30 Day Countdown- Day 13: What is Your Husky Football Superstition?

I guess Rally Beer is a thing. Who knew?

Long before there were eight million craft beers in every podunk town across the USA, sports fans have been nuts. We paint our chest, face, infants; whoever is either drunk enough to paint themselves, or too immobile to escape the face-paint applicator.

Why?

Face painters, body painters, etc, these are the extreme crazies. But most of us are lying if there isn’t some little ridiculous thing we do on gameday that in our irrational sports-nut minds helps the team win.

For me, it’s not a shirt, nor a hat, nor the beer I choose from the fridge (my choice is always “what’s coldest”). Nope, I might be even more crazy than the face painters or Chis Landon. I actually think that where I watch the game and how (or if) I’m standing or sitting has some bearing on what transpires during the game. Possibly the most absurd component to this “science” is the fluidity with which it can change during the season, or even over the course of a game.

Example (these events are real):

Last year for the Rutgers game, I started out as I always do: Sitting in front of my bigscreen in the #1 position (Dead center on the couch). I was getting pretty frustrated with how things were going, probably saying something like “We’re terrible, I don’t think we’ll win more than five games this season.” So I walk into my backyard to cool off, and peeking through the basement window I see Jake Browning hit Dante Pettis for a 50 yard gain inside the 10-yard line. OK, now were rolling. Lemme cool my jets, go back inside and watch the Dawgs roll this shitty team. Now from my couch I watch a run go nowhere and two incomplete passes. Vizcaino hits a short field goal. I’m not happy. I go back outside, Byron Murphy picks off a pass. Back inside, three plays, Huskies go backwards and punt. Pissed off, I watch the punt from outside, it’s downed at the one. Back on the couch to watch us get a safety, instead Rutgers drives it out beyond the 30-yard line, converting two 3rd downs. I’m furious; I can’t watch this shit (except I do, from the back yard). Rutgers can’t convert the next third down (due mostly to the “12th Man” hunched like a moron, battling reflection as he peeks through his basement window). It went on, and on. Pettis returns a punt for a TD, I’m outside. The entire 3rd quarter dominated by UW, outside. The game was settled. I come inside. Rutgers scores on a freak 4th down conversion where Keith Taylor trips. This is no longer superstition, this is frigging science.

I really, really wish I could say this is an isolated incident for me. It’s not. I’m nuts. And if I have to watch the Auburn game in the reflection of the microwave while wearing only one sock, I’ll do it. I’m that committed. Or perhaps I should be committed.

Either way, share your crazy.

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