I think I have frozen my ass off for the last time this year, though I don’t know about 2010. But I wasn’t as frozen since I took the precaution of wearing a pair of sweat pants under my jeans, though that made for some issues in the going to the bathroom department.
The UCSB soccer team managed to beat Wofford College one to nothing. It was a cleanly played game with very few fouls; people were not littering the field in various states of pain, as has previously been the case. And the referees called a good game. The first half was back and forth. UCSB played like it was in mud. But they came out in the second half attacking, took charge, and scored their single goal with about 10 minutes to go. That was a relief since I didn’t want to sit through an overtime.
Afterward we stayed to congratulate “the guys.” Their next game is this Sunday down at the University of San Diego, a Catholic school. The guys are a little beat up and have been struggling with the sniffles. They didn’t think they had played all that well. Though clearly victory is better than the defeat.
At the end the Wofford players were lying flat on their backs utterly depleted. They had come clear across the country from Spartanburg, SC, to Southern California to play their opponent on their opponent’s home field and the lost by 1 goal.
I spoke with a Wofford professor, I believe, who was accompanying the team. I am sorry I did not get his name. He was a little aggravated–I mean they had just lost–at the way UCSB students throw tortillas (like flaccid frisbees) onto the field after the team scores a goal. I don’t like it either. For one thing it’s a waste of good food. For another, I have seen players slip on those damn tortillas. The guy sitting behind me though in the stands said it was better than what students threw at Colorado. Marshmallows–that given the conditions–were frozen like rocks.
The Wofford professor immediately recognized my Honea Path sweat shirt, and said he knew where that was since he had gone to Erskine–which does not appear, on Google Maps–very far from Honea Path. He knew where Clinton was too. I said goodbye to him and wished them all a good trip home, trying in my own way to extend a little Southern Hospitality.