Greetings all! Sorry this is so late...It took me some time to recover from the flag waving experience!!!
First, I want to thank FL Coug (and family), FloridaWSUFan, and Sconie Coug (Mrscougwill's friend) for all of the great work they did on set. While we didn't take too much guff from everyone, it did get "Florida" hot for the second half of the show, and waving those flags take energy!
I got up around 5am and picked up Sconie and we were off for the 3 hour drive. When we arrived on campus hopped up on frapuccinos, Florida met us as we were concluding our long walk to campus. His parking tip worked wonders though, as everything on campus was blocked off for the game.
We arrived on set and saw FL Coug and son, prepping the flags on the poles. I gotta say, very genius work on Whitey to extend it to about 20 feet with the extra pvc lying around on the ground.
We called the Missus at home who was watching the pre-show shots, and aligned Ol' Crimson in the center in the back.
We had a couple of landmarks, and we were starting to get inundated with the obligatory question of the day..."Are you guys the ones that do this every week?" Must have had that question about 50 times with no exaggeration. We started the explanation in the morning, but by the end of the show we just answered "yep, that's us, this is our life." LOL I told the story of Ol' Crimson lore as much as I could muster, but it was getting hot, ok???
By the time the show started, we had gone over and carved out a space for Ol' Whitey and battled with the crazy Dominos guys for space over Corso and Herbie's shoulders. Those guys were crack addicts that the local Domino's manager had hired to wave those things, so they weren't that smart, and didn't want to mess with the angry short man. (me) We made the occasional Noid joke, mixed in with some sarcasm; "How's the Domino's football team doing this year?" They were eventually asked to leave at 1 hour and 20 minutes into the show, as Florida noted, but proved to be our only real nemesis that day.
On our mini-breaks, we signed the flag. The black sharpie was nowhere to be found, so I searched the ground for discarded orphaned ones. I found a nice red one, but no black ones. I called Skier to get "official approval" to use the red one to sign the flag.
By halfway through the show, we were pros. With the missus saving our arms by phone, and calling the camera shots, we were able to wave when appropriate, and rest when they were in a clip or commercial! It was pretty funny, we'd yell "center shot!" and all the signs and flags would go up around us knowing that it was time, and then yell "commercial" and everyone would rest. I think we earned some street cred with the Gators around us for helping them out as well. We eventually filled a hole right on the fence as close as we could get with a pole.
We tried a couple of times to take the Bookie flag into the fray, with no real results. One guy started yelling at us asking "What the he*l is that thing?" And another Gator checked him quick, noting; "Those are the Washington State guys, LEAVE THEM ALONE. They are at every Gameday!" That was very funny as I struggled not to laugh out loud and look tough...
The LSU fans' vocabulary was very limited. I think they only knew their team name, and a couple of other words limited to female sanitary items, and the British term for cigarette. It was pretty ugly, and I mentally noted while our fans are far from perfect, they certainly had a long way to fall to reach the "cellar of DUMB" where the LSU fans had taken up camp. The only classless Gator move of the day was a chant reflecting that they had homes and the Tiger fans did not. That was not nice.
Some fans did a great job dressing up and getting into the spirit. I think the overall winner was Darth Gator, although he looks a little soft in the middle...Could be all those Krispy Kremes...
We waved and waved, and worked our tails off. All very business like actually. LOL. We rallied with FLCoug and family, gave back Ol' Crimson and Bookie, shook hands, and Florida drove us to our car. 3 hours later, and one heck of a headache, the job was done. I feel proud I could be part of such a tradition, and would rise to service again, given the chance. (By the looks of it, it might be in a couple of weeks...)
Thanks to all who make this happen, and I've never been prouder to be a Cougar. I hope to see you all for the bowl game (Vegas? You are so money!) and goodnight!
CougWill in FL
"How does the Washington State flag make it to the SEC championship game?" --- Kirk Herbstreit Gameday- 12/4/04
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