("On Wisconsin" as performed by the University of Wisconsin Marching Band)
While this may be a strange thing to post in December when you might expect more things related to the Christmas season here, the topic happened to come up again today, so it is what it is.
For those of us who grew up in the U.S., college football has been a factor in the lives of most of us or our friends and relatives. Whether you went to a school with a successful team or not, if you live in the Midwest, for example, you cannot escape the coverage of Big 10 football. For many, college football is even more exciting than professional football, though of course college football then gives you some of your favorite players to follow in the pros. And then there are the school rivalries, the tailgating, the mascots, the marching bands, the traditions -- all of it creates a great sense of belonging and community. And we show our school spirit through the sweatshirts, of course, as well as all the other trappings available.
So one of the things I noticed early on over here was that people don't wear college sweatshirts. I thought it was just a different preference in fashion. But then I also noticed almost an entire absence of communication about where one went to university. And then I finally realized that Europe, or at least Germany, doesn't really "do" college athletics like we do in the U.S. I suddenly felt very sad for all of the college students.
But every once in a while, the topic surfaces. For example, a few weeks ago I was speaking on the phone with a student who is attending a certain other Big 10 school and who is interested in doing an internship with us in Germany. While not something I would normally cover in a sort of phone interview, I said, "There's something I need to get out of the way before we take this any further. I'm a Badger." Without missing a beat (and thus confirming that she has become quite Americanized), she responded, "We all make our mistakes." But we then went on to talk about the Badgers beating her university at football, and the recent heroic feats of Bucky Badger during their 83-20 victory over Indiana. One of the traditions at Wisconsin is that when the Badgers score, Bucky does one pushup for each point on the Badger scoreboard at that time. So, 7 points after the first touchdown, 10 points if there is a touchdown followed by a field goal, 17 if another touchdown is scored, etc. Now, it's not often that the score is quite so lopsided as 83-20 (though the score against Northwestern last weekend was 70-23) so that was an awful lot of pushups for poor Bucky. And again, consider that this guy is inside a heavy fur suit with a gigantic head while doing this. Well, it turns out that there are actually three individuals who perform as Bucky, but they must share two Bucky suits between them. So for the 83-20 game, each of them had to take their turns in the heavy, sweaty suit doing the pushups. Anyway, our HR representative was there as I went on at length about this and was looking at me like I was speaking an entirely different language, and not just because this was in English. She clearly also must have thought I was a bit "off" mentally, if she had not already suspected that. So the experience made me realize that I sure probably keep my mouth shut over here about Badgers.
So fast forward to today. I was thinking about the Badgers and went online to see if they had published on iTunes an electronic version of the cassette I had years ago called, "The Fifth Quarter" which was various fight songs, et cetera, of the Badgers as performed by the marching band. I didn't find that, but did find an album with most of the classics. Perfect. Downloaded and started getting all pumped up. I was speaking later with a Canadian and mentioned my success in finding the songs, and there was a long, long pause. "Um, didn't you already graduate? What is this, once a Badger, always a Badger?" Um, YEAH!!!! I was shocked. I mean, Canadians are almost like us, right? Or not.... It was a sad realization. But I am still playing the album over and over again.
