Tobacco Road, Game 2: Getting Demonic

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While I had considered making this weekend a triple header, we ultimately decided that we couldn't do both the Duke game in the afternoon and the Wake Forest game in the evening. We would have to leave early from the first or be late to the second. Since we had both been to games at Duke before (including one together), the one that needed our attention was the evening game at Wake Forest.

Despite being completely impromptu, this weekend’s sojourn to North Carolina was pretty easy to navigate. Having a friend who lives in the area certainly helped. Christopher and I have been friends since 2013, I believe. We were at UGA together, and now he’s in his final year at Duke Divinity School. I had visited him right at two years ago, but he has changed houses and housemates since that time. He’s also more knowledgeable about the Durham-Chapel Hill area these days. So when I left Raleigh on Friday morning, I gave myself over into his hands for the next 36 hours.

We didn’t go to a game at Duke or UNC, but we visited both campuses. Duke has a great campus, full of retro-looking buildings. I’m not sure how old many of them are, but they look like a neo-medievalist would imagine designing a campus. Maybe like Oxford or Cambridge. But the disrepair and ruins one might expect of medieval castles are missing. The grad school was on Fall Break this week, and undergrads will be on Fall Break next week. And in the overlapping weekend, it was also Homecoming at Duke. So we saw quite a few students hanging around, including their families.

We walked through the Duke Gardens (where Christopher works part time) and eventually to the library and then the bookstore. It was more of a meander, not really with a purpose. And I finally got to go inside the Duke Chapel, which is pretty spectacular. Last time, a wedding was going on, so I couldn’t go inside. This time, someone was practicing the organ, so I got to listen to the space filled with sound.

We also got to spend a few minutes just sitting on the steps to the Chapel, people watching. While there, a news helicopter or two appeared overhead, and it reminded us of the two police cars we had seen earlier as they sped through campus. Christopher had remarked at the time that he had never seen Durham police racing through campus before. It turns out that there was a shooting/car crash near the hospital near campus. We were safe, and so was everyone on campus. But it was a sobering glimpse into local life in Durham.

After that, we went for food at Heavenly Buffaloes in Chapel Hill. It was SO good. They specialize in wings (by the pound or half-pound) and waffle fries. The lemon pepper was phenomenal. And after we had refreshed ourselves, I asked if we could stop by UNC, since it was only two or three blocks away. We found a parking spot, after a while, and then walked around. There was the bookstore, which was fun for him since he was wearing a Duke shirt; then the Bell Tower, which is apparently a local landmark; and finally the football stadium, which was open and looked cool in the moonlight. No landmarks were defaced in our spontaneous tour.

And we ended the evening at a local coffee/tea shop, me writing my travel blog and reading for class; him reading for some papers he’s got due next week.

On Saturday, I was glad to have a travel companion to Wake Forest. The solo trip isn’t as much fun if you’re not part of the home team’s (or visiting team’s, for that matter) fan base. Wake Forest is inconveniently NOT in Wake Forest, NC. Nor is it in Wake County. No, it is in Winston-Salem, which is a little over an hour from Durham. The school moved there in 1956, before which time I assume it was actually in Wake Forest. And after we got some distressing news about the afternoon’s events in Athens, GA, we were glad to be on the road and not Between the Hedges.

As some of my readers will remember, I like to get a small bit of swag for the home team when I visit these games, but we found out that the campus bookstore was closing at 5 PM, their regular closing time and no extensions for game day. That was a bummer, since we wouldn’t get to campus until just after 5. So we found a Deacon Shop at the local mall, which was an adventure. I walked in with my UGA hat, and Christopher was wearing a Duke hat and UGA shirt, so the employees were quite confused as to the purpose of our visit. I found a cheap hoodie (which I was glad to have once the sun went down), and we were off.

Let’s just say that the geniuses who planned Saturday evening’s festivities in Winston-Salem should be tried as criminals. Not only was Wake Forest playing a football game as a ranked team for the first time in over a decade, but there was also a fair going on across the street (this appears to be typical) AND a Gospel Fest in the arena next to the fair. Parking was a nightmare. We must have spent over thirty minutes trying to go around a single block from the entrance of the stadium all the way around to the entrance to the arena. It didn’t help that EVERY SINGLE LOT had a sign out front saying “Lot Full.” And when we went down a side street, after seeing a handmade sign reading “Parking $10,” we began to pull in, only to be told by the ladies in their lawn chairs that the lot was full. So why didn’t they remove the signs? At any rate, we inched our way back to the main entrance to the arena, where they were still taking in cars for $20. Fine.

After a ten-minute walk, we were at the stadium. I could see a few tents set up before we got to the stadium, but not much. At the stadium itself, there were a few tents along the main walkway leading from the tunnel under the road up to the main gate. Still, I got the feeling that Wake Forest is not a big tailgating school.

I had expected to see more of a fanfare and hullabaloo, or some kind of excitement that the team was ranked for the first time in over a decade. If what I witnessed is indeed an increased energy level, then the normal intensity of game days must be rather paltry. The stadium, BB&T Stadium (horrid name), holds just over 31,000 people. It’s not all that big. But Wake is a private school, and their focus isn’t as much on athletics as other schools in the FBS.

Christopher picked up a black Wake Forest t-shirt just outside the stadium, so we were both official. The gates were easy to get through—no lines, no pat downs, etc. No big crowds thronging through the main concourse, either. The stadium has basically two sides of seating, and that’s it. One endzone has no seating at all, and it’s where the team locker rooms are located. The other endzone is the location of the main scoreboard, and it has a berm for people to sit on the grass. These are the cheapest tickets, and I saw lots of families there. Despite having such a small stadium (almost feeling like a high school), I still didn’t get the vibe that I got at Marshall, where it felt like the football was secondary to the socializing. Wake never felt like football was secondary to anything else.

We got souvenir sodas (only Pepsi products, yuck) and then walked around to our section. The berm endzone did give way to nice views of the stadium from inside. We saw quite a few food trucks along this part of the concourse, too. And we saw that there is no upper deck; the stadium is all the same level, just a single bowl. We were on the visiting side, and the sun was setting behind the home side. That side was much taller than ours, since the press boxes and all were towering above the stands. That also helps block the sun during the late afternoon, I imagine. Our game time was 7:30, and we arrived at the stadium around 6:00, so we never had to worry about sun problems. Our seats were about a quarter of the way up from the field, so we were pretty close. But none of the seats were too far from the field, honestly.

We were on the visitor’s side, which was the Lousiville Cardinals for this game. A couple of their fans were next to me and behind us, but the section never really filled up. Off to our left, close to the endzone, was a large contingent of fans in red. These people were obnoxious for most of the game (the ones near the endzone, not the ones near us).

Before the game, I went exploring. And it was a short exploration. I went toward the opposite endzone and was surprised to see a wall. The stadium didn’t connect on that end. But I did find two things that were interesting. First was a hydration trailer, with small paper cups and several water dispensers. The other thing was a food truck serving burgers. It had the longest line I had seen all day. So I decided that its popularity was worth checking out. Christopher and I both got their main burger, and it was filling. Good, too. But very heavy.

And finally, the game began. Wake Forest were 7-point favorites, but it certainly went against them from the start. They got the ball first and did nothing with it. Then after a couple of punts, Wake fumbled deep in their own territory for Louisville to score an easy touchdown. Wake punted again, followed by a Louisville drive for another touchdown. The visiting team was now up 14-0. Wake woke up and scored a touchdown on their next drive, only to give up a touchdown on the kickoff to Louisville. Then Wake did stupid stuff and Louisville got another good punt return to set up another touchdown early in the second quarter. Wake was now losing 28-7. Ouch. Then Wake really woke up and scored two more touchdowns to make it a seven-point game. A Louisville field goal and then an interception at the very end of the half capped off the half. Louisville was leading 31-21.

In the second half, Louisville scored a TD in the first minute to take a 17-point lead. The teams exchanged touchdowns again, and Wake got a field goal, and the third quarter ended with a score of 45-31, Louisville. This was already the highest-scoring game I have attended all season.

But then the fourth quarter happened, and we got our money’s worth. Sadly, a good number of the Wake fans had already left the stadium. It took five minutes for things to really get interesting. Louisville got another TD to go up by 21 (again), at which point half of the remaining Wake fans departed. And this is where the Louisville people became real a-holes. They were up 52-31 with ten minutes left in the game. They assumed they were walking out with the W. And they started taunting the Wake fans around them. That’s sooooo classy. But a couple of Wake fans around us were holding out hope: there were still ten minutes left, so anything could happen.

And then it did happen. Wake got a TD and tried to onside kick the ball. It failed, and Louisville got a field goal out of it. The score was now 55-38. Then Wake went into overdrive and scored a TD in a minute and a half; new score, 55-45. Then they went for the onside kick again, but this time they recovered it and got into the endzone in two plays. New score, 55-52. Christopher had gone to the bathroom before the first TD, thinking it was an opportune time since nothing would happen. When he showed up just after that second TD, I told him he needed to go back to the bathroom. And other fans politely asked if he could find his way back to the bathroom for the rest of the game, too. This was insane. I didn’t think that a thousand people spread out so thinly around the stadium could make so much noise, but this was the loudest the stadium had been for the entire game.

Wake went for the onside kick again, as expected. But this time, Louisville recovered it, whereupon their fans became even more friendly. With the short field, they got back into the endzone with two minutes remaining in the game. New score, 62-52. And when Wake got the ball back, it took just over a minute for them to score another TD. Where had this energy and drive been the whole game? New score, 62-59. And naturally, Wake went for the onside kick for a fourth consecutive time. Wake did recover the ball, but the refs on the field said it was Louisville. So when the play was reviewed, there was not enough evidence to overturn the call. This missed call ultimately handed Louisville the game. And their fans reacted with the class I had come to expect from them.

This was the most exciting game I’ve attended all season. It was also the longest game, at just under four hours long. I had expected to be heading out around 11 PM, but it was virtually 11:30. And we still had a 90-minute drive ahead of us. At least all the traffic from before the game was gone. We didn’t have to deal with any traffic to speak of. Still, I was a little sad that the home team didn’t prevail. Their dismal special teams, along with a couple of costly turnovers at crucial moments, cost them the game.

This marks only the second time in ten games where the home team has lost when I attended. So far, the only pattern I can detect is that both teams are private schools.

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