xii · football
Another Saturday Dies in Ames, and the Enterprise Rental Car Still Smells of Old Onions
Refugees of the conference realignment wars gathered in central Iowa once more to watch young men slam into one another for the entertainment of a remote-controlled television executive in Bristol.
I have spent eighteen years watching the empire dissolve one Tuesday-night media rights agreement at a time, and yet nothing quite prepares the soul for the particular, damp melancholy of an afternoon in Ames. The humidity clings to the polyester blends of the visiting section like bad policy decisions, while overhead, a drone delivers warm Busch Light to a suite that costs more than my first two apartments combined. Down on the turf, the contest unfolded with the cold, predictable mechanics of a provincial siege, punctuated only by the stadium public address announcer informing us that personal belongings left in the third-row bleachers would be considered forfeit.
The officials maintained their usual stoic detachment from reality, speaking only when necessity demanded. Midway through the third quarter, a yellow handkerchief drifted lazily through the gray drizzle to land near the visitor bench. The referee adjusted his headset with the weary resignation of a man who knows his pension is tied to a collapsing currency. "Holding, offense, number seventy-four," he announced into the void, offering no theological defense of the penalty or meditation on the autumn foliage. The crowd booed out of civic obligation, though most appeared more concerned with whether their economy-class sedans would successfully navigate the mud-swamped gravel lots behind the agricultural pavilion.
By the final whistle, the scoreboard registered a number that will be immediately forgotten by anyone outside a twenty-mile radius of the campus library. The victors hoisted a piece of painted lumber that looked as though it had been salvaged from a collapsing Victorian porch, while the defeated trudged toward the locker rooms beneath banners promising unprecedented synergy through digital engagement. I retrieved my base-model Nissan from lot F-9, where an enterprising raccoon had successfully peeled back the rubber seal on the passenger door. Another Saturday in the confederation has concluded, and the fall of Rome, by comparison, felt remarkably well-organized.