It was a clear, early autumn day. The air was brisk and the mood elative. It struck me as quite serene as I approached Beaver Stadium. I was heading to the Penn State/Michigan game last Saturday and an interesting thought passed through my head:
Here, in the middle of what is likely to be a battleground state in this election, there were all walks of life. From the wealthy business man with his very large custom RV with satellite TV to the average guy sitting on the trunk of his car with a six pack of Milwaukee's Best.
If you surveyed the crowd my guess would be that it would be nearly evenly split between D's and R's. The votes would likely also be relatively split between Obama and McCain. But here, in this place, on this day there was a brief and welcomed reprieve. Here there were no canvassers at the door, no robocalls on the phone and no pollsters taking your pulse on the election.
It was a refreshing reminder that we have more in common than we have differences. Here it didn't matter who you would vote for only that you bleed blue. Two moments in the game were particularly inspiring to me. First, no where else in the country have I been to a sporting event where EVERYONE sings the national anthem. But here, in Beaver Stadium in State College, PA we all sing. It is downright awesome to hear 110,017 people singing. In that moment we share the spirit of our country. Second, near the end of the game, they brought onto the field the two Air Force pilots that flew jets over the stadium after the anthem. The entire crowd provided a long and loud round of applause for our fine young men.
Again, everyone sang and everyone applauded. There is no fake america and no real america. We are all Americans and we can all agree on far more than we disagree. Maybe more of our political spirit needs to be grounded in college football.
After all was said and done, it was a tough game. Penn state was a bit slow off the block but we put it together in the end.