EPISODE 1: CLEVELAND ROCKS
One of my favorite pigskin traditions is the tailgate party. Big groups of revelers from all walks of life, some decorated, some more understated, all equally excited for the day’s festivities. It’s a lot like you get before a big concert. That’s not just grilled sausage and tap foam in the air. It’s anticipation. Those good times are only enhanced when you’re in a new environment that jives with your personal football DNA. I love to travel, and I love football. I’ll build road trips around a football game because it is a great way to get a feel for a place in a relatively short period of time. Some of these trips become epic, lifelong memory-makers.
December, 2005. My buddy Tim and I had been talking about this since we were 14 years old. Friends since the third grade, only as freshmen in high school did we discover that we were both Browns fans (a fairly unusual find among Huntington Beach, California youngsters in the 80’s). Now, some 15 years later, we were finally going to make it to Cleveland for a game. We made a joint decision to go to a game in December in the hopes of the worst weather possible (seriously). Aside from that, Tim left the gameday logistics to me, which anyone who knows me can tell you is a decision of questionable merit. Nevertheless, this time it worked out pretty well. I scored seats in the front row of the Dawg Pound, and the weather report in Cleveland was threatening to cooperate with a phenomenal blizzard. The picture we’d been painting for a decade and a half was materializing before our very eyes. As we drove to the airport, we were bro-hamming like Pistol and Jobin.
In retrospect, it is clear that we had forgotten a critical fact: we are Browns fans, and as such, bad things were sure to happen (even the most blindly optimistic among us have to acknowledge that a certain pattern has emerged here). Somehow, though, it didn’t matter to us that our red eye flight from LA to Cleveland left us both exhausted and wondering whether perhaps we had unknowingly crossed the “too old for this stuff” median somewhere over Nebraska. It didn’t matter that we enjoyed so much Cleveland night life that Friday evening that our planned day at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was cut down to a little more than one head-pounding, exit-eyeing hour. It didn’t matter that my alma mater, UCLA, got utterly demolished by Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush and the Trojans that day as Tim and I watched from the Winking Lizard in downtown Cleveland. (*OK. It might have mattered to Tim a little. He’s an SC guy.)
"The C was angry that day, my friends."
All these things should have prepared us for the result of that Sunday’s events. But gameday began in such promising fashion that the trip remains a total positive. We had breakfast way too early, found somewhere to get a pre-game 12 pack, and headed toward the stadium. Now, when I say headed, I mean it. We had to lean forward at near-horizontal angles just to keep from blowing away in the gale force winds. We both had numerous icy ground close calls- as we trekked toward the stadium we wondered whether ice skates might not be more effective. In short, despite our best intentions, we were ill-prepared. It was so cold and snowy that Tim and I were both forced to buy new gear from the vendors near the stadium that morning.
We wandered the parking lot outside the stadium, taking in the sights, sounds and smells. People tossing footballs around in a blizzard, cooking fantastic pre-game meals, shotgunning PBR’s in big circles…America. We noticed some funny trends, like the fact that Anti-Steeler gear was prominent even though the Jags were in town, or that people in the Midwest apparently really like that bean bag game I can’t call by its real name for fear of ending up in the wrong set of google search results. But some things are the same everywhere; everybody was having a good time.
Big ups to these guys for helping make my first trip to Cleveland a success.
Tim had a little less travel experience than I did, and wondered aloud what we were going to do for the next few hours since we didn’t know anybody or have a car from which to operate a home base of any kind. Looking at him with my “obviously, you’ve never slept on a bench in Italy” smirk, I walked over to one group and simply mentioned we were Browns fans in from out of town wondering what we ought to do after the game. Within seconds, we both had cold beers and fresh eats in our hands, and a place to hang until kickoff. Cleveland Browns fans are die-hard, and your credentials are instantly bolstered when you explain that you chose Cleveland in December for the climate. Instant pals are some of the best things about football. Sometimes they become actual friends, and sometimes they are destined to remain just “that dude with the sweet Clay Matthews jersey/snowsuit,” but all are integral to the fan experience.
Oh, right!! The game. I almost forgot. It was limb-numbingly cold all day long. We were seated next to the Frye Guys, before they became a network pre-game clip constant. At one point, we made the big screen (and a night later, Tim was in the Monday Night Football halftime montage, which is infinitely cooler than being on the big screen). The game was largely devoid of excitement aside from the high of Braylon Edwards scoring 2 impressive touchdowns, arriving with every ounce of promise we believed he had, and the low of it all ending just as quickly as it had begun, with Edwards laying in a heap along the sideline clutching his knee. The Browns pulled close, but David Garrard’s legs saved the Jags from the embarrassment of a late season loss in Cleveland. Final score: Jags 20, Browns 14.
If you’re really interested, the recap is HERE. But really, I’ll tell these stories occasionally because it helps me dispute, in a roundabout, totally self-aggrandizing, unnecessarily verbose manner, the assertion that football is just a game about which we should not care as much as we do. On the contrary. Football is for those who love life, and also a means to the expression of that love. Happy Football Day, everybody.
Absolutely phenomenally written, and an absolutely phenomenal story – especially since I grew up in Cincinnati hating the Browns and Steelers. Also, the weather story makes it all that much better, as I went to the Freezer Bowl on January 9th, 1982 (albeit, I was a one pair of sock wearing, 10 year old who couldn’t even last until halftime due to the pain in my feet) Also, I lived in Southen California for 14 years and understand the nature of being ill-prepared for such weather despite having grown up in a cold-weather football city. You think I would have learned something from that day in 1982. Thank you for sharing this. It really was a great read.
Good read Burns….. That was an epic trip, and kudos to us for CHOOSING to see our first Browns game in Cleveland when there was a good chance of snow!! I have more pics of that trip for you to post…