It’s a Saturday morning and something crisp and exciting is in the College Park air. You’re tired from the previous night’s adventures that took place only hours before. You ask yourself why you’d ever consider getting back on the social grind so soon. But then it hits you: it’s game day.
Maybe you went to football games at your high school or in your hometown community to support your best friends or significant other. Maybe you truly enjoy football for the sake of football, or maybe you can’t tell a pass interference from a touchdown. Whatever your take, there’s something important to remember about Terrapin football: it’s a whole different monster. Football at Maryland is not an event. It’s a mindset. Attending football games is declaring your love for your school; it’s the ultimate way to prove you are a Terp.
“I think it is so important [to go to games] because we are such a big school,” emphasizes Charli Brooks,, a UMD sophomore who dons face paint and homemade t-shirts to Terrapin football games. “Our football team is a place we can all find common ground no matter who we are, and be proud to be Maryland students.” Brooks believes, like so many others, that going to football games, even if you aren’t into the sport, is crucial. Plus, it’s simply a good time and fun to rep school spirit with friends.
For freshmen and transfers entering the school year for the first time, the craze that comes along with the college football season can be a shock. Many fans of the sport have followed only the NFL in the past, where the main objective of viewership is to watch football. Freshman Lily Gamse, a longtime Ravens supporter from Baltimore, found her first college football experience less of a game and more of a party. “Everyone was just so crazy,” she said of the season opener against the University of Miami. Gamse plans to continue attending games, hoping the adjustment will settle in as she learns more about the team and its fans.
So yes, college football is a great excuse for fraternities to throw day events and for students, parents and alumni to turn the trunks of their cars into social hubs and barbeque stations, but when it boils down to the fact of the matter, game day is still about the game. People line up for hours to cop priority seating, the stadium roars with the appropriate chants at the appropriate times, and the campus turns into a somber ghost town if- and may Testudo forbid it- there is a loss.
Junior Katie Molinski is admittedly not a football connoisseur. However, throughout her years of Terp-ism she’s attended games and got as riled up as the next person. “It makes us more school-spirited more than anything else,” she confesses. In other words, you don’t need to be the next Cris Collinsworth to have a blast cheering on your team. To newcomers to Byrd Stadium, Molinski speaks the following words of wisdom: “Go. Go to all the games that you can!”