Commentary: BW3's steals wings from football Owls

By Yan Digilov     9/11/08 7:00pm

I wish I were surprised. I wish that on Saturday, Rice's improbable comeback, topped off with an incredible last-second interception from freshman cornerback Chris Jammer, was not the only unbelievable event of the night.In nearly any other city in the country the incident that I witnessed in a nearby sports bar would have been unthinkable, but in this city of millions, it pains me to say that I expect nothing more. From here on, I'll refer to it as the Rice Village Massacre.

On Saturday as the kickoff to the football game against Memphis drew near, my friends and I searched for a place to watch the barely televised game. We were faced with the following options: pay $15 to watch it on a low quality feed from a computer screen, scour the university for a dedicated fan who chose to forgo eating for a semester to pay for the correct CBS channel package or head over to Buffalo Wild Wings in the village and pray for a seat.

Around the time I saw on the internet that Rice had taken a 3-0 lead I found out that the club baseball team had gone to BW3 to watch the game, and since I have been working hard all summer to capture a spot at first base coach, I decided to tag along.

---

---

Though I arrived to find that Memphis had taken a 7-3 lead of its own, to my delight I saw a room full of Rice students, fans, and even non-traveling members of the team. It was the perfect atmosphere for watching college football, aside from the fact that we had to resort to sitting on baby stools instead of actual chairs.

Together, we all sat watching the struggling offense get off to a shaky start. Moans and expletives rang loud and clear throughout the establishment as Memphis made an interception near the end of the half, only to be followed by shouts of joy when Rice's Terrance Garmon responded with a pick of his own.

I spotted the first signs of trouble written on a soda machine, as I waited for my basket of cheesy potato wedges.

"At 9 p.m. we will be charging an extra 20 percent gratuity to all tables for the UFC pay-per-view," read the sign. "How could that be?" I thought to myself. "Surely, they are not going to ask a room full of Rice students to pay extra for a sporting event they had no intention of watching."

Poor, ignorant Yan. It would turn out to be much worse.

As I sat back down to engage in a heated debate about whether or not, hypothetically, it would be permissible to order chocolate cake at a sports bar while watching a football game, I found that a rowdier member of the club baseball team had changed the subject to how ridiculous it was that all the big screens were going to be switched to UFC fighting at 9 p.m.

At first, we fought it. "Rice, fight, never die!" screamed the crowd in an effort to make its presence known. "Blue, grey, in the sky!" Our cheers were going unnoticed, as the store manager insisted that no matter how loud we cheered, the screens were switching to UFC at 9 p.m.

At 8:55 tensions were high. Rebellion was stirring. The first plan circulating was to have all Rice fans stand up at 9 p.m. and walk out in silent protest. By 8:57, someone pointed out that this was exactly what B-Dubs was asking us to do. With no time to organize, the best we could do was boo on our way out the door.

Thanks to a Brown resident associate with a passion for TIVO, I was able to watch the phenomenal finish. If I had missed it, there would probably be round-the-clock protests being staged in the Village, but the problem here clearly runs deeper than missing the end of a spectacular game of football.

In Austin, College Station, Memphis, Tuscaloosa, Tulsa or even Dallas, no bar located half a mile away from the campus football stadium would dare turn off a big game as the third quarter got underway.

What does it mean that in the south, in Texas, in the middle of Rice Village, there isn't enough support for our Division 1 football team to leave a game on TV until the end of play?

Though I would fall short of removing blame from the shoulders of this particular BW3, it is clear that there is an underlying problem independent of the economics driving one sports bar.

The university does what it can to fix this problem. When 23,000 fans showed up to watch Rice beat SMU we saw the beginnings of these efforts, but selling tickets may not be enough to push the Rice University brand beyond the hedges.

The best solution I could think of is to go on a massive spray-painting campaign, tagging walls all over the city with "Rice, fight, never die." Others may wish to remain within the confines of the law, and that works too. The important part is that we, every now and then, walk off campus and let it be known that Houston, along with being many other things, can also be a college town.

For now, I can take solace in the fact that B-Dubs should feel silly for having missed the thrilling conclusion to the game, hoping that all who left the bar were able to find refuge elsewhere.

This week, I will be sure to plan ahead as Rice takes on Vanderbilt. If a group of Rice students could not keep the game on, we will see what an army can do, just in case Chuck Liddell gets up from the killer blow he took from Rashad Evans looking for a rematch.

Yan Digilov is a Brown Sophomore and a sports editor.

---