Confused Times

I attended the USC-Arkansas game at the LA Colisuem on Sat nite, the most serious college football I've witnessed. I grew up on Stanford, which is considerably less serious than USC, then attended a small liberal arts college, so I'm pretty devoid experientially from big time college football. There were parts I enjoyed, USC's offense, perhaps the best ever assembled in college football, the huge stadium, the great cheap seats for students. There were parts I disliked as well, the near stampede to get in and the Nuremburg rally-eque two fingered arm movement to support the trojans.

There was a moment before the game, while people were still in the crazy mood, cheering for the trojans (it was the first home game of the year), when the announcer started to make an annoucement about ROTC and supporting trojans who had participated in the war. The crowd cheered quietly, and hesitantly. I could almost feel the tension that someone may boo...no one did, but people weren't cheering loud either. It was a weird moment, as if people didn't know how to react or how they were supposed to react. We live in confusing times...