How 'bout A Little Aggie Football - Spring Edition

As I have probably shared here in the past, it is my goal to get Benjamin into Kyle Field at every opportunity I can.  However, he is young and he doesn't understand football and his attention span is minimal so taking him to a regular game in the fall would just be a lose-lose (money/stress/distraction/etc) so I make it a point to get him up to as many scrimmages as I can. 

He attended his 5th Maroon & White game this weekend....and he's not even five years old yet.  You're probably looking for an Aggie math joke in there somewhere, but I promise that is correct due to his October birthday.

Anyways, I use these scrimmages as a gauge to see how close he is to being able to make it through a real game so I can finally take him to the real thing and blow his socks off.

We've always had a Maroon & White game, which is essentially a scrimmage that is open to the public to cap off the end of spring practices.  When Coach Sumlin took over the football program last year he added another event, which was called Friday Night Lights.  Same concept except it is on Friday night under the lights of Kyle Field which gives high school recruits another opportunity to get onto campus and build a little bit of buzz.

Last Friday night was Friday Night Lights so I invited Benjamin to join Sean and me.  I didn't push him on it at all but every day for about a week leading up to it I would mention it to him and just tell him that he is invited to come with us.  I wasn't completely sure how he was leaning until Thursday when I got a text message from GrandAggie asking if he could come and meet us.  That sealed the deal for Benjamin and then I was able to lay it on him pretty heavy about how awesome it would be and what all we would do - to help get him excited about the evening.

The big problem with FNL was that Benjamin's bedtime is 7pm and the scrimmage didn't even start until 8 - so he promised that he would take a nap during the day without a fuss, which he did.

We got up to College Station, ate, and headed to Kyle Field where we met GrandAggie.

Benjamin made it about 15 minutes before he started to lose interest in the football, got fidgety and wanted to tickled everyone.....in that order.

Thank God for the giant bucket of popcorn!

Then Benjamin wanted pictures with some of his favorite guys

With the aid of the popcorn and the thinning out of the crowd (to give him some additional room to explore) he made it through the end of the entire scrimmage at which point we took him down on the field.

We ran into Damontre Moore who was taking pictures with everyone but Benjamin didn't want to meet him so we moved on to more important things....like playing tag....

and smoking his Uncle in a 40 yard dash....

For whatever reason on the way out of the stadium he insisted on being photographed with this very specific fire hydrant.

We all had a blast and we were excited that GrandAggie was going to come back home with us so he could watch Benjamin's t-ball game on Saturday and spend the day with us.

THEN....

Yesterday was the annual Maroon & White game.  Benjamin wasn't quite as keen on going because it was just going to be Sean and myself with him this weekend but I got the vibe that Momma was hoping he would come with us so she could have a little relief so I pushed a little harder and pitched the idea of popcorn and promised that we could go down on the field afterwards if they would let us.

I was excited about the idea of him coming to this because there was a MUCH larger crowd expected to be on hand and this would be much more like an actual game day than any other time he had been to Kyle Field.

We treated it like a game day - decked the truck out with the Aggie flags and magnets, ate our traditional Wing's N More pre-game meal, and parked in our traditional Southgate parking area and hiked to Kyle Field.

On the way we swung into Aggieland Outfitters for a minute and Sean noticed a poster that said Johnny's Heisman Trophy would be on display to have photos taken with, so that immediately landed itself on our itinerary.

It turned out to be one of those "they take the picture and they let you pick the background and buy the image from them" type deals but the line was virtually non-existent and they weren't super strict about us standing behind them and snapping our own pictures.  We can do some photoshopping and make something awesome in the background.

The stadium was impressively full.  The entire first deck all the way around (including the temporary bleachers in the south end zone) were full, as was the second deck of the Zone, and the entire second deck of the Former Student side.  We were lucky to find three seats together at the faaaaaaaar south end of the second deck.  The announced attendance was 45,000 and that was fairly accurate. 

The football team treated the day as a regular game day as well, using their regular season entrance to the game, the War Hymn, the scoreboard and PA announcer, Yell Leaders, and the Fightin' Texas Aggie Band.

Benjamin attacked the popcorn and I think having it from the beginning of the scrimmage was helpful in keeping his attention longer.  He was able to identify Johnny on the field and I started asking him before each snap whether Johnny would throw it or hand it off - and then we'd watch the play unfold to see if he was right.  He lost interest and went back to the popcorn but we were able to pick it back up several times during the day.

He made it the entire two hours without giving us any problems.  We made one bathroom trip to which he was very vocal with his opinion of the grossness of the 60 year old bathrooms.  I was glad to able to tell him they would be getting replaced in the very near future when Kyle Field is rebuilt over the next couple of years.

As the clock ran down we made our way down the ramps and went behind the south bleachers so Benjamin could see the players as they exited the field and went into the locker room. 

He was in the front row and had his hand out to get high-fives from the players and all of a sudden Sabian Holmes stopped and handed him one of his gloves from the game!  I don't think Benjamin grasped how cool that was until a little later.  It was sheer luck that I was able to snap the picture at the exact time I did.

On our way back to the truck Benjamin requested a piggy back ride so he got a free ride almost all the way back.....he is getting way too big for that.

Once we got home he was excited to tell Momma about his experience and when I tried to put him to bed he wanted to wear the glove to sleep but I was able to talk him out of it so he slept with it on his nightstand instead.

It was a wonderful time for all of us and I was glad to be able to share those two experiences with him.  I hope he looks back on these memories fondly, as I know I will.