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September 26, 2004
What happened to the halftime show?
Yesterday I did something I don't usually do, watch a football game on TV -- the USC/Stanford game from Palo Alto, CA. My family has been SC fans for years and I fondly recall attending many of the games at the LA Coliseum during my jr high/high school years. My parents had season tickets and there was a wonderful excitement that hit me as soon as we parked the car and starting walking up to the imposing structure. Go through the gate and first stop to buy hotdogs and sodas. After dressing the dogs in all manner of relish and ketchup and onions, head into the stadium itself. Go into the shadow of the soaring arched entrances, emerging into the light with the sight of thousands of seats spread out in front of you, the field below you.
There is nothing like actually attending a football game. TV can show the action up close, it can run an instant replay with analysts pointing out the fine points of the play. But it cannot capture the palatable emotions that move like waves through the crowd.
And TV does one more thing that diminishes this experience. TV takes away (at least for me) one of the more fun activities at a football game -- the halftime show.
I admit it, I was really annoyed, and it wasn't just because Stanford was whipping SC's ass the first half of the game. I wanted to watch the halftime show, not be shuffled away to sports announcers analyzing the first half or being told breathlessly about all the other games going on across the country. Why does halftime have to be some twenty-something minutes of broadcast station advertising?
Give me the band!
I love bands. I love fieldshows. I remember Stanford band from my youth sprinting onto the field in a moment of exuberant irreverence and capturing the rapt attention of the crowd.
My girls have all been band members. I've been a band mom for years. Considering that the high school football teams of their schools have never been powerhouses, I always looked at the game as the opening act for the band. Does anyone outside of band families know about Fieldshow Season? Whole days dedicated to competing bands?
At my girls' schools, the football team got the money, but the band brought back the trophies (and the parents fundraising to make up for the school's studied indifference).
Heather was drum major of both her middle school and high school band. This year Siobhan is a senior and she, too, is drum major. Fieldshow competition begins in October and I will be there, cheering her and her band on, not really missing the football game bracketing the show. This marks my last year of attending these competitions. Twelve years of high school band field shows.
I'm sorry that TV figures that superlative college bands are not something they should expose their audience to; however, it again demonstrates that regardless of the technical advantages TV can bring to the view of a game, it falls way short of capturing the full experience.
Posted by Darleen at September 26, 2004 08:23 AM