, lol. I have never missed watching a Husker game (or listening on the radio when we lived in Wyoming and it wasn't televised). As thanks for his patience, I usually record the games and watch later while he is at work or we have other places we need to be. Luckily, I am ok with knowing the results before I watch and even though his family is not sports oriented, by pure luck, we have never had conflicts with weddings or other family events.
He is definitely the football widow in our household. He just goes off and plays a video game or watches a movie / plays on the computer and lets me come in and bug him about the progress of the game, even though he could not care less, lol. He has even been known to come along to a spring game or two when I can get tickets, or even pitches in to pay for me to go to a regular season game. On the flip side, I keep my mouth shut about his playing computer games or going to a park to hike (which I hate to do). I go with him and sit and read a book while he is out hiking, lol. Works for us! Might explain why we have been married for 31 years, lol.
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I have kind of an opposite story to this.
10/14/2017, ASU is hosting then #5 ranked Washington that even. Being a season ticket holder AND having the day off work (I work a lot of weekends and typically miss a couple ASU home games a season due to work despite the season tickets) I voluntarily chose to stay home. No, I wasn't sick and my transportation was more than reliable. Also, top #5 ranked teams don't come to Sun Devil Stadium regularly either, this was a huge game. So why did I choose to miss it?
Simply put: my kids. Not only was I just over 2 months into being separated from the now ex-wife, which meant seeing my kids less often due to splitting time with them, but I had also just gotten back in town from a 3 week work trip to Kansas City. No way I wasn't taking advantage of being able to spend a full Saturday with my then 3 year old twins. We had a blast together that day too. Didn't even watch the first half of the game as I was too preoccupied playing with them, but at least they were in bed by the second half so I did at least watch that much.
ASU ended up upsetting the previously undefeated #5 ranked Huskies that night 13-7 in a very entertaining game of football. Do I regret not seeing it in person when I was more than able to? Absolutely not.
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I have kind of an opposite story to this.
10/14/2017, ASU is hosting then #5 ranked Washington that even. Being a season ticket holder AND having the day off work (I work a lot of weekends and typically miss a couple ASU home games a season due to work despite the season tickets) I voluntarily chose to stay home. No, I wasn't sick and my transportation was more than reliable. Also, top #5 ranked teams don't come to Sun Devil Stadium regularly either, this was a huge game. So why did I choose to miss it?
Simply put: my kids. Not only was I just over 2 months into being separated from the now ex-wife, which meant seeing my kids less often due to splitting time with them, but I had also just gotten back in town from a 3 week work trip to Kansas City. No way I wasn't taking advantage of being able to spend a full Saturday with my then 3 year old twins. We had a blast together that day too. Didn't even watch the first half of the game as I was too preoccupied playing with them, but at least they were in bed by the second half so I did at least watch that much.
ASU ended up upsetting the previously undefeated #5 ranked Huskies that night 13-7 in a very entertaining game of football. Do I regret not seeing it in person when I was more than able to? Absolutely not.
Yep, we all make sacrifices for our kids. The next few months my weekends are about to be dominated by travel softball.
But now tell us a story where you were a selfish prick over a football game. Lol.
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Thanksgiving Day 2007. ASU doesn't typically play the day of Thanksgiving and normally that weekend is when they play their main rival, the university of arizona but in 2007 for whatever reason the Pac had USC playing at ASU on Thanksgiving day.
So yeah, my dad flew in to town and we were spending the day with a bunch of family we haven't seen in a while and it was nice and all but only maybe in hour into it I say my good-byes to everyone and leave before they even served the turkey. I had a football game to attend. ASU got blasted by a pretty good Trojan team, oh well.
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I bet you could nab a pretty good bargain if you were willing to get married on Michigan week in Columbus.
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If I had a moment like that, it was in college. After that, work got in the way of a lot of games I wanted to see, and that was just life. And if work could do it, something personal definitely could. (I might've also blocked out being an ass, I dunno)
I also grew up without cable, so I got very used to watching games on gamecast. Now I can track the score on my phone and often be less of a mess.
I did have a friend with a strong rooting interest who had to miss the second half of OSU-Michigan in 2006. A young lady wanted to claim his v-card and he was in no position to refuse.
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During the 2014 season work sent me to Madison WI at the last minute. Flying in on a Monday, I was scheduled to leave on a Saturday, which disrupted my plans to be in Tucson for an Arizona game that same day. Working in Washington DC at the time, obviously there wasn’t time to take my scheduled flight back East before routing all the way to Arizona. So I changed my flight to leave very early from Madison through Dallas to Tucson. This cost a hundred dollars. Then on returning to work and filing my travel voucher, work, because of bureaucracy, stuck me with the airfare to Madison, both there and the unused return flight on the same roundtrip tickets. That was about $350 on top of the flight costs I already paid to fly from Madison to Tucson before returning East at vacation’s end.
So was it worth it? YES! Landed in Tucson before Arizona’s kickoff against California, used my brother’s student ID to get into the student section with grad school friends, and witnessed, in person, a game winning Hail Mary from a few rows up of where it was caught. BTW, Madison is a great college town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPFsnkRFvYk
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During the 2014 season work sent me to Madison WI at the last minute. Flying in on a Monday, I was scheduled to leave on a Saturday, which disrupted my plans to be in Tucson for an Arizona game that same day. Working in Washington DC at the time, obviously there wasn’t time to take my scheduled flight back East before routing all the way to Arizona. So I changed my flight to leave very early from Madison through Dallas to Tucson. This cost a hundred dollars. Then on returning to work and filing my travel voucher, work, because of bureaucracy, stuck me with the airfare to Madison, both there and the unused return flight on the same roundtrip tickets. That was about $350 on top of the flight costs I already paid to fly from Madison to Tucson before returning East at vacation’s end.
So was it worth it? YES! Landed in Tucson before Arizona’s kickoff against California, used my brother’s student ID to get into the student section with grad school friends, and witnessed, in person, a game winning Hail Mary from a few rows up of where it was caught. BTW, Madison is a great college town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPFsnkRFvYk
Nice. Back during that same 2010 NCAA Tournament I changed a flight my work had scheduled for me into Orlando on Sunday to an earlier flight because I was going to miss WVU’s second round game against Mizzou.
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Yeah...I'm afraid my experiences with this all go the opposite way, which is to say missing games I really didn't want to miss because of obligations. I had to back out of the 2010 Ohio State game in Madison because of work, instead attending the Austin Peay game. No worries, only one of the greatest nights in Camp Randall ever that I missed for some work training. Grrr.
And I missed the 2015 basketball final because I was coaching a softball game. At least I didn't miss a win.
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Yeah...I'm afraid my experiences with this all go the opposite way, which is to say missing games I really didn't want to miss because of obligations. I had to back out of the 2010 Ohio State game in Madison because of work, instead attending the Austin Peay game. No worries, only one of the greatest nights in Camp Randall ever that I missed for some work training. Grrr.
And I missed the 2015 basketball final because I was coaching a softball game. At least I didn't miss a win.
Oh man. You missed a national championship game? That would have been very hard for me to do. Did you record it? Try to avoid the score?
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I ducked out of a date at the Homecoming Dance so I could watch college football. I couldn't tell you what we ended up watching (Tenn v AU comes to mind).
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Hmmm, does this count? I pushed back a job interview like a week on the off chance a team I liked won a title and there would be a parade. It was my first job out of school and I desperately needed it.
They ended up winning, so worth it.
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not for a game???
for a parade?!?!?
that's awesome!!!
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Hmmm, does this count? I pushed back a job interview like a week on the off chance a team I liked won a title and there would be a parade. It was my first job out of school and I desperately needed it.
They ended up winning, so worth it.
That counts. That’s great.
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And I missed the 2015 basketball final because I was coaching a softball game. At least I didn't miss a win.
Can’t believe you gave up watching the final, something that happens (what?) every 25 or so years to coach a softball game for the 20 or 30th time that season? Which would and did lead me to doing something similar to Marq’s doing...
I ducked out of a date at the Homecoming Dance so I could watch college football. I couldn't tell you what we ended up watching (Tenn v AU comes to mind
Was spending the long Thanksgiving weekend a few states away with family I was tired of before I even got there. Not knowing how I’d make it through the Friday and Saturday after a particularly long Thanksgiving Day of being put to work only to at every turn having to hear I was doing things the wrong way, I suddenly remembered the nearby Hospital ER, where I’d spent the previous Thanksgiving with my Mom, had a TV.
So yes, I spent a whole Saturday escaping to an ER waiting room to watch college football uninterrupted. A good place to watch, if you have to ask; everybody else waiting in an ER has much bigger problems than who is this guy hogging the remote and flipping between two and three games?
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Can’t believe you gave up watching the final, something that happens (what?) every 25 or so years to coach a softball game for the 20 or 30th time that season? Which would and did lead me to doing something similar to Marq’s doing...
Was spending the long Thanksgiving weekend a few states away with family I was tired of before I even got there. Not knowing how I’d make it through the Friday and Saturday after a particularly long Thanksgiving Day of being put to work only to at every turn having to hear I was doing things the wrong way, I suddenly remembered the nearby Hospital ER, where I’d spent the previous Thanksgiving with my Mom, had a TV.
So yes, I spent a whole Saturday escaping to an ER waiting room to watch college football uninterrupted. A good place to watch, if you have to ask; everybody else waiting in an ER has much bigger problems than who is this guy hogging the remote and flipping between two and three games?
That is fantastic.
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Oh man. You missed a national championship game? That would have been very hard for me to do. Did you record it? Try to avoid the score?
I had it on the DVR, but got home with about three minutes to play, so I just watched the end.
It was worth it to be with my daughter and her team.
The 2010 game against Ohio State bugs me more. It was semi-mandatory work training—the kind you need to keep advancing, and it would not have been well received if I had said, “next year.” But we knew that was going to be a great game, so it was painful enough cancelling...then I missed one of the best moments in Camp Randall history, and I left the job about 18 months later anyway. Grrrrr!!!
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I had it on the DVR, but got home with about three minutes to play, so I just watched the end.
It was worth it to be with my daughter and her team.
The 2010 game against Ohio State bugs me more. It was semi-mandatory work training—the kind you need to keep advancing, and it would not have been well received if I had said, “next year.” But we knew that was going to be a great game, so it was painful enough cancelling...then I missed one of the best moments in Camp Randall history, and I left the job about 18 months later anyway. Grrrrr!!!
Man, good for you. I coach my daughter’s softball team. She loves playing and I enjoy coaching them. But if WVU were playing for the NCAA Title I’d try my damndest to get out of it for just one night.
I have a similar work story. Years ago I worked for a large non-profit and once per quarter we would have have late Saturday morning meetings to accommodate the work schedules of our volunteer board members. So naturally one day a meeting was going to cut into the noon kickoff of a WVU-Maryland game. I went into my manager’s office sort of pouting about it. He was a very cool guy and knew I loved the Mountaineers. This is a summary of our conversation.
Me: “You know that damn meeting is going to cause me to miss the first half of the WVU game.”
Him: “Well if you had tickets I could probably tell Stan and he would excuse you for it.”
Me: “I don’t have tickets. I just want to watch it.”
Him: “Yeah, well, if you TOLD me you had tickets I could probably get you out of the meeting.”
Me: “Yeah, well if I had tickets that would be great, but I don’t.”
Him: (A little exasperated) “If Stan THINKS you have tickets I believe he’d let you out of the meeting.”
Me: “Jeff, I already told you...”
Him: “Goddammit! Just tell me you have tickets to the game so I can tell Stan and get you out of this meeting!”
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I'm much more like @SFBadger96 (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=51) in that in most cases, my fandom takes second stage to real life. A lot of this is due to living 2000 miles away from B1G territory, so seeing games in person isn't really impacted. Secondarily it had a lot to do with a good decade or so of Purdue being mediocre to terrible (going from the last bits of Tiller's tenure, through Hope, and then Hazell), so it's not like the product on the field was worth watching.
That said, I do find ways... If I can watch, I try to do so. And I've annoyed my wife a few times by listening to games via satellite radio or the TuneIn app (depending what vehicle we're in) while we're on road trips. If it's time-shifted and I can conveniently just watch later on DVR, I do that to, up to and including turning off my phone to avoid mentions/texts/etc.
But as I had said in the other thread, while I time-shifted the Elite Eight game last Saturday for our anniversary dinner, I made clear before selection Sunday that if Purdue was playing in the Anaheim regional, we were going to that even on our anniversary. As she said, "that's fine, but we'll be visiting the Louis Vuitton store first, dear..." It would have been worth it.
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I had to pass on going to the Fresno State game last fall because I was passing water and puking my guts out. Does that count?
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I had to pass on going to the Fresno State game last fall because I was passing water and puking my guts out. Does that count?
Well, I assume you wheeled a TV into view of the bathroom to watch it, right?
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I had to pass on going to the Fresno State game last fall because I was passing water and puking my guts out. Does that count?
no, this does not count