The Goodman Life: Football

In the fall we eat, breathe, and sleep one thing... Clemson Football! You see, like everyone in Spunky's family was a Clemson graduate. So naturally, he grew up going to Clemson football games and wanted to do the same with his family. We have been going to Clemson football games since we started dating, and now we are passing (or trying to pass) that tradition down to our daughter.

Thursday, October 12, 2006 was a big deal in our family on two parts, one because of the birth of our daughter, and secondly Clemson was playing Georgia Tech on a Thursday night game, and won! The game was actually on, while I was giving birth to my daughter! And Spunky was there....Clemson hat on, to welcome his bundle of joy into the world! I am just lucky that he was there with me and not at the game.

Prior to Addison being born, I remember rubbing my big fat pregnant belly in one of my husband's Clemson shirt dreaming about the day that I could take my baby girl to her first Clemson football game, I always adored seeing the little tots in their cheerleading outfits waiting for their turn to have their picture taken with the famous Clemson Tiger.

Spunky's uncle Riggs had given us tickets to the opening game of the season against Middle Tenn. State University. We figured that this would be a perfect game to take Addie to, kick off was at 6 PM, the weather was forcasted to be great, and the best part was that the game wasn't supposed to be televised which meant that we wouldn't be there forever!!

We had 4 tickets to the game, so 2 of our friends from church, Brandon & Jennifer went with us! We got to the stadium super early to tail gate prior to the game starting. You could say that the first mistake of the day was that Addie didn't have a nap. The second mistake was that it was hot, she was sweating, and thought that tail gating was a completely boring experience. During tailgating, she refused to eat and only played with the ice in the cooler.

We entered the stadium 90 minutes prior to kick off (to see the players warm up), and Addie was actually starting to come around! She enjoyed seeing the players, had warmed up to Jennifer, and was amused at the balloons at the other end of the stadium.

Once it was time for kick off, it was a completely different story. Once the fans started screaming, and the tigers did their famous run down the hill, I saw a look of sheer terror on my daughter's face. All I could do was hold her, and she told me over and over "mama, want to go to house please". After a couple of minutes I tripped over half of the row U, and walked up to the concession stand/ bathroom area thinking that I could calm her down gently and hopefully we could enjoy the rest of the game. While up there we first played in some fans that blew mist out, then we went to the potty, bought a soda, and I even sprung for some plastic pom poms to match her adorable cheerleading uniform. The pom pom idea did not work...I tired to get her to cheer with them, but I guess all of the excitement from the game really threw her over the edge, because she was absolutely petrified of the pom poms.....I really think that I am the first person in history to return pom poms that I only owned for about 2 minutes. I can still see the confusion on the clerk's face as I asked for my money back.

I then found some bleachers near the exit of the stadium, so we sat down there and I rocked Addison to sleep after about 2 minutes. So I sat there for what seemed like 6 hours, but was probably only about an hour. After a few minutes of sitting there I realized that I didn't have my cell phone and only a few dollars in my pocket. Several mom's with screaming toddlers came over to the bleachers with what looked like their own scared 2 year olds. Older ladies came up to me and asked me if they could get me some water, or to say that my daughter was adorable.

Finally at the end of the second quarter of the game, my husband found us after several minutes of searching for us, to find Addie still asleep on my soaked with sweat lap. He convinced me that if he carried Addie down to our seats that I could still watch the game. After a few minutes of pondering this, I obliged. Only to find that once he started walking down the steps, Addie woke up screaming "No tiger game, no tiger game", this time Spunk went out with her, and I watched 2 football minutes of the game.

After half time, Addie and Spunky returned to our seats, but then the torrential rain started, so our friend Brandon (who drove) gave me his car keys. Addie and I first returned to our seats on the bleachers near the exit of the stadium, but when the fourth quarter began and the rain slacked off for a bit, we made a run for Brandon's blue SUV.

Addie is still terrified of football, on Friday we attempted to take her to a local high school football game, and she burst into tears excaliming "No tiger game, no tiger game". So, I shrugged my shoulders, sent Spunky on his way to the football game, and Addie and I stayed home for a night of girl fun!