I won't be at this Big Game and I haven't attended one in person since 2003. I have been living mostly on the East Coast since 2008, so I haven't been to many games in person. For many years I used to think that maybe I would try to attend the 125th Big Game so I could say I attended both the 100th and the 125th, but the combination of distance and waning fortunes of the football team was tough to overcome.
The 100th Big Game was my first. I was 12 at the time and it was my second season of following Stanford football closely. My father had been a fan since growing up in Palo Alto and he started taking me to games in 1996. The strong finish to the 1996 season capped by the route of Michigan State in the Sun Bowl got me hooked. I had high expectations going into the 1997 season and I remember the slogan the athletic department chose: "Hot schedule. Cool tradition. Rosy future." The 1997 season ended up being a disappointment and there was no bowl berth, much less a Rose Bowl berth, on the line going into the Big Game. Still, I was excited to witness my first Big Game in person.
My father's plan was to buy tickets from scalpers. We arrived at the stadium late because of a Caltrain delay and bought tickets from scalpers near the corner of El Camino and Embarcadero. My dad did not have a seating chart, so we were unaware until we were in the stadium that we were in the middle of the Cal section. The Cal fans were not particularly happy about our presence and became less happy after Chris Draft tipped Justin Vedder's pass and Corey Hill intercepted it and returned it for a touchdown. The tension became even greater after Anthony Bookman's touchdown put Stanford up 13-0, we decided to leave the stadium and visit a coin shop Town & Country village before returning to the stadium at halftime. We watched the second half by watching the game along the walkway at the bottom of the stadium on the sunny side, successfully avoiding security. The views were horrible down there, but I can still remember my father lifting me in the air in triumph when Andrew Currie sacked Vedder to seal the game for Stanford. Security open the gates and we followed the students on the field and had a great view of the Cal students weighing down the fence, charging at the Stanford contingent, and then tearing down the goal posts in what might have been the moment that epitomized weeniedom.
It's safe to say the 125th Big Game won't be as memorable for me. I follow Stanford football and sports in general with much less passion than I did at the age of 12, but I'll at minimum follow game on the Yahoo! sports app and maybe I'll try to find a video stream. Like Stanford football itself, my fandom isn't what it used to be, but I'll always treasure the memories I have from that Saturday afternoon in November 1997.
Video highlights from 1997:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdQVdRbu-Y8
