Sunday 12 April 2009

Why I hate (and love) Cherry and White Day



Our parking lot is No. 10, the green blotch circled in map and shown in photo below.

Photo, courtesy Owlsports.com



I have a love/hate relationship with Cherry and White Day.
It dates back to the Bruce Arians' days.
One year, the team looked particularly good in April and went out and laid a 4-7 egg a few months later.
It was then I decided I hated Cherry and White Day because, no matter how good the Cherry looked against the White or the White looked against the Cherry, the bigger picture was skewed.
A fellow reporter, it may have been Chuck Newman, it may have been Joe Juliano, I don't quite remember who, turned to me once and said:
"They always look good on Cherry and White Day."
There's about as much truth to that sentence as any single one ever composed.
Come to think of it, I don't remember ever leaving on a Cherry and White Day not impressed.
So, as a barometer of what might come in the fall, take it with a (very) large grain of salt.
Make that a boulder of salt.
That's pretty much why I hate Cherry and White Day.
Then there's the love part of the relationship.
I love getting together with Temple fans to discus the upcoming season.
I love meeting the parents of recruits and inviting them to our Parking Lot K tailgates, to become part of the Temple family as such.
I love the best day in the world in the best place in the world to do one-stop shopping for some inexpensive and quality Temple stuff, including game-worn jerseys.
I love the tailgating in April (hey, when can you get a chance to tailgate in April?) and I love getting together with all of the old tailgate friends.
I love the dedication of a guy like Ken Mayo, coolowl on the message boards, who holds a first-class tailgate and is inclusive of everyone in the lot.
Heck, I love being a Temple fan because there are no cliques.
We as a people (to borrow a Martin Luther King, Jr. phrase) are not large enough to have cliques.
One day, when all (or half) of the 260,000 living alumni and all (or half) of the 33,000 full-time students are clamoring to get into a sold out Lincoln Financial Field, I hope that part of being a Temple fan never changes.
Even though all of the lots will be filled with a sea of Cherry and White, everybody wearing a Temple T-shirt or sweatshirt or hat will be welcomed by every other Temple fan at whatever little or big satellite tailgate in the lot.
This Saturday, at 2 p.m. folks will be over at 11th and Norris Street to catch that rather skewed preview of the 2009 Owls.
By 11 a.m., most should be parked in Lot 10 (12th and Norris) to do some serious tailgating.
Nobody leaves until 1:55 when we all walk over to the $7 million Edberg-Olson Football Complex. Since it's a two-minute walk, we should be standing on the sidelines by 1:58, tops.
Bring brewskis and money.

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