Rah-Rah

Promenading last Friday on the semi-famous Boulder Mall, we stumbled upon a Certifiably Big Event.

Ours is a college town where the three major religions are marijuana, massage, and football. On the evening that precedes a Saturday home game, the Mall is turned over to a football rally--a gigantic and noisy one. Have any of my regular readers or stray internet pilgrims ever been to such an event?  It's quite an echt American experience: the uniformed marching band -- all epaulets and brass and drums, the perky cheerleaders, a float featuring sports heroes of yore, the hundred gladiators themselves (all much taller and thicker than ordinary human beings) along with chants and rousing speeches. Tons of school spirit and not a shred of irony.  

The next day, despite the ginned-up enthusiasm, our team was blown out by UCLA, 45-17.

Rallies are not my kind of event. I'm constitutionally allergic to rah-rah and for the last couple of decades I've been boycotting football.

Why no more football for me? In truth, football was never my passion. I hardly ever played the game -- only a little "two-hand touch" in the schoolyard, so I'm not surrendering much by proscribing a sport that is a danger to everyone's physical well-being. There are too many dreadful injuries, especially head injuries. Too many retired players afflicted with dementia. A few days ago, surfing the channels, I accidentally glanced at a few minutes of a NFL contest. Even in that brief stretch, a cornerback was badly battered and carried by stretcher into an on-field ambulance. To me, it looked like it could be a broken neck. I'm sorry that I paused to watch; it will be along time before I do so again.

And I've always been resistant to Rah-Rah. Rubs me wrong; always has, right from the start.

The local mall rally caused me to remember my first days at Cornell, 66 years ago. I was a most naive freshman (now "freshperson" or "first-year") and had not a glimmer of an idea about college life -- none of my family or friends ever having enjoyed such an experience. Completely at sea. My peers in the freshman dorm insisted, you have to go to the rally. I had no idea what a rally was but if going to college meant going to rallies, then why not? I knew no better and tagged along with my new acquaintances. So there it was, just like last night on the mall. The band, the cheerleaders, the athletes, the rah-rah exhortations. One after another the speakers (were they coaches?), told us how hard we were going to cheer tomorrow for dear old Cornell and victory. We sang Cornell songs, the lyrics to which were handed to us on a mimeographed sheets of paper. It was far too enthusiastic for me -- too patriotic I guess one might say. I was not true to my school. How could I love Cornell or think fondly of my alma mater. I had just arrived, for goodness sake, and hadn't even finished unpacking. The insisted-upon emotion seemed contrived and artificial and I resented the pseudo-nostalgia. I don't like being subsumed into a crowd. I respond negatively when I'm exhorted to cheer or wave or sing. It all seems dangerously close to the unthinking obedience of nationalist politics. 

And then, next day, came the game itself. Dutifully I trudged to Schoellkopf to watch our guys encounter Princeton. I remember nothing about the contest, not even who won or lost. But I can still feel the cold September drizzle -- and I know that I caught a stiff cold. In my four years in Ithaca, it was my first and only football game. 

I soon learned that Cornell had much to offer beyond the rah-rah. It took a year or so, but eventually I found my people.

Comments

[Don Z. Block]

Rocco was probably largely responsible for that one game that spoiled a perfect season for Cornell.

[Lefty James]

The Big Red, led by QB Rocco Calvo, went 1-8 that year.