News of the Arroyo
Title: | The best of two worlds |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2006-01-06 |
Summary: | January 6, 2006 - Larry Wilson describes his experience at a great football game in the Arroyo Seco. |
Author: | Larry Wilson |
Publication: | Pasadena Star News |
Content: | HAVING been fortunate witness to lots of good stuff in the storied Rose Bowl over the past half-century, I was certainly looking forward to Wednesday night\'s game. It looked to be a good deal all around. First, I got to go. Sports on TV is fine, up to a point. But when it\'s a national championship in the hometown ... Getting to go meant taking off from the office in the afternoon to meet cousins and family friends in town from Texas. Meant a bowl of my Texan mother\'s chili and a beer before the game. Meant the odd thrill of seeing a hundred thousand people flock to the Arroyo Seco neighborhood in which I grew up - nice when you know how to navigate so it doesn\'t take any longer to get there than at midnight on a Sunday. Meant nine or more hours taking in that uncanny combination of Southern politesse and Western whooping it up that is the native Texan personality. And with a football game pitting the University of Texas against the University of Southern California, where I teach, it meant, yes, juggling that ancestral loyalty with that of so many SC friends and now students and colleagues. I was always a public-school boy, so that rooting for anything UC came much more easily than anything USC. But I was sitting with one football-fanatic cousin who is not a Texan - a Bruin fan from Pasadena, in fact - who decided that rooting for the Trojans as the West Coast reps was the right thing under the circumstances. It\'s like a Dodgers fan rooting for the Giants in the World Series - anything to upset the upstart American League. And on my other side were friends Elaine Ahmad and Tomiko Stein, totally Trojan in that Elaine took her master\'s on the campus where her father is professor emeritus. So a good time was certainly had by all. We -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- hooted and hollered and, sitting in the Tournament section, visited with the beaming Red Jackets, TofR former presidents properly pleased that the eyes of the nation\'s sports lovers by the millions were once again upon us. Great as less-heralded SC running back LenDale White was, going up the middle time and again, it was clear by the opening of the second half that even a sizable Trojan lead was shaky, given the impossible task of defending against the biggest and smartest guy on the field, Texas QB Vince Young. It was as if he was toying with the SC secondary. Looking pass? I think I\'ll run. Run? I\'ll flip a pass for a first down so fast your head will spin. With a couple of minutes left, it was clear to everyone in the stadium that Young would win the game, essentially all by himself, and he did. It was magnificently cool athleticism. The SC fan in front of us, a large guy, turned and took small and saddened Elaine by the shoulders as the clock ran out. \"It\'s just a game,\" he said, with a smile. Yes, it was. It was a really good football game in Pasadena. While it lasted, over many hours that went by very fast, nothing else mattered. That\'s what I call fun. larry.wilson@sgvn.com Larry Wilson is editor of the Pasadena Star-News. His column runs Fridays, Sundays and Wednesdays. |
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