This column appears in the Winter 2018 issue of Heart Beat of the Texas Hill Country

I love this time of the year — Holidays and College Football!    All the craziness of the fall games come to an end with the Playoff Committee sorting out records, justifying the upsets and strength of schedules to build the college bowl schedules and the National Championship semi-final games.    Oh what fun it has been getting to this point!   Every Saturday I have been known to camp out at our TV starting at 8AM for College Game Day and remaining into the wee hours of Sunday morning watching the west coast teams play.

This fall, I actually got to experience College Game Day when my husband’s Ohio State Buckeyes were in Ft. Worth playing TCU.  What I didn’t realize when I first hatched the brainstorm of attending, was what a crowd the Saturday live show would attract and how early one had to be there for the show’s early start.  Rumor has it college kids always sleep in on the weekends when there are no classes, but not when College Game Day is in town!

When we arrived at the TCU campus a little after 7AM, we found the last parking place right across from the Campus Commons where it was being held.   Before the car came to a complete stop, my seatbelt was whizzing into the holder and my hand on the door handle.  “Hang on Harriet!” my husband advised, but quickly changed his tune after he spotted the cheerleaders of both TCU and Ohio State at the Commons entrance.    Over the crosswalk we both flew.  Rick, who hates posing for pictures, made an exception when the Buckeyes mascot Brutus clamped his hand around Rick’s.

Next was clearing security.  Men never carry anything so my husband was waved through.   I, however, had my pom-poms and purse.  After having my pom-poms shaken and my purse (the size of a postage stamp) severely scrutinized, it was time to proceed through the portal into the Commons area.   By then, we could see the sea of people already gathered and the ESPN stage way down the Commons.  The bands were playing – time to make our entrance.    There are times it pays to be shorter than the majority and I played that trump card, getting us second row, second section back from the stage.   We could see the backs of Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and Rece Davis.  My life was complete – we were the backdrop of College Game Day!

Thirty minutes later, the director came out and reviewed the rules for the show as well as his signal for noise.  This group already had the noise part down.  Eight o’clock finally came and the roar was deafening especially when the TV camera mounted on a cable above us zoomed by.   It turned out to be a fun morning mingling with fans not only of TCU and Ohio State, but colleges all over the country.      I had DVR’d the show and even found us – a speck in the foreground – good thing for those red pom- poms!

Click here for pictures of the day!  https://lottasports.com/2018/09/15/lotta-sports-college-game-day/