There is an adage: “Want to make God laugh? Tell her your plans.” It was supposed to be a Saturday filled with SEC football excitement. After an early morning drive from Fayetteville to Knoxville, Owen (my 13 year old) and I were to share his first college football experience with his older sister, Katie (a sophomore at UT). I looked forward to my first encounter with a Neyland Stadium crowd of 107,000+ screaming fans, even if most of them would be cheering for the wrong team. Did I mention that this was the weekend of the UT-Georgia game? For most of the nearly-four hour drive, Owen and I talked football non-stop and reviewed the SEC preview section of the football magazine we purchased a few months earlier.

The prospect of Owen and I attending his first college football game together, and doing it with Katie, took me back to my first college football game (as a fan). In the mid-1970's, my best friend and I went to a season finale Georgia VS Georgia Tech game. He was a Tech fan; I was born and bred a Bulldog. I don’t remember who won that day, but I’ll never forget the fun we had, eating our pre-game meal at The Varsity, and soaking up the college gridiron ambiance.

But this day in Knoxville must have been one of God’s humorous days. By mid-week, when extra tickets in the student section would have gone on sale, there were none available. All Katie could manage was to get two student tickets, which required student ID’s to get in. Still, we were optimistic. We had heard stories about the regular availability of tickets from scalpers, and since we were willing to wait until near game-time, we were confident that we could find three tickets together for a reasonable sum.

The three of us ate lunch together on the strip, and watched the massive crowd move up and down Cumberland Ave. like a giant amoeba. Three hours before game-time, tickets were selling for $240 each– about five times what we had hoped to spend. We waited for a couple of hours, then made our way to Philip Fulmer BLVD, to assess the ticket situation again. Up and down the boulevard we moved, from one spot to the next, taking turns holding up three fingers, and approaching people waving tickets. As game-time neared, we moved toward the stadium, hoping to find more reasonably priced tickets. Kickoff came and went; still no reasonable tickets. Forty-five minutes after the kickoff, the few tickets left were still selling for $100 each.

What was supposed to be a unique memory of shared football fanaticism turned into another repeat of the lesson: “You can’t always afford what you want.” Katie gave her two student-tickets to her boyfriend and his roommate. Owen, Katie, and I decided to watch the game on TV. I was disappointed, especially for Owen, and I knew that he and Katie were also. As we made our way back across campus, the crowd and the stadium din faded. We decided to go by a grocery store and buy some munchies, before heading over to Katie’s boyfriend’s apartment to watch the game.

I wanted to be angry about the turn of events, but a voice in my head said, “You spent four hours on the drive over, sharing your love for football with your son, four more hours walking, talking, and laughing with your son and daughter, and now you are going to spend another three hours with the two of them and a final four hours on the ride home with your son. This is a disappointment to you?” I could almost hear God laughing. The memories we built that day will not be about the inside of a college football stadium because we never saw it; but I hope and pray that my children will one day appreciate the experience we shared as much as I do.

© 2006 Todd Jenkins