A Cure for 2020: Going up in Flames

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Two things brought me back to Orlando for the third time in the past year: the color pink, and the chance to see what’s been called “America’s Team” in person. On top of that, I got to try some off-brand KFC that punished my body the next day, so that’s exciting. As with my previous two trips to the area, I didn’t do a lot of sightseeing. Disney and theme parks aren’t my thing, even when there’s not a pandemic going on. Still, it’s hard to escape the tourist-dependent landscape of central Florida, even when you’re not here for touristy purposes. While college football bowl games are normally a massive haul for tourism, 2020 has taken its toll on all of that.

Unlike my previous bowl game in Montgomery, I couldn’t buy just a single ticket for the Cure Bowl. So I bought two tickets and made it into an overnight trip with my brother, Nick, since it’s become a tradition now that I go to at least one postseason bowl game with at least one family member. This is the first year since 2017 that one of those family members wasn’t my dad; but if you remember my Sugar Bowl experience last year, perhaps that’s for the best.

It’s also becoming a tradition that I have some issues with the ticket-buying process when I go to a bowl game in Orlando. I’ll summarize here: don’t buy tickets from TicketSmarter. Despite paying for tickets from them on December 21, the tickets never showed up. Only after I called them on Christmas Eve was I told that the seller had canceled the order because the tickets were no longer available (and I was left to wonder whether they would have even let me know this if I hadn’t called them first, since a cancellation email only appeared after I got off the phone with them). I’ve gotten my money back, but they have forever lost my business.

I did acquire tickets from another trusted seller, and they were pink! I was really excited about that. Seriously, did you not read the first sentence of this post? But to my extreme disappointment, there was no pink merch at the game or on their website. This is the Cure Bowl, which bills itself as an organization devoted to curing cancer; all of their communications and logos are heavily pinkified. So that was a bummer (although I guess I should be happy since my ticket purchase went toward cancer research?).

As with other bowl games, and football game in general this year, the fanfare was kept to a minimum. No tailgating, no fan fest, no parades, etc. So we got to our first stop—the New Texas Fried Chicken—a little after 5:00 PM. It’s literally one block away from the stadium, which is hard to miss from the restaurant’s parking lot. The NTFC had rave reviews online, and its short distance from the stadium helped make it the best option I could see. From the outside, it looked a little run down, but on the inside, it was a whole new world. The ambience was a little je ne sais quoi. It was quite a fusion of styles, which the menu reflected: everything was available, from the eponymous chicken to hot dogs, hamburgers, and nachos. Since the place billed itself as a chicken joint, I went for that. Their chicken strips were HUGE; I got a basket of three, and I could only eat one of them, so I gave Nick the other two. They actually had more flavor than I was expecting, though I’m not sure the flavor agreed with my digestive tract, based on evidence from the next day.

We finished that and hopped into the car for a drive up the block toward the stadium. I paid $20 to park—ouch—because that was the only option; Camping World Stadium isn’t exactly in an up-and-up part of town. It was getting cooler, so I put on my ski pants and hoodie over my other two layers before leaving the car. I had told Nick to be ready for it, but it turns out his idea of layering was not quite the same as mine. More on that later.

Oddly enough, the stadium was only being filled halfway, along with being socially distanced. Our parking lot was on the opposite side of the gates where fans could enter, so we followed a small herd over to that side. Once inside the stadium, we were pretty free to go wherever we wanted, until we got to the seating area. “Guards” were posted at the entrance to each section, and only people with tickets in those sections were permitted. Maybe that sounds obvious, but in most games I’ve attended, it hasn’t been so rigidly enforced. Our tickets were in the upper deck, so we sat and chatted about family stuff, since no one really ever tells me what’s going on with the extended family these days. All the while, the teams for Coastal Carolina University (in all black) and Liberty University (in all white—if that’s not a metaphor for something, I don’t know that is) were warming up below us.

I honestly don’t think Nick really ever checked to see who was playing in this football game before we left the house. All he cared was that it wasn’t going to be Ohio State. No worries there. But he especially had a fun time with figuring out what the mascot for Coastal Carolina was—it’s the Chanticleers, basically a rooster. Once he figured that out, he made the wry observation that they were the knockoff South Carolina Gamecocks, much like our New Texas Fried Chicken was a knockoff KFC. I suppose that’s true in some ways, but 2020 was much kinder to Coastal Carolina than to South Carolina.

Nick was definitely feeling the chill by the time the game kicked off at 7:30. So midway through the first quarter, he went to find a place with some warmth, which was probably only the bathrooms. While he was gone, 4 college guys showed up in our section, all wearing some piece of clothing with the Florida Gators logo on it. We both mused that they must’ve taken a wrong turn when going to their team’s bowl game. To top it all off, they were cheering against Coastal Carolina, so that was a double strike in my book.

Confession time: yes, one of the reasons I came to this game was because Coastal Carolina has had a storybook 2020 season, outperforming all expectations to go from last in their conference to not only winning that conference but also potentially vying for a coveted spot in a New Years’ Six bowl game while maintaining an unbeaten record. That’s pretty impressive in any year, for even more so in a plague year. Their final game of the season was canceled due to Covid issues, because 2020, which very likely held them back from a better bowl game. But they have been one of the great stories of college football in 2020, and I knew that I had to see them in person before the season ended. So yes, I was pulling for them to win for all those reasons. But I was also pulling against their opponent, the Flames of Liberty University.

To me, Liberty University represents everything that’s wrong with American Christianity. It is a private university founded around the same time that all those private schools started showing up in cities across the country: the 1960s and 1970s. What would make people want to create educational institutions to keep certain people out during this time when the laws were changing to make sure that the currently existing institutions couldn’tkeep anyone out? Hmmm? Liberty University is also associated with Jerry Fallwell, and if you have a good opinion of him or his son, then you and I probably have very different religious and political ideas. But I digress. To summarize: I was all about “America’s Team” and heavily interested in keeping the Christian nationalists from winning anything. Alas, those hopes were dashed.

And what about the game? It did not go so well for Coastal Carolina. Liberty jumped out with a 14-point lead in the first quarter and dared Coastal Carolina to catch up. It took nearly the whole game, but they did. Coastal inched their way back in, making it a score of 17-13 at halftime. In the second half, they started with interceptions for each team. Then each team scored a touchdown. So it looked like not much would actually change in terms of Coastal making it a close game. And for most of the game, Liberty had done basically what they wanted to do on offense; Coastal’s defense couldn’t stop Liberty’s quarterback, Malik Willis, whenever he decided to run. And on the opposite side, Coastal couldn’t establish a running game, having to rely on the pass to score any big plays. Liberty got a field goal to go up by 8 points with 5 minutes left in the game. In less than 2 minutes, Coastal’s offense found its mojo and then found the endzone. Then they went for 2 and got it, so it was a tie game with only a 3 minutes left. But Liberty’s offense did its thing again, getting big chunks of yardage and knocking on the door with about 1 minute in the game. They had made it down inside the 5-yard line, but they wanted to score without leaving any time for Coastal to try and score again. On one play, their player got to the 1-yard line and just stopped and veered sideways instead of trying to cross the goal line. It was bizarre to see. But their strategy backfired, because on the next play, their runner fumbled the ball and Coastal recovered it. The fans went wild. With 41 second left in regulation, Coastal was happy to run down the clock and force overtime.

But overtime was a huge disappointment. Liberty got the ball to start, and Coastal kept them from the endzone, so Liberty had to settle for a field goal to go up by 3. Then Liberty did the same thing to Coastal, except they also managed to block the kick on the attempted field goal. It shattered Coastal Carolina’s dream season; up until now, they had been undefeated. That 11-0 record became 11-1. FINAL SCORE: LIBERTY 37, COASTAL CAROLINA 34.

Nick was glad it was over, since he was about to freeze. It was only 40 degrees, mind you. So much for my advice about 3 layers before we left home. He completely disappeared during halftime, and I didn’t see him again until right after Liberty fumbled the ball in that final 4 minutes. I kept texting, and frankly I had resolved that I just wasn’t ever going to take another family member to a bowl game. Ever. But then he turned up, saying he had been talking to “some dude.” I was too tired to inquire further.

We collected our things and went back to the car, and it was another very quick exit. The total crowd size was under 4,500 people, for a stadium that holds 65,000.

I found out the next day that my next bowl game, the Music City Bowl, had been canceled due to Covid issues in the Missouri football program. That's not how I wanted my 2020 college football experience to end, but it's kinda perfect for 2020.

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