It was a spectacle.
They arrived at my neighborhood tavern in huge, yellow-and-blue clumps and red-and-white clusters and remained many hours. The oppositional behavior they came to watch on TV seemed confined to about three hours, but the sound of full, then empty, beer kegs rolling down the alley behind my house lasted until sunrise. There were many of them.
It was only by reading the next day’s newspaper headline-“Carr’s crew steps on gas; Wolverines remain on high, lower boom; Michigan 27, Wisconsin 13”-did it emerge: This was not the decadence and debauchery of ancient Rome, with the gladiators wearing mouthpieces and the games on television. Rather, this was classic American pageantry: a Big Ten football game.
What kind of institutions elicit this kind of loyalty and devotion? How is this feverish passion inspired? It couldn’t be the matches themselves. With fans dispersed throughout the nation, far-from-home stadiums and tickets hard to come by for students, it’s not like devotees attend many games. And some ardent fans of the universities-they would never admit it publicly-detest sports. (OK, not many, but you know who you are.)
I looked for answers in one of the funniest novels of the last century-“Moo,” a romp through an imagined university, written by Jane Smiley, who taught at Iowa State at the time. “More than Seven Thousand New Customers Every August” is the title of one chapter.
In this witty novel of campus shenanigans, sports has only a supporting role. Universities are big, complicated places with distinct personalities that transcend athletics, and with this week’s issue of the Magazine, “Brains & Brawn,” we attempt to provide a snapshot of some key characteristics unique to each Big Ten-plus one-school. After all, these are vast and, except for Northwestern, public institutions, and our tax dollars support more than the coliseum clashes.
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etaylor@tribune.com
