Monday, October 17, 2011

On Wisconsin


Matt and I (Virginia) were emailing this morning about the state of Wisconsin sports (a coworker of mine would like Ron Roenicke driven out of Milwaukee, but that's another post). I mentioned that sadly, no one wanted to talk about Badger football this morning with me and deluged Matt with tales of my favorite Badger games. Matt said, ummm hey you know this blog I have? Go share with Badger nation.

Given that the BCS complaint line over rankings has already formed, let's do some reminiscing over my favorite Badger games as a student...
- The game where Bucky was arrested and taken out in handcuffs for crowd-surfing;
- The 2003 Wisconsin-Ohio State game (back when Maurice Clarett played for OSU, remember that?) when students rushed the field after UW beat the No. 3 ranked Buckeyes;
- And I have no idea during which of my undergrad years this happened... but someone in the student section smuggled in a blow-up doll and dressed it in clothes so it looked like a real person. The student section did the "pass it back, pass it back" and when the doll got to the last row, they threw it over the edge of the stadium. Security freaked out and thought it was a real person that got tossed over. I have matured since then... but to be young again.

Also, you may have heard about the UW Athletic Department asking students to end some of their chants... Couple thoughts: 1. Welcome to the Big Ten, Nebraska! 2. Did they seriously ask students to be "more creative"? Uhhhmmm... 3. Camp Randall wasn't named #2 in the top 5 most intimidating stadiums by ESPN because there's daisies along the sideline...

The New York Times did an awesome write-up of the history of "Jump Around." Read it! UW beat Purdue the day Jump Around was first played, wayyyyyy back in 1998. In 2003, while Camp Randall was under construction, Jump Around was not played due to concerns that those in the press box found the movement unsettling (teeheee... jokes about reporters here...) and a sure-fire tradition was cemented.