THE DAY I DANCED WITH YALE

By Christopher C. Wuensch

12.07.09

Bluffton Today

Our paths intersected just outside an Atlanta airport restroom in an awkward ballet, the kind created when two converging people can’t pick a direction in which to pass the other person.

Together, we toggled an unsolicited dance for what felt like an infinite perpetuity — I in my University of Arizona recreation cen- ter T-shirt and he, clad in Yale Medicine sweats — like two North Pole-facing magnets refusing to touch.

Apparently, schools in Tucson and New Haven don’t offer Common Sense 101 to neither Wildcats nor to Elis. We two boogying strangers, the whiny dancers, were among the 41 million Americans traveling this Thanksgiving weekend.

Spend a full day traversing escalators in Phoenix’ Sky Harbor and subway cars in Atlanta and many things become evident. Among them is the notion that we no longer travel like we used to. The days of crisscrossing the country in suits and fedoras have gone extinct with train travel. No longer do we ride with class. Instead, these days we travel by showing where we went to class.

All you need is a less than an hour layover and a stationary spot and the sea of travelers dressed in college apparel will ebb and flow from gate and fro like so many Crimson and other colored tides. In 30 minutes on Dec. 1 at the airport, college-clad travelers pledging various allegiances filtered past me at arate of one new school per minute. They ranged from powerhouses such as the University of Texas to the more non-descript campuses of Loyola Marymount; from the Pac-10 to SWAC.

What better place to study the collegiate melting pot that is the United States than standing outside of Terminal A’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs with a basket full of cheese fries? In short, we’re a nation that is proud of our colleges and whose fandom holds no bounds. Our motto is: If I have to wedge myself and my XXXL University of Michigan T-shirt-wearing body into a middle seat next to you like a canned fish, then you’re going to know that I bleed Maize and Blue. This winter, up to 70 college teams will travel to bowl games. When it comes to trekking the friendly skies, their fans are way ahead of them. According to a 2004 New York Times article, most of the major NCAA Division Iuniversities sell anywhere between $6 million to $7 million in apparel — each. The bookstores at Clemson and the University of South Carolina declined to answer questions on Saturday, even refusing to identify their top-selling items. Eventually, fighting through the bureaucratic garnet (and black) tape became too cumbersome.

When it comes to donning apparel, NCAA teams far outweigh the professional ranks.

The most visible pro team represented in the Atlanta airport wasthe NewYorkYankeesand, oddly enough, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Apparently, fans are either enthused by a team leading the NFL’s South Division or there’s a new generation being inspired by Somali pirates.

For those who didn’t have their gear, there were mounds of Georgia Tech shirts and hats in all of the gift shops. Air Force, Army and Navy were all represented in Atlanta, but the big three were trumped by most major Division Ischools and those wearing sweatshirts emblazed with Old Navy (must be some seafaring graduate university).

The real question is whether these people actually attended the schools on their chests and heads or are they only fans? Are we as a collective whole simply a nation of front-runners? Why aren’t the small schools represented? Are we embarrassed that we were once Ramapo College Roadrunners or Canisius Golden Griffins or Scottsdale Community College Artichokes? The first true small school I encountered on my trip didn’t come until I was exiting the Savannah airport. A guy wearing an Armstrong Atlantic University T-shirt breezed by me. Thankfully the door was wide enough for both of us, which is good. Istill had on my Arizona shirt, but my dancing shoes had long been packed away.