by Lee Powell
In the South, football is sacred. However, there seems to a common disagreement between whether or not college or NFL football is better. It’s not even close: the answer is college football.
To that point: I love watching an NFL game on a Sunday afternoon, periodically checking my fantasy score, as if that will affect the performance of the players. I love watching the NFL, and I love going to the games in person, but there is something magical about college football that is very hard to describe that makes it superior. Maybe my opinion is biased because I grew up going to the best environment in the ACC, but regardless, I have a point to make.
When you goes to an NFL game, you fly or drive into a large city of at least 100,000 people and then park in a concrete parking lot waiting for the game to start. Of course, you tailgate and have a good time and eventually, you make their way into the stadium for the start of the game.
By kickoff, there are people sitting all around you. There are people from all different backgrounds and parts of America. They are not all cheering for the same team. Some may be cheering for the Packers, and some may be cheering for the Bears. Some may be there because they have never been to an NFL game and this particular one was convenient for them. Whoever these people are, there are about sixty-five thousand of them sitting in seats.
When I go to an NC State game, we travel a mere one hour to Raleigh, NC. The Friday before, we ask our friends if they are going to the game, and when they say yes, we ask them to meet us when we get there. On the way, we see some people we know from Wilson with NC State flags on their cars, and we know that we are both heading to the same destination. After waiting in the line on Lake Boone Trail, we finally are able to squeeze into our parking spot.
We lower the tailgate on the truck and eat whatever we prepared for the tailgate that day. We play football with our friends and other random people who run hot-routes as they walk by. We act as if we’ve known them for a long time while really we’ve never met them. They might groan if they are given a bad throw or start hot-doggin' when they catch it. People are singing “Mamma’s Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” with the banjos and guitars they brought, but changing the lyrics so the "babies don’t grow up to be Tarheels." Some people bring their dogs, which are all labs and retrievers.
About ten minutes before kickoff, we start the short walk to the stadium. If we’re lucky, we will see the Pack take the field with the fireworks going off, and the Most Dangerous Marching Band of the South playing our fight song. I try to miss this process because I don’t want to be seen crying.
The seats beside us fill up with the usual people who attend every home game. We all recognize each other. Everyone around us is a State fan, and we speak freely about the opposing team without worrying about getting into an argument. When we score, we all high-five each other. At halftime, we travel back to the truck to rest and spend the beginning of the third quarter half watching the big screen, half throwing football with each other. If the game is close, we will go back in and cheer on our Wolfpack. Between the third and fourth quarter, the speakers will sound out “Wagon Wheel” and we will take off our hats when the singer sings of dying free in Raleigh.
There is something special about the sun setting behind the pine trees on the West side of the stadium, and there is something truly special about college football. When I look around me and see all the people who were educated at the same place as my grandparents, parents and aunts, it touches my heart. I know that they live the same lifestyle, hunt the same deer, and catch the same fish.
Unity is just as important as diversity. At an NFL game, no one knows or recognizes each other. They don’t know where each other are from, or what lifestyle they live. This results in a lack of unity at NFL games. There is little sense of pride in NFL teams. At State, we are emotionally and locally invested in our team. We all have a piece of family branded in the Wolfpack Nation.
My favorite NFL is Green Bay. Why? They were playing in the first game I remember watching. I have nothing invested in them, no family tradition. I will always be State fan, whether I like it or not. That is what makes college football better. We are cheering the Pack on from our hearts, and there is no other environment that can replicate that.
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