Tonight my USC Gamecocks face off with the Lionel Richie-less Vanderbilt Commodores. I am excited as always at the start of a new football season and at the same time, I am sad because it will be the first one without my Dad. My Dad passed away in December and the whole year had been a combination of moving on and falling back…still can’t believe he is gone. Football season always created a special bond between us, especially college football because in the NFL we didn’t see eye to eye (he was a Redskin fan and I a lifelong Cowboy fan). But we both rooted for the Gamecocks, he if only because it is our hometown college team and because 3 of his four children received degrees from there. Last year, my dad was in an out of the hospital. The first game of the season, we were at his birthday party and my Gamecocks were down 17-0 to the East Carolina Pirates and I was steps away from committing Hari-Kari. My father told me to calm down, that it was early in the game, and sure enough my Gamecocks came back and whipped them 56-37. A few weeks later, as my Dad was about to go into the hospital for another surgery, he asked if I could come over and watch a game with him and also if I would bring some Popeye’s chicken over because he had never had it before. He said don’t just order a little, order a feast and I brought over like $70 worth of food. When my Dad was in the hospital during the rivalry Clemson game, I should have watched it in the hospital with him but he told me to go home and watch it with my girls. He said he would call me after the game but he called me at halftime and after and was just so happy, mainly happy for me that the Gamecocks had won so decisively. Over the years that was always my dad’s protocol. If we lost, he would call after a game and console. If we won, he would call and let me go on and on about how awesome they were. Not having the phone calls is going to be hard but it is a part of this terrible adjustment that you make when someone who has been in your life for 39 years is now gone.

Appreciate those you have around you. Time is fleeting and fickle and cannot be taken for granted. Go Gamecocks!

I'm not particularly a fan of South Carolina but there's something cool about women wearing shirts that express their love for Cocks.

So, go Cocks!

So far so good. Gamecocks up 7-0 after a slow start.

Don't know how many college football fans there are here but for me the sport is the consolation prize for having to give up summer.

Sorry about your loss. Time for you to pass on the tradition in his honor. After the game, and/or during it, call those you love and share your excitement!

The name alone is worth rooting for!

GO COCKS!

Nothinbutjoy said:

Sorry about your loss. Time for you to pass on the tradition in his honor. After the game, and/or during it, call those you love and share your excitement! The name alone is worth rooting for! GO COCKS!

Thank you.

The game was a lot closer that I thought it would be. Started to wonder how I would feel if we lost and the phone didn't ring. But the Cocks pulled it out in the end.

Go Gamecocks!