Fall gets my blood up, not just because it is unequivocally my favorite season but also because it is the advent of college football, and as some of you know I am a hardcore fan of the maize & blue Michigan Wolverines, my undergraduate alma mater.
Julee insists I watch their games in a kind of isolation chamber, so I don’t scare our dog with what she unfairly calls my bellowing. Okay, a lot of men—and no small number of women—can get pretty silly about their sports allegiances. (I mean, I have NEVER painted myself maize & blue and tailgated in arctic temperatures.)
As a Michigan adherent, though, I must also pledge my fealty to the Big Ten conference which means I harbor admittedly unchristian antipathy for the teams of the Pac-10 conference out west, with whom we do annual battle in the Rose Bowl every New Year’s Day. Nothing epitomizes the Pac-10 like the Trojans of Southern Cal. Therefore the Trojans are my enemy.
Maybe not anymore. Check out this sweet and inspiring video shot behind-the-scenes at the USC football program. It got me. The video only needs a few set-ups:
1. USC coach Pete Carroll is famous for pulling one big prank on his players at the beginning of every season.
2. The unofficial team song is that old Bill Withers number “Lean On Me.”
3. Check out the young linebacker who eventually gets the song started—his shyness is so endearing and his voice lovely.
4. The talk the special guest speaker delivers at the end is awesome advice for anyone, not just kids playing college football, and a lesson in what we all should embrace in life…and it’s not sports fandom.
I’ll stop bellowing now.
Enjoy!
Edward Grinnan is Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of GUIDEPOSTS Publications.
