Spring Game

I was a little surprised to see that the Alabama Spring Game was on ESPN this past weekend. I shouldn't have been surprised. Spring Games are huge in some parts of the country. Alabama is certainly one of them. The defending National Champions are looking for their next title. Even if they were crappy, they would still draw a crowd. Alabama is far from crappy. And, they did have a crowd at that Spring Game. I remember real games in which Cal's 80,000-seat Memorial Stadium was a third full. Alabama's Spring Game had a bigger crowd. Amazing. The cool thing about places like Tuscaloosa, Columbus, Knoxville, Baton Rouge, and some others is the knowledge of the football fans. They love their football. They also know their football. I learned that when I was sitting among 100,000 football fans in Ann Arbor in the mid-90s for a Michigan-Penn St. game. It seemed that every one of those 100,000 actually knew what they were watching on the field. I especially enjoyed a conversation about a young Michigan cornerback that might see some playing time on offense in the coming years. That cornerback's name was Charles Woodson. He would see some time on offense and he would go on to win the Heisman Trophy for his versatility. I've sat in Memorial Stadium so many times thinking that I was surrounded by people startled from a nap, stunned to find that they are at a football game. Like Alabama, Cal's Spring Game brought a crowd. Unlike Tuscaloosa, it wouldn't take long to count the crowd in Berkeley.