Growing up, I spent a lot of time playing and watching sports. It didn’t hurt that my father was a state champion wrestler and coached several sports, including football, baseball, and wrestling (and my junior high team). I spent my summers in Oregon playing Little League and, during the fall, I would sit up in the booth with my dad and all the other local high school football team coaches, who were drawing up plays. Although I never played football, of all the sports it was by far the most exciting to watch.

Having spent my formative years in and around Eugene, OR, my dad would often take me to football games at the University of Oregon. One of my earliest memories was at age seven, walking hand in hand with my dad across the UO campus to Autzen Stadium, winding our way through beautiful Alton Baker park along the Willamette River where Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, the co-founders of Nike, used to coach and run track for UO in the late 1950s (and later, Steve “Pre” Prefontaine who, in the early 1970s before his untimely death, held numerous American track records) to watch Air Force play UO. This was my first college football game and I was mesmerized by the thousands of people who were there, the marching band playing the school fight song, and the Air Force’s falcon mascot flying right by us in the stands during the halftime show. I loved every minute of it and was hooked for life.

I’ve been a college football fan ever since. While I will occasionally watch an NFL game on Sunday, it’s too refined for me; too polished. Nothing matches the intensity of the college game. You just can’t compete with the effort fans put into tailgating, the chanting of the team cheer by students, alumni, and other supporters (if you’ve ever been to Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium and heard “Rocky Top”, you know what I’m talking about) in a game replete with the brashness and mistakes of young athletes, the improbable comebacks, and the sound — the deafening sound of tens of thousands of people screaming for their team to score or defend the red zone. To me, there’s simply nothing like it.

I think that’s one of the reasons I stayed in college for as long as I did (a total of 13 years – geesh!). I love the university atmosphere, and part of that feeling for me is directly related to college football. As a professor here at N.C. State for almost nine years now, I still am an avid football fan and wait with eager anticipation for fall to begin. I don’t go to as many Wolfpack games as I’d like to, but I’m still supporting our team whether I’m there or watching it on TV. While the ACC is better known for its strong basketball tradition (I’m a season ticket holder), to me, football is the one universal tradition in college sports that can bring together the university community better than anything else.

While college football has seen its fair share of scandals over the years, and though some of my colleagues may feel that it can take away from the academic aspects of an institution, I know of no other element within an academic institution that brings together such a broad and diverse group of people focused on supporting a single event.

At the University of Oregon, where I ultimately ended up doing my Ph.D., I continued going to games on Saturday and now appreciate the recognition that a revived football program has brought to my alma mater. There’s no denying that sports can do that for a school. So, while I’m a staunch Oregon fan, I root for the Wolfpack, too, because to me it’s an important part of living in Raleigh and being here at NCSU. Go Ducks! Go Pack! And long live College Game Day!