The team that made me a football fan

I don't remember much about the first University of Richmond football game I ever saw, but I definitely remember the morning before it.

It was Family Weekend. I was a freshman. I was desperate to feel as if I fit in at Richmond and did not want to go to the game because I didn't own a sundress.

"Mom, this is Richmond," I remember whining. "Nobody cares about football. It's a fashion show."

My family did end up going to the game (I begrudgingly wore a Richmond T-shirt), and when we left during the third quarter, the crowd was pretty pathetic. The team didn't make the playoffs that year.

There's been a big turnaround since then, for the football program and the fans. The Spiders are the defending National Champions and have a 9-1 record and, win or lose, seeing the crowd fill the stands at the Villanova game was awesome.

This year, before the first home game, my morning was a little bit different. I had a closet full of sundresses, but I put on my red T-shirt. Then my apartmentmates told me that we could take a much cuter picture if I would just put on a dress.

"How am I supposed to be a football fan in a dress?" I asked, but I changed anyway. I still wish I'd worn a T-shirt.

So, maybe the biggest turnaround has been in me.

It's been a turnaround that's taken me from Richmond to stadiums in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Iowa and Tennessee. It has been a change that's given me some of the best memories I have of college - of hours spent traveling to games and screaming myself hoarse in the stands.

There have been awesome highs, such as rushing the field at the championship game (although my brother never fails to remind me that my fall out of the stands was captured on national television), and some less-perfect moments.

I left Barrett's debit card at a gas station in western Pennsylvania on the way home from Iowa. I forgot the entire Collegian staff's tickets when we drove to the Duke game. (I also forgot that we should bring food and drinks to tailgate, which led to one staff member having a heat stroke. Oops.) I never seem to wear the right number of layers and am either hot, cold or soaking wet by the game's end.

And then there was the popcorn lady - a University of Northern Iowa fan who threw a full bag of popcorn she had just purchased at my face after the Spiders' first touchdown during the semifinal playoff game at the University of Northern Iowa last December.

During the first week of the season last year, I discovered during a conversation with my next-door neighbors, who were on the team, that I couldn't define the terms "free safety" or "tight end." If you had told me then that more than a year later I'd still be picking kernels out of my UGG boots, I would have found it much easier to believe that I would have a bag of popcorn dumped on me by a complete stranger than that I'd be watching football in Iowa when it happened.

But during the two short seasons since that conversation, a lot has changed. I eat at sports bars. I can define "fumble," "nose guard" and "option." I have more red T-shirts than sundresses. I've had the opportunity to watch a team and a coach you can't help but root for and I've gotten to know one of my best friends while covering games with her. I've loved getting to meet long-time fans in the stands and at tailgates, and I want to say thank you for sharing your food and your stories. Some day, I hope I can say I've been a Spider fan for 40 years (I'm asking for season tickets for Christmas).

I'm not happy about the prospect of graduating, and the idea that this weekend's game is the last regular-season game of my undergraduate career is just the first reminder of the things I'll be leaving behind. But I'm planning to make the most of this weekend's game and whatever playoff games we may have left. I'm forcing my friends to delay a trip to Washington, D.C. until after the game this weekend.

I'm planning to tailgate - even if it's 9 a.m. Face paint is a possibility.

I'm hoping to see an even bigger crowd than we had against Villanova to send the stadium - and the regular season - out with a bang. I have a press credential that allows me to see the game from the sidelines, but I think I want to do as much cheering as possible, so I'm debating spending the entire game in the stands.

No matter where I sit, though, one thing is for sure: I will not be wearing a dress.

Contact staff writer Emily Baltz at emily.baltz@rchmond.edu