As we passed groups of people walking down Kinsrow Avenue to the football game Saturday, my roommate and I noticed a group of guys walking down the street with open beers in hand.
“What are they thinking? 10 a.m. is way to early to be drinking,” my roommate said, astonished that anyone would actually have started drinking this early in the day.
I laughed at her bewilderment and reminded her how much of the student section is drunk by halftime. We laughed at memories of drunk students doing funny things last season as she dropped me off and went to work.
During the football game Saturday afternoon, my friend Karen and I sat in one of the front rows of the student section. Toward the end of the second quarter, four female students sat down behind us.
The worst part was that we could smell them before we saw them. It didn’t help matters that they left an empty bottle of whatever alcohol they had taken shots of before they found seats on the ground below our bench.
They were overly friendly to the extent of being annoying and by halftime the only things I could smell was their alcohol and the marijuana some guy across the aisle was smoking.
The group of four left shortly after halftime started, and the pot-smoker disappeared about the same time. For a while, we could breathe easy.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, two of the four females and two male friends returned to the seats behind Karen and I.
It appeared they had found some more alcohol while they were gone, because they came back smelling stronger than before. They were also quite a bit more belligerent than they had been during the first half.
In the eight football games I have attended during my two previous football seasons as an Oregon student, I was never once bothered by the drunk people. They keep to themselves and their drunk friends — I watch the game.
This line was crossed during the fourth quarter Saturday when, after one particularly pitiful down by the Ducks, I swore a bit and hung my head. I was tired of watching the downfall that was so obviously in the very near future.
One of the drunk females put her hand on my shoulder and told me not to be sad, the Ducks would be okay, and then turned back to her male friends who were talking loudly and quite disgustingly about the multiple females in their view.
I didn’t turn around and ask why she felt the need to tell me it would be okay. I just kind of half-smiled and exchanged looks with Karen.
Football games shouldn’t be remembered for the drunk, falling-over student section. Football games, from a fan viewpoint, are about cheering your team on with friends. Football games are where you can show your Duck spirit and Eugene pride, and scream as loudly as your heart desires.
The student section, or any part of the football stadium’s seating, is not the place to bring leftover jungle-juice or that fifth of vodka no one finished Friday night.
There are many students who have children and bring them to the games. They sit in the student section and the little ones learn how to differentiate the smell of beer from vodka by their 10th birthday. It is quite an example to set for them.
If drinks are necessary for watching the game, then why watch the game? There are students who would take a ticket if they could get one and watch the game — sober — instead of taking up a seat and polluting the fresh air the other fans need to breathe.