The First Timer

For a long time I've been calling myself a fan of Virginia Tech. Don't worry, it's been going on longer than a lot of people might think. I'm not one of those guys that jumped on the Virginia Tech bandwagon back when Michael Vick was playing. I'm just not the kind of person that gets openly excited about football.

Don't get me wrong. I like football. I just don't follow it closely enough to have a decent fantasy team. I like to watch a game, but if Tech isn't playing, I generally don't care who wins. I don't pay attention to rankings. I don't pay attention to what a certain team's win-loss record is going to do to how Virginia Tech rises or falls from week to week.

Despite my apparent lack of enthusiasm towards sports in general, I do call myself a fan of the Hokies. But I had never been to a game at Lane Stadium. Never, that is, until last weekend.

A few weeks back I got a text message from Kelly, a friend from the Bluefield days. She let me know that she and a couple of her friends had a fourth ticket for Tech's game versus Arkansas State. Since I had never been to a live game, I jumped on it. I'll admit, I was pretty excited.

I hitched a ride from Roanoke to Blacksburg with Kelly's friends Lesley and Adam. They were the real connection to the tickets, so if they're reading this, thanks again for bringing me along for the ride. Not only did we have incredible seats (I'll get to those later), we had a parking pass for Lot 2. This put us approximately nine parking spaces away from the stadium.

You know what a great part of the fun of going to a football game is? If you said tailgating, you were right. We grilled burgers and dogs, played some Cornhole, and pretty much just had a swell time.

Eventually the time came for us to make our way inside. Our seats? Just to the right of the 50 yard line. We were about midway up the home side. Oh, and we had cushions and seat backs. That's right, we didn't have to sit on the cold, metal bleachers.

I guess I got kind of spoiled with my first game. I'm going to expect an awesome parking space and awesome comfortable seats the next time I go to a football game. And I'm sure that's not how it will happen. I'm sure I'll end up parking on the other side of town and I'll need to walk all the way to the game. I'm sure I'll be stuck on the bleachers surrounded by drunk guys who spill beer all over me and my friends.

My only true complaint about my first time home game experience is the old folks that were all around us. There was an old lady in front of me that kept leaning back on her seat back and shoving it into my knees. Every time she leaned back, she pretty much hyper-extended the seat back. It's okay though, I wasn't using those knees anyway. And let's not forget the elderly man sitting next to me. I'm pretty sure he thought I was his grandson. He kept explaining things to me. As I said above, I'm not the most sports-savvy guy, but I know what it means when someone is off sides.

Okay, sometimes I have a hard time understanding off sides.

And, of course, Tech won. It was a pretty good game. And I had an awesome time. I want to go again. I'm not saying I'm ready for my own season tickets, but I could handle another game.