AHHHHHH....Football season

North Carolina State University Wolfpack begin their football season tonight. My dad was a professor at State during the golden years of Lou Holtz being the head coach. Every season we got tickets on the 'staff' side of Carter Finley Stadium. I remember looking across the stadium where the students, visitors and marching bands sat. They certainly looked like they were having a lot more fun over there than I ever did over on the stuffy staff side of the stadium....I realized later when I went to college myself that I didn't wanna be on the side with all the drunk college students either! I do remember those sitting on the grassy hill on the righthand side of Carter Finley were the most fun to watch. They would roll down the hill to chase down the extra point and field goal balls. When fights ensued for the gameball, that's when the nets behind the uprights went up. Bummer. Now the remodel of CF has bleachers over there, so 'the hill' no longer exists.

Getting ready for gameday was a process at our house. Mom would start popping popcorn several hours before--she was a popcorn freak growing up. She ate it allllll the time. The kernels she popped for the game would go into a big plastic wrap lined brown grocery bag. Yes, we would eat some of it, but most of the folks around us knew her as 'the popcorn lady' so it became the community bag of popcorn! I don't think they let you bring stuff in like that anymore. The tailgating that went on hours before the game in the parking fields were amazing. I was always so blown away with the 'living room' set ups some tailgaters had--nice chairs, massive grills and food that went waaaay beyond just hotdogs and hamburgers! We would bring blankets to the games to either sit on or wrap around us when it got chilly. Those metal bleacher benches were brutal on a butt after one hour. After six hours, you were numb and frozen!

As every game day passed and fall released more of her bite, it was more and more fun and chilly. Wolfpack football and Fall went hand in hand in my childhood....
So as NC State hosts South Carolina tonight at (the completely remodeled) Carter Finley, all those wonderful memories have come flooding back and they take me to a really warm place in my soul.

Oh yeah..... GO PACK!!