The Victors

My 12 yo son got his Anthony Carter moment. I was there in '79 when AC scored with time expiring (just about the same area in the endzone) and it's still one of the best sports experiences of my life, in large part because of how old I was at the time (9). I was super excited for my son - he went down on the field with his older cousins and really savored the moment.

About the rushing the field, I don't disagree in general that it's lame to do that against a team like Western but obviously it was a product of the very unique circumstances. On that day, our team seemed to be evenly matched if not outmatched by Western. And from the moment Western went ahead, I would guess most fans figured we were going to lose because we had shown absolutely no competence or confidence on offense (and now our defense was apparently tired and not as reliable). When they went up 5 points, I think it was a given to everyone in that stadium that we had no shot to actually drive the field and score a TD. And then to come back from the dead and be given another chance at a hail mary after Western had already rushed the field celebrating their victory - it was like a bad football movie trying to manufacture the most outlandishly unlikely scenario for the good guys to pull out a victory. So it was just a natural and almost involuntary release of emotion at having just witnessed a completely improbable victory that resulted in so many people going onto the field. Like, nothing like that is ever going to happen again. Coupled with the unspoken but understood reality that it could very well be the only thing we have to really celebrate this season with how inept we looked...

So being there witnessing it, I thought "I never would have guessed we would be storming the field after a win over Western Michigan" but I did not think "this is so lame, we are above this".