Thursday Night at Dürty Nelly's

It was make or break time. Moevao had just telegraphed a pass to Stanford safety Bo McNally who returned it for seven in the opposite direction. Them 36, Us 20. Dürty Nelly’s, the Charlottesville, Virginia bar where I was watching the game had never looked so depressing. Closing time was coming soon and the Dürty regulars were starting to pay their tabs (or argue for extensions) and stumble out.

But could I walk out on the Beavs? After all, I had lived through the 80s and early 90s of lousy Beaver football and considered myself part of a stubborn group of fans who never left games no matter the score. And I had already given up so much for this game. Never mind the fact that the first black major party nominee for president was accepting his nomination in Denver. It was the Beav’s season opener and I had my priorities straight.

Not that I didn’t know what would happen. Before the game I was having flashbacks to a Thursday night game against Boise State two years ago. Like last night, I invited a number of fellow anthropology graduate students out to watch that game at O’Neill’s, a no longer existent “Irish” bar frequented by UVA undergrads. After our quick 14-0 start I was receiving congratulations and a free round of drinks. Little did they know the history of OSU football. In fact, little did they know anything about college football.
[Sidenote: In the field of American anthropology, on the scale of 1 to 10 of American pop cultural awareness (1 being John McCain, 10 being Ryan Seacrest), it is the archaeologists who average a decent 7.4; the library-bound linguists bottoming out at -2.1 (these are the people who study conversations because they don’t know how to have them); and finally, the cultural anthropologists, who might be able to give you a vivid description of a circumcision ritual in Bongo-Bongo land but have never been to a church at home, around 3.2.]
The point being that in spite of the few archaeologists in attendance, no one could possibly estimate the pain of a Boise St. blowout of our beloved Beavs.

Tonight would be different I kept telling myself. After all, even the archaeologists didn’t show up. It was just BJ, a friend who grew up in Walla Walla (surely someone who can empathize the pain of Pacific Northwest ag-school football disasters) and his girlfriend Elizabeth with me to watch the game. The setting was right: Dürty Nelly’s (imagine Suds & Suds, but in a college town in Virginia with the seedy scale turned up fifteen degrees) instead of O’Neill’s where we had to compete with a Tri Delt sponsored 80s party that night.

Indeed tonight was different. We rallied to tie it up at halftime and even took the lead early in the second half. That’s when BJ and Elizabeth left me at 11:20 Dürty time (even a Coug can only do so much for a Beav) and the wheels started coming off the Lyle-express. I need not rehash it for you. A safety, two interceptions, and two touchdowns later there I was weighing my options to flee or endure more pain. It was past midnight, August 29th; I had just turned 30 years-old, and the table in front of me was celebrating someone’s 21st (never mind the fact that they thought OSU stood for Ohio State). Why not stay?

Just as the Beavs were looking to pull off the best late game comeback of this young 2008 college football season, Dean, Dürty’s one and only bartender, was closing up and asking us all to leave. Fortunately, I had just a five-minute walk home to follow the finish through Gamecast (don’t ask what happened to our cable) on espn.com. But as always happens when following play by play on-line, there’s a moment of immense confusion and then an eternity to wait for the next update. First I read “Moevao pass complete to Catchings for 15-yards, fumble in endzone.” And then nothing…

Until … I read “Final Score: Stanford 36 Oregon State 28.” WTF? At least Obama gave a rousing speech that even my Hillary-loving wife could appreciate. Hopefully some of his campaign magic will carry over to his brother-in-law come December. After all, as Beaver Believer Seth English-Young likes to remind me, “we’ve always been a basketball school.” Till next week in State College.