AMERICAN FOOTBALL:The college game is big, big business, but it has survived and thrived by keeping traditions and local interests at the heart of the game, writes DAMIAN CULLEN
EVERY WEEKEND since the start of September, several hundred thousand scholars have put away their textbooks to roar the words of their colleges’ fight-song at a few dozen of their colleagues. It is, apparently, a compulsory module.
What’s perhaps even more surprising is they are regularly joined by several hundred thousand non-students, many of whom have never even attended the college their sweatshirt swears they did.
The NFL it is not.
Professional in organisation, college football is strictly amateur in ethos, albeit dogged by allegations of under-table payments. It’s a game that demands loyalty, and repays it generously, though not in hard-cash. At least, so we’re told.
And it has a competition structure so bizarre that only those intimately involved can fully understand it.
American College football is not the NFL.
It’s much closer to the GAA.
While the NFL wonders how to start a tradition from their boardrooms on Park Avenue in Manhattan, the college game has long since cornered the market.
It’s where America fell in love with the sport.
It’s the pre-match tailgating. Half-time means marching bands, not the Lingerie Bowl. It’s “Touchdown Jesus” at Notre Dame Stadium (a 81,000-capacity ground which has been a ticket sell-out for more than 200 games in a row), the 12th man at University of Texas and the pink visitors’ dressingroom at the University of Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium.
Traditions are the imprimatur of every college – the team and the fans.
In the NFL, a coach is as good as his last game.
In College football, one blazing season can guarantee a head coach immunity for life.
Jeff Fisher has by far the longest tenure with a team in the NFL at the moment – beginning his reign as head coach of the Tennessee Titans in 1997.
In the NFL, that’s a lifetime.
Joe Paterno is the head coach at Penn State University, a position he acquired in 1966, and some time after coined the phrase: “The name on the front of the jersey is what really matters, not the name on the back.”
He landed the job after he was promoted from assistant coach, a position he had held since 1950.
“Part of what makes college football so special to me is the atmosphere, and that it involves more than just what’s happening on the field,” says Robb Dunn, associate athletic director at the Naval Academy Athletic Association.
“For example, we use the phrase, ‘Touchdowns, Tailgates, and Traditions’ to describe Navy football games.
“The game is important, but so are the reunions and other informal gatherings that take place around the game.”
Tailgating is a ritual that is as imbedded in the American game as it is alien here.
This is not a few ham sandwiches wrapped in cling-film on the boot of a car.
Before the recent Navy versus Notre Dame game, the 24,000 parking spaces surrounding the New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey hosted the first competition of the day – hours before kick-off.
With every available space occupied, many, somewhat miraculously, produced tables and chairs from their cars. Others fared even better, fitting barbecues and coolers to their lot, particularly the ones who arrived in people carriers.
And then there were those who arrived in campervans, and appeared to be settling in for a week’s vacation rather than a three-hour pre-game festival. Apart from the usual, there was – and we kid you not – marquees, fussball tables and at least one giant TV screen.
Game, set and match to the camper van section.
“Throw in the march-on and spirit of the Brigade of Midshipmen, the jets flying over pre-game, the cannons, mascots, bands, and cheerleaders, and you have a complete game-day experience,” says Dunn.
The Naval Academy certainly do not arrive quietly to any stadium, not least to the new €1.15 billion New Jersey home of the New York Giants and New York Jets for a grudge match with Notre Dame – the longest uninterrupted intersectional series in college football.
Before kick-off last month, 4,000 Midshipmen marched on to the playing pitch, with the stadium announcer and giant screens announcing the leader of each unit – with the many Irish names interspersed, making it, at times, sound like a roll call at an Irish pub.
The cadets then marched to their seats, instantly creating a formidable focal point for team chants and songs, complete with accompanying brass band.
In the strange, complicated world of college football’s structure, neither Navy nor Notre Dame belong to a NCAA- (National Collegiate Athletic Association) affiliated conference.
The number of independent schools has been declining, as many join conferences in order to share television revenue and gain access to bowl games.
On the outside, only the strongest can survive.
However, Navy and Notre Dame (along with Army) enjoy what’s known as a “Subway Alumni”. First coined to describe New Yorkers who followed Notre Dame, it has come to be recognised as a term for all fans of particular college teams who never actually attended the college as a student. It’s a sizeable constituency.
For perhaps obvious reasons, the Navy Midshipmen and Army Black Knights enjoy a considerable level of support outside their campuses.
And, considering they are known as the Fighting Irish, perhaps Notre Dame’s extraordinary support thousands of miles from Indiana should not be that surprising either.
That would also partly explain the willingness of Notre Dame and Navy to play out their annual battle on these shores in two years’ time.
Or, perhaps more correctly, it would explain their willingness to return to Ireland.
In November, 1996, almost 40,000 spectators turned up at Croke Park for the meeting of Notre Dame and the US Naval Academy, a game the Fighting Irish won easily, 54-27.
At the time, Notre Dame were enjoying an incredible run of victories over the side from Annapolis in Maryland, a sequence that would only end in 2007, when Navy prevailed 46-44. The triple-overtime victory ended the longest college football consecutive wins streak by one team over another. Notre Dame had claimed victory for 43 seasons in a row.
Whatever happens next season, though – when Notre Dame will host the clash – it’s highly unlikely the meeting at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on September 1st, 2012, will be so predictable. In the three meetings since 2007, Navy have claimed victory twice – the most recent at New Meadowlands last month, the first “home” triumph over their rivals since 1961.
The streak actually began in 1964, in a game that pitted the 1963 Heisman Trophy winner (given to most outstanding player in collegiate football each year) Roger Staubach against the 1964 winner John Huarte.
Staubach went on to become the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys during the 1970s, at a time when their battles with the Washington Redskins were legendary.
But asked which game stood out in his glittering career, the four-time Super Bowl winner pointed back to a college game in 1962. “It’s the most nervous I’ve ever been before a game. There were 4,000 Midshipmen at Bancroft Hall counting on me to beat Army, and I knew it would be difficult to go back there that night if we lost.”
Navy meet Army for the 111th time on Saturday, December 11th at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
NFL fans live for Sundays; College fans for Saturdays.
And, remarkably, there is quite a distinctive divide.
For most, it is one or the other. College or NFL.
Fanaticism does not lend itself to mixed loyalties.
And College football fans tend to be rather fanatical about their sport.
Some, take it even more seriously than that.
Last month, Oklahoma University defeated University of Texas 28-20 in front of 96,009 supporters in Dallas.
It’s called the “Red River Shootout” because the State of the winning team gets ownership of the river that runs along the border until the next game. They’re only half-joking.
On Friday, November 26th, the University of Alabama will host the Iron Bowl, the biggest intrastate rivalry in America. Auburn University are the opponents and for one day each year a nation of American football fans will watch.
Few enough rivalries have been so bitter that a suspension of the series has been necessitated. After the first few battles, Alabama and Auburn refused to meet again for 41 years.
And perhaps the daddy of them all is the annual match-up between Ohio State University and the University of Michigan, the day after the Iron Bowl. It is basically an extension of the Toledo War of the 19th century (when Michigan and Ohio were engaged in a border dispute). Known simply as “The Game” – which should give you a clue as to its status – last season’s game finished 21-10 to Ohio State. The attendance at Michigan Stadium was 110,922.
The attendance at this season’s meeting, at Ohio Stadium, on the day after the Iron Bowl, is expected to also be over 100,000.
In 2000, when ESPN produced their list of greatest North American rivalries, University of Michigan versus Ohio State came top, ahead of match-ups that would at least gain some recognition outside the USA, such as Muhammad Ali v Joe Frazier and the Boston Red Sox v New York Yankees.
The sheer numbers attending such games seems at odds with the grass-roots basis of the sport, but they seem to co-exist.
At the top level of college football, there would be up to 800 games in a season, with the average attendance working out to roughly that of the capacity of the Aviva Stadium.
Not so much in the shadow of the NFL as next door to it.
It’s big, big business, but college football has survived and thrived by keeping traditions and local interests at the heart of the game.
Metaphorically speaking, it’s the GAA on steroids.
College football stadiums with capacities over 100,000
Michigan Stadium, University of Michigan 109,901
(third largest in the world)
Beaver Stadium, Penn State University 107,282
Neyland Stadium, University of Tennessee 103,455
Ohio Stadium, Ohio State University 102,329
Bryant-Denny Stadium, Alabama University 101,821
Texas Memorial Stadium, University of Texas 100,113
