A Baptism Into The Auburn Family Happened Before My Eyes This Weekend

I had the good fortune to take my 8 year old son (Christopher) to his first AU game this weekend.  I was nervous about his attention span and how he would do sitting in one spot for 4 plus hours.  He was born into an Auburn household although he does have his Grandpa that is a Bammer....red elephant Bammer at that, and he has my brother who is the most obnoxious Bammer that I have to associate with along with various other Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins that are all there to tempt him to the dark side.   With all of the temptations and whispering in his ear about 13 NC's from relatives and the usual pressure of being in the minority at school I have always wondered if he would choose to be a part of the AU family or if he would succumb to the peer pressure to go to the dark side.

This weekend I got my answer.....we sat in the middle of the north endzone 6 rows from the turf (which by the way were pretty damn good seats to my surprise).  We got to our seats alot earlier than I wanted but thats what he wanted to do after the Tigerwalk.....Daddy let's go get our seats.  So after a quick jaunt through Haley Center and a stop by the concession stand we took our seats a full hour and a half before kick off (and yes I would do it again if I am lucky enough to sit there again). We watched the LSU skill players stretch and warm up, we watched as both teams kickers practiced punting, kickoffs, and Placekicking.  We watched as both teams sent out their players in pads to begin to warm up with the LSU players warming up and running their sets at us.  Then we watched the Eagle Flight, the National anthem, and the Flyover.  My son's eye's were as big as saucers through it all......whenever he spotted Cam Newton he would get excited and point him out to me.  I would point out the players for LSU that we had to worry about on offense.....Jefferson, Lee, Ridley, Tolliver, Randle, Peterson, etc.....by kickoff I was wondering if he was going to enjoy the game or if he would get bored and wish he had brought his Nintendo DS.  I watched my son scream his head off as loud as he possibly could everytime LSU had the ball from the time they would huddle until the play was over never taking his eyes off of the field.  We only made one concession stand visit at halftime and he insisted he didn't have to go to the bathroom so I didn't make him (my only mistake as we had to make one with about 3 minutes left in the 3rd quarter.  He never complained he was enthralled by the game and by the crowd.....he never stopped yelling and at the end of the game he was yelling LSwho at the visiting tigers with the rest of the endzone......he wouldn't leave until the players left the field and we went straight to Toomers Corner where we met my wife and daughter with TP in hand.  My wife later told me that he had told her that we had to get to Toomers right after the game and when my wife said "yes we are going to roll Toomers if we win" to which he replied "no momma we are going to roll Toomers WHEN we win".   War Damn Eagle.