[AUDeltaGam]

Go to Auburn, be forever changed

October 03, 2002

BUD POLIQUIN
POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST, SYRACUSE

I have descended into college football's Grand Canyon. I have stood in its
Alps. I have gazed at its ocean sunset. I have done all of these things and
I've been changed forever.

I knew, of course, that we were different up here. I understood that autumn
Saturdays in our burg have never been given over to any kind of serious
sporting fervor. I've accepted for a good, long while that a fair amount of
our citizens regularly choose to pick apples or seal driveways rather than
head to the Carrier Dome to watch the Syracuse University Orangemen at play.

But, Lord have mercy on our college football souls, I've come to realize we're
not merely quirky in these parts. And we're not just overly particular. No,
having attended a game in Auburn, Ala. - which is like going to Mass in Rome -
I'm convinced that, by comparison, we're as dead as the flying wedge.

"Let me tell you something," said Paul Pasqualoni, the SU coach who can
recognize bedlam when he is forced to shout above it. "Being in that stadium
with all those people - the noise level, the atmosphere - was exciting. It was
a lot of fun. To me, it was just spectacular being there."

He was speaking of Jordan-Hare Stadium, where four days earlier his SU club
had lost to the Auburn Tigers 37-34 in an environment that was equal parts
Woodstock, Mardi Gras, New Year's Eve and Madonna's last wedding. And the
Crimson Tide boys, those rascals from the other side of the state, weren't
even in town, to say nothing of the Bulldogs, Gators or Razorbacks.

Nah, it was just the Orangemen, a non-league bunch from somewhere up north ...
with a losing record yet. But it didn't matter. This, because the cherished
Tigers were on the other side, and that was enough for those Alabama locals to
respond the way the French did when Patton's army showed up in Paris.

"I missed my wife's birthday so I could cheer on my beloved alma mater against
Syracuse," Brent Miller wrote in an e-mail addressed to me following the
three-overtime affair. "But you know what? I would have been there if our
opponent had been the state of New York's worst high school team."

"Country, God and college football are usually our top three passions,"
e-mailed another Auburn guy, Steve Fleming. "But not always in that order."

"I grew up in Denver in a family with season tickets to the Broncos games,"
e-mailed yet another believer, Rick Pavek. "I call Auburn home now and, take
my word for this, Broncomania is nothing like Tigermania."

The point is, with the Orangemen returning to the gray Dome that is so often
lifeless to play Big East Conference foe Pittsburgh on Saturday, it's clear
that somebody's not getting it. Either the Auburn faithful - and people like
them in Knoxville and South Bend and Lincoln and Gainesville and Columbus and
Austin and elsewhere - are far too crazed or we're way too cool.

Listen, down there in eastern Alabama they pass out full-color, high-gloss,
22-by-17-inch, two-sided, fold-out pamphlets titled, "The 2002 Guide To Game
Day At Auburn University." And on Page 2 of each can be found the announcement
that nobody is allowed to begin tailgating until 4 p.m. icthe day before the
game.nm

"You can't be anything but envious," said Jake Crouthamel, the Syracuse
athletic director who was a wide-eyed witness to all of the SU-Auburn doings.
"You can't be anything but envious when you have that kind of support. I mean,
there were 84,000 people in the seats. And the RVs and house trailers were
lined up five miles outside of town. When you talk about the epitome of what
the college football experience is all about ... that's it. Auburn is the
epitome. You couldn't possibly be unaware of the spectacle, even if you were
trying to be unaware."

The orange-clad zealots, who are in their seats fully 30 minutes prior to
kickoff, thunder through choreographed cheers. The band, which is saluted upon
its arrival by the big house with a standing ovation, blares. The PA system,
which continuously blasts the sounds of a growling tiger, pipes in songs by
the Dixie Chicks and interviews with the Auburn coaches.

Before the game, there is the great Tiger Walk during which the Auburn players
march along Donahue Street through thousands of people, some of whom weep, and
into the stadium. After the game, there is the mass papering of famous
Toomer's Corner downtown. And between all of that, a golden eagle circles the
place before landing on the field to a deafening roar.

And us? Um, let's see. We can't fill 49,000 seats. We debate, ad nauseam,
standing-vs.-sitting in the Dome. We give our tickets to takers at the door
who had to be schooled in the art of courtliness. We regularly vacate the
joint long before the final gun. We allow, in a good-idea-gone-bad, a bunch of
vulgar louts planted in a thing called "The O-Zone" to chant expressions you'd
never say in front of Mom at the dinner table.

In other words to compare our college football experience to that of Auburn
(and a lot of other places) is to compare a skillet of beans to a plate of
Chilean sea bass. And while that might sound harsh, it doesn't make the words
any less true.

Believe me on this. Please. I have descended into college football's Grand
Canyon. I have stood in its Alps. I have gazed at its ocean sunset. I have
attended a game at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala. And I've been changed
forever.