The significance of this number?
When talking with Larry Templeton for my Sunday piece on him, he informed me that he had seen 483 MSU football games in row.
The last game he missed was the 1963 Liberty Bowl in Philadelphia, Pa. We’ll give him a pass on that considering he was just a young whipper-snapper.
Any of you got a good streak going?
June 26, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Here’s 3 more numbers for you:
199 - 278 - 6
That’s the breakdown of wins, losses and ties seen by the departing juggernaut that is LT. There’s something strangely congruent about that.
June 26, 2008 at 5:19 pm
And where did you come up with figure? That’s nowhere close to being correct.
June 26, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Let him go. He’s on a roll.
June 26, 2008 at 9:06 pm
What’s the real number, GG?
June 26, 2008 at 9:34 pm
No idea, and not one I really care to figure out.
June 26, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I have been to 92 MSU football games in a row at present date. Last game I missed was the BYU game in Provo in 2000. Only missed three games in 1999, so I’m four games away from a 106-game streak.
The streak was in jeopardy last fall. I started the season with criteria that said for me to drive to South Carolina, MSU had to be 2-2 and not have looked like punks. We were 3-1, and I still thought the team had played not badly vs. LSU, with the obvious exception of the one QB that kept completing passes to Craig Steltz. So I got a ticket to SC and drove to Columbia. The streak is alive.
In doing this for now eight years, I’ve met a few other serious Road Dawgs, too. There’s a guy that posts on Gene’s board that I met several years ago at a road game that hadn’t missed one since the Tech-and-10 year, though he skipped the Fayetteville trip in 2003 to break the streak, and I’ve met one older couple that has been to every game since the late 70s/early 80s.
You meet the true fans at places like SC and Kentucky, where the traveling contingent can be pretty sparse. You meet players families and parents. You start seeing the same faces a lot. You point and snicker at the Henig entourage. Well, not anymore, I guess.
I have a story printed out from ESPN.com on my wall at work that’s an obituary for a Southern Cal fan that had attended 637 straight USC games up to the point of his death, and had a brother that had attended 798 straight USC games, before passing away AT the 1998 USC/UCLA game.
I doubt I’ll ever be able to keep it going anywhere near that long, but I dread the Saturday when I’m not where the Bulldogs are. I will no doubt be completely miserable that day. It’s a weird thing realizing you haven’t watched your own team on TV in eight years, and even weirder not being able to imagine how bad it would be to have to go back to doing that again.
So yeah, I haven’t been to as many as LT, but I’ve seen the whole SEC, seen both of Arkansas’ stadiums, seen Alabama and Auburn lose at home, heard the Cock crow and high-fived Smokey the mascot Dog. I’ve seen Memphis, Oregon, Tulane, Houston, West Virginia, and I’ve hoped my car would still be waiting for me outside Legion Field after a UAB game.
I curse odd-numbered years, where we travel to Kentucky, Auburn, Arkansas, and some other random Eastern Division school, and I bless even-numbered years, where I can make day trips to Alabama, LSU, and Ole Miss.
And I sure wish I had hopped a plane to Provo eight years ago.
Here’s to #93.
June 26, 2008 at 10:29 pm
schmuley’s close. It’s actually 197-290-6 in the record books. It’s 214-272-7 on the field, but that’s not counting the Bob Tyler forfeits and the Alabama “win” in 1993.
June 26, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Hmm, that adds up to 493. Sounds like LT needs to do a recount.