Sunday Morning Sidewalk: Fall and Hope

I have always loved fall. As a boy, the cool, crisp air came with football and the World Series. Whenever I go outside on a fall evening the smell of wood-burning fireplaces always transports me to football practice as a kid.

As I am now firmly in the fall of life, it takes on a unique duality to experience the onset of the season.

Near the end of the 2021 season, as I walked to and from the press box, I knew those would be the final steps for me in one way, shape, or form. Each game was one step closer to returning to the stands and experiencing Oregon football from a perspective that I had not really known since the 2011 season.

I guess that is not entirely accurate. In 2018 my wife and I were living in South Carolina, and we returned to Oregon for a 10-day vacation. We timed it to coincide with two consecutive home games – the second of which was the win over Washington. That experience was truly enjoyable.

This season, my 28th with season tickets for Oregon, I am taking Friday of home game weeks off to help prep for tailgates. Last season, we started tailgating in an RV spot and it made a world of difference for our sanity to not have to drive home after games. Once again, though, change is upon me heading into the fall. After spending most games in the stands for the past two seasons, my new role as publisher will take me to the press box once again.

Spending time around friends and other fans for two seasons was even more special for me. The family that sits behind us has been there for all 27 of the years I have had season tickets. I have technically known them longer than I have known my wife! I have watched the children grow up with yearly changes. Brian was just 12 when I first started sitting in front of the family – now he is 39 with an 8-year-old child of his own attending games and sitting behind us; he lived in Charlotte for a while and now has gray hair. It is a surreal experience to watch others change from afar.

I remember what it was like as a kid. I lived off Harlow Road near what is now Gateway Mall in a house close enough to the stadium for a walk to games. I collected the old wax paper cups from games and put the score of each game on the cup. I remember walking up at game time and picking up five-dollar tickets, sitting in the end zone, and working my way to midfield in a half-empty stadium. I remember how thrilling it was to see a victory – irrespective of margin. I was there when USC receiver Jeff Simmons (did not) score what would prove to be the game-tying score for number one ranked USC in October of 1980. Sitting about 5 yards from where the play happened. I rejoiced in a tie.

Expectations have changed since then and that has taken some of the joy out of the game for many. Some watch now not satisfied with any win but expecting dominance. There is nothing wrong with that, but when I start to agree with Nick Saban, I wonder where this is all really leading.

Following the Washington State game last season in 2021, I was thinking a lot about the Emily Dickinson poem Hope. As I left the press box just past midnight that night, I took my stroll down a little slower; I looked around. It was an unseasonably warm November night. There were still fans strolling around the stadium and I was transported back in time.

Hope is the thing with feathers- That perches in the soul- And sings the tune without the words- And never stops – at all –

There was that nascent sense of permanent hope around. The stroll was one of purposeful remembrance of a simpler time and an appreciation for the moment. Each moment is lost for eternity unless it is embraced in thoughts and deeds. Those sunny days we wish would never end; for me, that is football season. Sure, there are some downs along with the ups; we get caught up in the minutiae of a season; of each game and sometimes we forget to let the garden of future hope grow; we sink into a season of imagined hell.

That walk felt sort of bittersweet; I knew then that it was the penultimate trip to the Autzen Stadium press box for me; I thought back to the first time I began to write for this site; the first time I sat in the press box; every press conference; every moment in the sun. It was in that moment that it felt almost as if time was standing still. I was not in solitude; not alone. I did not speak. I absorbed the joy around me; the exuberance; the splendor of not knowing.

When I walk up for the first time this season, I will remember that walk. It felt like the end of an era and in many ways it was, but now I begin a new era with renewed hope.

Fall is definitely on our doorstep. After learning how to be in the stands for an entire game again, hope seems abundant still.