Rah Oklahoma!

OK. So as you may (or may not) have guessed from my "Boomer Sooner" post, on the 23rd of September I went to my very first OU football game. Unfortunately due to general incompetence and busyness on my part I never actually got to post the full write-up of the event and now it's all a little foggy but I will try my very best.

First of all I need to say that I don't really understand American football. The playing time is an hour but a game lasts four hours with all the breaks for adverts and huddles in which the players are given instructions for their next play. I know that what you most want is a touch-down and then you want to convert it by kicking the ball through the posts which apparently is very exciting and calls for a little celebration (more on this later). I know that each team has a certain number of attempts to move the ball 10 yards in their direction (3 I think) before the other teams gets to have a go at doing the same thing. I know that each "team" has two entirely separate teams depending on which direction they're moving in - the offensive team and the defensive team. I also know that the players make very few decisions about their plays (if any) and that the coach does all the strategy stuff and they just act out the directions. I know this because Amanda's brother gets to pass the instructions from the coach to the players on the team that he is currently training with. I think it involves wild gesticulation but I'm not really clear on the logistics.

Right. Now that's all said and done I also want to make clear that all of that stuff is not the exciting part of an OU football game. Remember I mentioned earlier about the "little celebration"? Well that was possibly down-playing it a bit but let's start at the very beginning, it is the very best place to start you know...

Before the game and before you even enter the stadium Norman is descended upon by thousands of people. So many people in fact that the population of Norman automatically doubles in size on a game day. These people set up in car parks all around town and do this thing called tail-gating which seems to involve drinking beer out of actual fridges and eating burgers which they cook on their giant gas-powered barbecues whilst sitting on their chairs under their gazebo. This also often seems to involve watching the pre-game commentary on their satellite TVs (satellite included) and usually some father-son bonding involving a ball being thrown around and narrowly missing innocent passers by. Then a couple of hours before the game along comes The Pride. They march down the streets of Norman and into the stadium playing endless renditions of Boomer Sooner and other marching band classics including (or course) "Oklahoma!" Eventually they reach their destination and so do we, climbing the seemingly hundreds of steps to our seats and we're only half way up the bleachers! The stadium is full of people looking full of cheer, sporting the crimson and cream (red and white as was helpfully translated in my international student orientation) colours of the Sooners. I'm ready too, Amanda and I popped to Walmart and bought me a hooded jumper with OKLAHOMA in the big collegiate letters on the front. The game is on!

Actually the game is not on... yet. There is more spectacle to be had before any playing can occur. The players have to stretch for what seems like hours in some sort of chessboard formation while the many, many coaches check that they're doing them right. Eventually they get up from the floor and throw a ball about for a bit and do some other inexplicable warm-ups that I have never read about in any of my running-related sporting research. I suppose they must be "football specific" or something, I'll give the coaches the benefit of the doubt. They are paid enough. Middle Tennessee are warming up too, they're looking a bit haphazard despite their snazzy kit. I begin to hope that this will not be a car-crash for them. Eventually the players leave the pitch and from here the order of things gets confused.

It could be the band that comes first or it might be the cheerleaders though it could just as easily be the Rough Necks. It's all bit of sensory overload and with so much time passed I'm not sure I'm capable of untangling it. Let's go with the band for argument's sake. They march into the stadium do some fancy marching in formation, play Boomer Sooner yet again and take to their spot on the bleachers. Then the Rough Necks take to the field. I'm not really sure who or what the Rough Necks are apart from being college boys in little red and white uniforms with giant paddles in their back pockets. They are in charge of the Schooner which rides around the field at the opening of the game as well as inexplicably beating the goal-post with the aforementioned paddle. The Schooner is one of those old-style covered wagons which you see in movies involving trails, plains and Native Americans and it is pulled by two horses called Boomer and Sooner (well what did you expect them to be called?) A Rough Neck rides this thing around the field with the Rough Neck Queen sitting up front, all dressed up and twirling a paddle while whooping with pride (or something). Out of the back is another Rough Neck dangling out of the back waving a flag with yet another holding his legs. Whilst this is going on the rest of the Rough Necks who are not involved in the schooner spectacle are inexplicably beating the goal post with their paddles. I can't help but wander what else they beat with their paddles, which are the size of a child's cricket bat, when there isn't a game on...
Then of course there are the cheerleaders. Middle Tennessee hasn't even bothered to bring their cheer-squad or their band so we only have 3 squads tonight who rotate around each quarter and of course Boomer and Sooner II, people in furry horse costumes who manage to do magical things such as backflips from within their suits. There's the pom squad who do fancy dancing and a couple of more acrobatic teams that do all that fancy pyramid stuff with cheermen at the bottom doing the throwing. I wonder who these men are and what is their motivation... Anyway, the cheersquads form a corridor of cheer and through this on come the footballers. They all take their places and now the game really is on.

I don't remember much about the actual game except for the endless pauses for ad breaks and time outs and so on and so forth. I remember that it was indeed the car crash that I'd feared for Middle Tennessee - OU won 59-0. So the game was perhaps not as exciting as it might have otherwise been. Half-time was fabulous though with more marching and bandness. I really wanted the band to spell out "Oklahoma" or draw a schooner but alas that seems to have gone out of favour and now it's all about asymmetrical patterns across the playing field. The baton twirler had her solo moment though which is probably the important thing though I do worry for her once she's all grown up. What do baton twirlers do once the world of college football is over for them? Maybe she can be a baton twirling coach or something, I don't think pro-teams have twirlers... The band did the rounds and stood in various aisles (including ours) to rouse cheer amongst the crowd. We shouted "OU" a lot and held our arms above our heads in O and U shapes. We sang "Boomer Sooner" often and went "ooh" and "ahh" and cheered whole-heartedly. OU scored so often though that the score celebrators began to get a bit tired of back flipping in the end-zone and poor Boomer and Sooner and the Rough Neck Queen were quite exhausted with all that whipping around the pitch every 15 minutes and put in rather half-arsed performances towards the end of the game.

Eventually when it was clear that OU had won we went home full of cheer and university pride (as well as good intentions of posting a blog quicksmart) and wondering if Heythrop could ever get quite such a large crowd out for its intercollegiate football matches against UCL...

Boomer Sooner

Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner;
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner;
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner;
Boomer Sooner, Boomer Sooner.
x2

I'm Sooner born and Sooner bred,
And when I die I'll be Sooner dead!

Rah Oklahoma,
Rah Oklahoma,
Rah Oklahomaaaaa
O.K.U!



Sung with much spirit to this tune.

Nasty Little Blighters

This is a zebra mosquito. It also has a fancy Latin name but what really matters is that it is evil and dishes out the most evil of mosquito bites that ever were dished out. OK. So maybe I don't have malaria. I don't even have the West Nile virus that these little blighters have a penchant for infecting their victims with. Heck, I don't even have Dengue Fever (or break-bone fever to old school mosquito-borne-disease watchers) but goodness me I itch!

Look! Just look at the state of my pegs!

These Oklahoma mosquitoes are mean. I thought that Portugal had it all as far as really itchy insect bites go (minus the diseases). I thought I'd experienced the pain of itchy bites at their full-force... but no! These bugs are the meanest of the mean and this photo of my legs wasn't even taken with the bites at the height of their purpliness. One friend even thought I had ring-worm and I can't even shave my legs for fear of nicking a bite and dying a terrible death like Lord Carnarvon of Tutankhamen curse fame...

Frankly my legs look a fright which is largely easily avoided by covering up. However when I'm in my running get-up I'm afraid that, rather than a marching band, my run may soon be accompanied by the sound of a small child screaming and running in the opposite direction. I'm trying to be tough and put on the facade of super-tough running girl who runs despite horrible infestation but it's tough. The itching is driving me up the wall and I don't think my constant wriggling is doing much for Amanda's sleep either so I have a solution. Mosquitoes of Norman listen up: I know I am a tasty morsel but I think perhaps you will find Amanda to be exceedingly tasty too. Why don't you pick on her instead?!

Keep on Running

So, for those of you who have been present for my long rants about the wonders of running (those of you that haven't are missing out on great conversation!) will be relieved to find out that I am indeed still running. I am actually even training to run (notice the word "run" and not "race") a half-marathon in November along (a very little bit of) Route 66. This week my training regime, courtesy of runnersworld.com has had me running an "easy" run for 2 miles, a tempo run for 5 and tomorrow it's decreed a 7 mile long run. Up until the last couple of weeks my runs have either had to be at the break of dawn or inside due to the ridiculous heat of Oklahoma. Oklahoma Summers are HOT they don't call 40C a heatwave, it's just Summer and at night 21C is cool. Coming from London, where at 30C the tubes stop and air-conditioning in cinemas breaks down, I was in for a bit of a shock and there was no way I could fall out of bed at 10am and hope to run anywhere without dying of heatdisease*. Still, gradually I managed to work out a regime involving the university's incredibly fancy gym and daybreak. Now it's cooler 530am starts are no longer necessary and I don't have to resort to the gym for afternoon runs.

Last Tuesday I went for a post-class run at the previously inconceivable time of 7pm around the campus taking in OU's 82,112 seater football stadium, the 2,700 capacity baseball stadium, the enormous multi-sport training facility at Griffin Park and the crazy aircraft hangar known as "Everest Training Center" which is an indoor football field rumored to be able to recreate many weather conditions. Sport is big here at OU and as if all the buildings weren't enough to dwarf my achievements, on the last leg of my run (which at this stage of sporting prowess is starting to feel a bit lame and I'm hot and tired and want to be at home) I pass by a field where the percussion section of the Pride is practicing for Saturday's game. The drumming cheered me on a little and I'm sure if I'd actually been taking my split-times would have propelled me into a 9 minute mile great! Which made me wonder again about the lack of cheer in British schools. Maybe if we'd have had a band in my extremely nonchalant high school I might have been a bit more encouraged to take up a sport and participate in school life a bit more and I would never have made it to 25, fat and wheezing at a 100 meter lope and having to train my body for the first to time to cope with a raised heartrate. Even if I hadn't been part of the sports team I bet I would have been part of the band. Have you seen their outfits?! They get hats and sometimes even capes and the geeks of the school get to participate in the life of the school rather than skulking in the recesses. Either way I don't think participating can be bad and making a place for everyone in sports, be it on the team (which between the offense and the defense of a American football team can be 50+), the cheersquads, the band or just being part of the crowd, wearing your school colours and screaming for all it's worth can possibly be a bad thing and British schools could learn a lot. If we had a bit more cheer in our highschools maybe we'd have a few more spectators and support for our inter-university clashes. Maybe we'd even need to build stadiums, or at least borrow them.

As for me, I'll just keep on running. My goal for the half-marathon is just to finish it without walking (except maybe to pee or drink) then who knows? I fancy the New York Marathon in 2007 and thankfully I have my own one-woman cheer squad. She's even promised to take care of the foil blanket and jelly babies.



*Heatdisease is (I think) an overdramatic term for Heatstroke used in a running book I read one afternoon in a Borders Books where Amanda and I sought refuge and air-conditioning on a particularly hot day.

More of a Short Red Rally

So much for the Big Red Rally. My classes are all in the evenings and this unfortunately clashed with the 630 pm start of aforementioned Rally. I did think that, what with the rally being "Big" it would go on for more than half an hour. I guess that no matter how Big and Red the Rally is Sooners just don't have the stamina to be perky for more than half an hour, or at least not without some sort of competitive sporting action...

Bureaucracy

Just a quick note to reassure you all that bureaucracy is alive and well in US universities in much the same way as it is in British universities. I'm finding it somewhat reassuring to discover that this is universal. I am currently trying to battle my way out of a cocoon of red-tape. Hopefully I will make it out in time to attend The Big Red Rally on Friday so I'll have something to report on that's peculiar to OU...

W.W.J.D.?.

With Pope Benedict XVI newly elected into office, I just wanted to mention the phenomenon of the W.W.J.D.? bracelet which is taking over America. I’m mostly just baffled by them. I suppose you’re meant to wear them and whenever you’re about to do something “naughty” they’re meant to make you stop and think “What would Jesus do?” I’ve heard people suggest that maybe this could be especially effective when doing something naughty involving your hand – using a bong say – you’re just about to take a puff and you catch sight of your bracelet and think “Oh no! Jesus wouldn’t do that” and you stop. I’d like to take this opportunity though to think about what “Jesus” would actually do and what the people wearing these bracelets think he might do. I suspect that thinking about what “Jesus” would do probably is supposed to stop them from doing things like drinking and smoking and (God forbid) having sex outside of marriage but I wonder if these “Christians” ever reflect on what “Jesus” would do and think that maybe making judgements of others is something that “Jesus” would never do. Perhaps we’d all get along a little better if they really did do what “Jesus” would do.

On a lighter note how about forgetting the whole “Jesus” thing and picking someone with a “J” name and wandering what they might do. Here’s Joe:

he’s not too fussy.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell0.htm

“As long as there’s a sunset there will always be a West”

Last weekend across the United States was Labor Day weekend. The last weekend of the summer with an extra-day tacked on for good measure (much like our August Bank-Holiday Weekend but with a catchier name). For students in Norman this wasn’t the last weekend of the summer, the autumn semester has already begun and Saturday marked the first football (read "American football") game of the season. It seems that this alone isn’t enough excitement for Oklahoma residents and as Labour Day weekend is a time which many put aside to spend enjoying family activities Saturday was a natural time for Oklahoma State Prisons to hold their annual inmate rodeo. So it was that I would be enjoying a double dose of American Culture, a morning experiencing the joys of Game Day in a university town with a top team in College Football and an evening in Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester sitting on a concrete bench enjoying "the biggest behind-walls rodeo in America".

Firstly you have to understand that College Football is taken very seriously in The States and that OU’s team, the Sooners, is one of the top teams in the country. Any game day is huge in a town like Norman which is built around its university and the first game of the season is more than good reason to celebrate, even for those without tickets. I had heard tell of tailgate parties before but prior to Saturday I hadn’t fully comprehended what a tailgate party is. Imagine a city of trucks and those cheap plastic gazebos and folding chairs with drinks holders which have become so popular at British music festivals. Add copious amounts of beer, often a TV (some even with satellite receivers), barbeques (especially the kind with huge gas canisters that you never thought particularly portable – unless of course like most of the people here you have a GIANT TRUCK). In short, it feels like a 3 hour long festival with fewer drugs, far more pep, several generations and with everyone wearing the same colours. So, I began to wonder: why is it that pre-match American style is so much more pleasant than pre-match British-style? I can’t even begin to imagine walking around a football stadium in Britain just for the experience. I doubt there’d be as much good feeling and there’d probably be a lot more swearing and vomit. Perhaps the marching band, with its herds of trombones and flutes, its twirler and drum major, adds to the familial feel of the occasion? After all a marching band gives the geeks something to do and this particular marching band is known as "The Pride of Oklahoma". You see they’re not just the pre-match and half-time entertainment but "The Pride" no less. Geek and jock, side-by-side, taking part in the Game Day phenomenon. It could of course be the weakness of the beer. In Oklahoma beer that is sold anywhere but a liquor store (read "off-license" but harder to find) can only have a maximum 3.2% alcohol content, there is stigma attached to going into a liquor store (blame the Christians) hence most beer drunk in OK is weak "light" beer that tastes of nothing and you have to drink gallons of to be even a bit tipsy. It would certainly explain the lack of vomit, violence and foul-language.

As I think more about how unpleasant it would be on a game day in the area around a British stadium and try come up with reasons for the huge differences I hear the pre-match prayer echoing from behind the stadium walls. At this point I begin wonder if the predominance of Christianity amongst the game’s participants and supporters could account for the difference in atmosphere. Despite the general feeling of inclusiveness you might get by seeing all these people, all these generations, could it be that there is more than just a love of football linking all these people? Perhaps that everyone shares more or less the same "family values" (whether or not they actually live them) explains how they all manage to get along? Who knows? But there must be a reason right? Perhaps if back home our sport-watching communities all looked down on drinkers of anything other than light beer and all shared the same beliefs we too could have peaceful match days? It seems a lot to give up.
Surely though there are things from the All-American way enjoying sport that we could include without having to include a pre-match prayer and watching a flag go around the pitch. It would certainly be nice to see more families, all ages and both sexes at matches, why shouldn’t geeks get a part to play in otherwise sporting events? A little national pride mightn’t hurt us and finally a bit more pep wouldn’t be such a bad thing especially if it involves pom-poms and cute girls in short skirts.

The Pride of Oklahoma

After a morning at the university watching marching bands and people cheerfully wearing crimson and cream and drinking weak beer an evening of less pep and more danger sounded like a nice change to me. So we set off east a couple of hours to McAlester to the prison rodeo. An inmate rodeo seemed like a rather odd idea to me and it was no less odd in practice. To illustrate the mind-set of many of the attendees of the rodeo here are two of the slogans on bumper-stickers on one of many trucks (they like their large vehicles here) in the car park: "Bowhunting: No Guts, No Glory" and "I love animals, they’re delicious". Rodeo is entertainment western style and all the "cowboys", their large trucks, their families and their mullets come out to play. The arena is concrete with concrete bench-style seating painted bright blue and with lines dividing up the seats, lines which really don’t allow quite enough room for many of the crowd, whose bottoms spill over into neighbouring seats. One such spectator is the woman with the oxygen tank a couple of rows in front of us who between herself and the three other members of her party take up not four but seven "seats". This is America and bigger is better and more is best. This is perhaps no better demonstrated than by funnel cake; I see many people eating a foodstuff that I haven’t encountered before and I ask Amanda what it is. I’m informed that this is funnel cake and the amounts I see some people consume convince me that it must be good and so I persuade her to share one with me. We have perhaps four bites each before giving up, full and slightly nauseous from the experience. Meanwhile I see people around us going back and forth for more and more. I’d wonder where they put it if I couldn’t see where.
When the entertainment begins a voice over the loudspeaker informs un that we are going to be treated to a demonstration by The Glory Riders a "white horse ministry" and who are going to do a trick-riding version of the second coming of Christ. Every moment here it dawns on me more and more quite how all-pervasive this Christianity is - even a rodeo is another opportunity for the churches to compete for more fodder. A girl standing on top of an (actually off-) white horse dressed as an angel enters the arena, a second follows her and then following them rides a third person flying a flag saying "Christ is coming". The three ride around for a bit and when they leave in comes what I can only presume is "Christ" a portly man all in white (including cowboy hat) and brandishing a sword (I suspect he’s the minister of this so-called-ministry). Then comes the rest of the flock, flying flags with various names for Jesus on them they do a few tricks generally with "Christ" at the centre of it all, there’s some bowing, some walking backwards, the usual stuff. When it all comes to an end and I think this silliness is over and we can get on with some rodeo fun out comes "Old Glory" (the American flag) and is strutted around and given just as much reverence as "Christ" was. Next comes my favourite bit, a nice little speech by commentary man about how "this melting pot of ours" isn’t working and how maybe we should all just be a bit more Christian. What I like best is that it doesn’t strike them that maybe the melting pot would work a little better if they stopped trying to make everyone a little more Christian. Somehow I sense that there’s not much use pointing this out. Now I had just the National Anthem to get through and then the rodeo could begin, if only I could have completely forgotten the intolerance of it all I might have enjoyed the "bulls and blood"…"dust and mud" of the rodeo even more!

Inmate Rodeo

Team USA

Oklhoma, land of the very flat. "Native America" according to the license plates, though it seems to have escaped the licensing authorities that most Native Americans were chased out long ago. Home of the Boomers – capitalist profiteers from the oil boom - and the Sooners – cheats who snuck in before the allotted time of the land run, claiming land when really they shouldn’t have. What’s more: not only is this their home, but they’re celebrated – Everywhere! "The Sooners" is the name of the University of Oklahoma football team, based here in Norman. College football is huge in Norman and it’s almost impossible to go anywhere without an OU banner, a Sooners bumper sticker or license plate holder, not to mention that whatever shop you’re in will have a corner or an aisle of the shop dedicated to selling Sooners merchandise and that’s both in and out of season! It seems strange to me to name your team after a bunch of cheats but I’m sure that’s not the only thing I’ll find strange about Competing America.
This is Bible-belt country and not just the leather. This is the metal, the buckle. Churches line up along main roads competing for business. The buildings themselves could often easily be mistaken for warehouses if it weren’t for the occasional perfunctory steeple added, as if an afterthought, to the roof or for the billboards outside offering salvation. This isn’t the only way the various churches compete, last week I picked up a copy of the local classifieds only to find a Gospel supplement tucked inside. There’s a general religious fervour here which seems to go hand in hand with patriotism. Unless you’re a God-fearing Christian with Christian family values how could you possibly love America?! Again, within the pages of the classifieds, hidden amongst the ads are patriotic and religious exclamations. The US is the best and knows the best. (see "From Pastor Bob" excerpt from aforementioned Norman Classifieds Gospel supplement)
Last Saturday the Olympics finally came to a close. The opening ceremony was a spectacle to behold, not only because of the wonderful job done by the Greeks to remind us of the history of the Olympics and the celebration of the Olympics returning to its home after so long, but because of the spectacularly jingoistic commentary provided us by the American commentators. I would think it could be taken for granted that every country will have its own interpretation of events like this, especially one that pits them all against one another. Moreover that it’s even the job of the commentators to "big up" the national team a bit. But NBC’s commentators Katie Couric (America’s Lorraine Kelly) and Bob Costas (the USA’s youthful and tooth-perfect Des Lynam) really had me gagging. Apparently what makes the American Olympic team so great is the combination of the "Midwestern balance of power and grace" and the "Californian beach dynasty". I’m not entirely sure what happened to the rest of the country. In-line with the media’s policy of terrifying the nation into a complete state of panic, an entire between-ads-section was devoted to talking about security at the games. We were told that The Games, in a world where "terrorism [is] a constant threat" provides "a convenient intersection in a tough neighbourhood". Goodness! Even I was frightened! It all just made me very thankful for all the extra security than they assured us of in the next segment: the cost being five times more than at the Sydney Games, and twenty-five times more than that at Atlanta in 1996. With this kind of manipulative media it’s no wonder that many Americans are looking to lumbering brutes like George W. Bush wading in with his tough words and action. There’s a man really doing something about the many "tough neighbourhoods" and "convenient intersections" occurring all over the place all of the time! There was something else that bothered me about this American opening ceremony coverage though and it didn’t take me long to be bothered…about 3 minutes at a guess…the ridiculous number of commercial breaks. The show was just off to a start, the presenters had just introduced themselves and *BAM* it’s time to be sold to! Back again to some more smug commentary and just a smidgen of pageantry before it’s time for another break… This pattern continued throughout the whole show and although it wasn’t being shown live anyway, so it didn’t really matter it just made me wonder: Is America a country of tiny bladders? Perhaps they all suffer from attention deficit disorder? Maybe it was particularly bad form of hypoglycaemia causing them to all need to eat something every few minutes? I wish one of these were the reason, but ultimately it’s all about money. Even The Olympics, which is supposed to be about nations coming together, becomes a celebration of capitalism on America’s TV screens. Competition within The Competition!
So far I’m noticing a dichotomy in Competing America. Competition seems to be both incredibly important but at the same time they give the impression of being utterly convinced that they are the best. Perhaps it’s a sign of some deep-seated insecurity or perhaps just an astoundingly arrogant and wrong-headed need to prove it to everyone else. Perhaps as I delve deeper into Middle America I’ll discover which.

Excerpt from the gospel supplement of the Norman Classifieds

From Pastor Bob

East Carondelet, IL
Is It A MYSTERY ? ?
Everyone seems to be wondering why Muslim terrorists are so quick to commit suicide.
Let’s see now:
No Jesus, No Wal-mart, No television, No cheerleaders, No baseball, No football, No basketball, No hockey, No golf, No tailgate parties.
No Home Depot.
No Pork BBQ, No hot dogs, No burgers, No lobster, No shellfish, or even frozen fish sticks, No gumbo, No jambalaya.
More than one wife.
Rags for clothes and towels for hats. Constant wailing from the guy in the tower.
No chocolate chip cookies.
No Christmas.
You can’t shave. Your wives can’t shave. You can’t shower to wash off the smell of donkey cooked over burning camel dung. The women have to wear baggy dresses and veils at all times.
Your bride is picked by someone else. She smells like a donkey, but your donkey has a better disposition.
Then they tell you that when you die it all gets better!
I mean, really, "IS THERE A MYSTERY HERE" ??