Show Us Your Life - School Spirit and Sporting Traditions

I think this is going to be a very interesting Show Us Your Life, since it's about our favorite sports teams, traditions, and anything else involving our school spirit - I'm interested to see what everyone says! It would seem obvious that William & Mary is my favorite, but that wouldn't be right. I'm sure it's obvious by now that I LOVE W&M and fully plan on Spencer continuing the legacy, but we're not the most athletic bunch. (Except this year, the Tribe is doing amazingly well!)


Don't get me wrong, when the Tribe plays, I'm always rootin' for them, but sports just wasn't our thing. We only had tailgates on select game days and they were very limited by the lack of available space. I didn't even go to one until two years after I graduated! How crazy!

Tribe Pride Hip Hop Style

So even though I have endless amounts of Tribe Pride, I'm really a UNC and ACC girl at heart- I've written about it before. That might seem strange too, seeing as I'm a born and bred Virginian, but it's not! My Papa was from that area and he was a huge Carolina fan as were his 11 brothers and sisters. Oh, maybe I should just preface that he was a GREAT basketball player. But in December of his senior year of high school the US officially entered WWII and he enlisted in the Navy- patriotism beat out basketball and college.


Okay, so back to UNC- my whole southern half of the family loves the Tarheels. It was a point of pride for my Papa that my mom (his only child) could always name the entire starting line up and second string every season. When I heard this I just HAD to beat my mom, so I went about memorizing every single player and their positions! My Papa laughed when I recited all of the stats to him, he thought his brothers would get a real kick out it - his only grandchild, a granddaughter, (my brother wasn't born then) knowing more about UNC basketball than all of their gazillion grandsons combined. I was a cheerleader for most of my life, cheering at varsity basketball games when I was a freshman and every other type of basketball game there was- up to 5 games a week sometimes! I learned more about "the game" in those years then you could imagine. Now I don't make myself memorize their stats, but I still always know the starting lineup and second string.


But for our family, it's not just UNC pride, it's also ACC loyalty that's important. Even though I can't stand Duke, I still root for them when they play a non-conference team. And if both teams playing aren't in the ACC, then Papa would say to support the team closest and most southern in geographical proximity, haha!



The only other "odd" caveat in our rules system is state versus private- and public schools trump private schools. Papa would say that's because the state schools represented "our people," and it was the "Yankee rich folk" who started private schools and now they were trying to do the same in the South! (Sorry to offend you Northerners! But my dad is from NJ AND went to private schools and my Papa Loved him- it's just how many people in the south tended to think back then) And while I don't exactly agree with how he arrived at his conclusion, I still agree with it, because I think private schools undermine state programs. But I'm just a fan of public education, so maybe that's clouding my opinion, haha.


So that's the heirarchy of how I go about basketball season. It's the same rules for football, but I just don't like that sport very much, so I don't have the same passion for it as I do basketball. And that's how my family does sports! Sometimes it can be hard to follow all the rules, especially when something crazy happens, like Boston College becoming part of the ACC, but I still did/do it. It's almost like a weird code/badge of honor- because above all else, we're "loyal people." (As my Papa would say!)

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I Have a Child. The Jig is Up.
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