Ten Years Later ...

My Wahoos have been really frustrating this year. Their best players have kept getting hurt. They've been turning the ball over at inopportune times (not that there are really opportune times for turnovers). They kept doing dumb things. Worst of all, they kept losing. Okay, so they only lost two games in a row, but they hadn't played well all year. They've been just painful to watch. Plus, they lost to the Terps. THE TERPS!

It seemed like it had been so long since they had played well that I found myself recently daydreaming of the single best sporting event I have ever witnessed in person: the toppling of Florida State on a balmy Thursday October night ten years ago. I've never heard UVA fans so into a game. They were pumped and loud from the first kick, and a national television audience got to see a gorgeously exciting upset of a top ten team that had not lost any of its 29 contests since it had joined the ACC. It was glorious. I yelled myself hoarse. I stormed the field. I reveled in the tearing down of the goalposts. I walked out of the stadium completely giddy with the joy of the upset.

This weekend an unbeaten, top 5 Seminole team came to town to kick my ailing Wahoos while they were down. Perhaps thinking of happier days, the Wahoo team that put the first blemish on FSU's ACC record that October night 10 years ago was honored at halftime of this contest. Oddly, though, the current team -- the injury-prone, turnover-mongering dummies and losers -- were up 13 points at the time. The crowd was loud and excited. The team held on and gutted it out. Night game. October. Balmy. National audience. ESPN. Hoarseness. Upset. Giddiness. Jubilation.

I let the students storm the field, though. I had my time. [Aside: Goalposts are much more resilient than they were 10 years ago. Those things refused to come down.]

One sign I saw amongst the revelers on the field in the post-game bedlam put it nicely in perspective: "Party like it's 1995."