August 20, 2004
On Football in the River City
Jax was awarded the nascent ACC Championship Game for its first two years, beginning next year when Miami and Boston College join the ACC. Yet another reason to love my adopted hometown. I'll always love Savannah as my place of birth and home for 35 of my, ah, advanced years, but this town kicks ass.
In the next 12 months we will have, from a football perspective: A Super Bowl. A full season of the Jaguars. My beloved Georgia-Florida game. The Gator Bowl (still scrapping to be included in the BCS; it may happen). The ACC championship game. This is a football town, Intrepids. I realize you know me as a Tour de France dillettante, and a cycling enthusiast, but I never said I don't like football. And as an aficianado of college ball this has to be Nirvana.
Now all we need is a major league baseball club. I'd settle for triple-A.
End of testorerone rant. Now I'm spent, and need some cuddling, like all men do after a hard five minutes of exertion.
P.S. I almost forgot: the Super Bowl teams this year need practice fields. One site will be the University of North Florida. The other site will be Bartram Trail High School, Velocidaughter One's school, a mile from my house. Why? 1) the school is only four years old, and has excellent facilities, including a state-of-the-art weight-training room. 2) we're in the country here, and the school is surrounded by woods. One way in, one way out. Security, in other words. No spying.
The beauty is the NFL came in this summer and replaced the turf with professional-grade sod. Their lawn experts will be on site all year, too, to baby it. The high school boys will have the best turf in the state to play on, free, and, ultimately, the stench of NFL players to scrub out of their locker room next summer.