Feeling blue this year? depends on how you look at it

Boise State Wins Fiesta Bowl, and We All Celebrate

By Jennifer Gelband, 1-02-07

At midnight Monday morning, my sweetie gave me a kiss to excitedly ring in the New Year. About 45 minutes before midnight Tuesday, my sweetie again gave me a kiss to ring out the sensational Boise State Broncos’ football season.
What a year this is already turning out to be! On day one of 2007, the BSU Broncos bucked their way through a suspenseful Fiesta Game to win their very first Bowl Series Championship game in Glendale, Ariz.

Half the Boiseans I know had caravanned to AZ to watch the game or tailgate in the parking lot outside the dome. By television news accounts covering the New Years Eve festivities at the Fiesta Bowl, it would appear that almost everyone in Boise had made the trip south; there were hundreds of thousands of blue and orange revelers whooping and cheering and boozing around the Arizonian streets.

There were, of course, people still in Boise, but most everyone in town I know of was going to an art opening, which is kind of a different crowd than the football fans anyway.

But today was a different story. The art exhibit had already opened, people didn’t have to go to work and the only thing on television was football, football, football.

I nursed my New Years’ hangover and tried my best to coax in a very mild new year but eventually I got hungry. And since I was out of town until yesterday, I had nothing in the fridge. I knew I’d have to put on my orange pants (yes, I have a pair of orange pants but they are cool orange pants) and head to my friend’s football-watching party for the roast turkey he’d promised if we showed up to watch the Fiesta Bowl on his wide-screen flat-panel high-definition TV.

A football party is an event at which I am loosely out of my element – in part because I don’t understand all the nuances of the game’s rules and in part because I’m not particularly a BSU fan. I went to a different (yet strangely also blue and orange) school, I have no relatives that attended BSU and I find it aggravating having to drive in the vicinity of the campus – especially during sporting events.

I went to the party hoping for a bite to eat and not particularly concerned if BSU won – hey, they get a ton of money just for being invited to the game and that’s what’s ultimately the best thing about this for Boise, right?

But while watching the game with others, some BSU diehards and some fair-weather fans like myself, I kinda started getting into it. BSU scored a touchdown right away. And then another. And they were up the whole game. It was exciting to be rooting for the winning team.

The camera kept panning across the crowds of Boise fans and I looked for homeboys I knew were there. I didn’t see any familiar faces, but the crowds were excited and I almost wished to be there in Arizona as part of the live fun and energy.

Then all of a sudden, as the clocked ticked down the last quarter of the game, enemy team Oklahoma scored. The score was tied – until Oklahoma intercepted a pass and scored another touchdown with a minute to go.

People at the party were really, really upset, and mad even. And actually, I was pretty upset. Over the three hours I’d been watching, I had gotten used to the idea that Boise would win, that the team starters would be on the cover of the next Sports Illustrated, ESPN would open a satellite office downtown, and all of a sudden all my friends that have never visited Boise would call and beg to come and visit and see the blue Boise State turf as if it were the Empire State building or the Golden Gate Bridge.

But then, with less than ten seconds on the clock, the broncos pulled off another touchdown. I barely recognized myself jumping and whooping and sighing dramatically as the game went into overtime.

I don’t care to go into the tenseness of the overtime round since you already know the results, but in case you didn’t know: This is the way Boiseans celebrate a new year.

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