The New Stanford Stadium

Ry at the new Stanford Stadium

Stanford University unveiled its new stadium on Saturday in Palo Alto, so I decided to take Ry to the game so he could be part of the history. This was supposed to include Karsyn as well, but she bailed at the last minute. Apparently college football just doesn’t have the allure with the 6-year old girl demographic that it once did.

The university had a pre-game ceremony that we missed as we tried to score a cheap ticket outside the gates. I was lucky enough to land a freebie and kids two & under are free, so we get in for the bargain price of nothing.

My first impression was that the developers did a great job with the new design. For those of you familiar with the old Stanford Stadium, you may recall the huge staircases that you had to ascend to get to the mineshaft entrances around the old bowl. Those have been replaced with tunnels which lead to an inner concourse that has concessions circling the entire stadium.

Go figure that it would take a university which is home to one of the top 5 business schools in the country, all this time to figure out that you can actually make a buck by selling $6 beers and $5 hot dogs.

Opening Kickoff

As Ry and got to our seats, two Navy F-18 Hornets go thundering overhead as a round of fireworks go off inside the stadium to christen the new joint at the completion of the national anthem. This scares the living daylights out of Ry, who immediately puckers up and begins to cry. It takes several minutes for me to calm him down, but we managed to get things under control by the time the opening kickoff.

Navy altered the happy home-opening script for the Cardinal by laying a military grade whooping during the game. Ry was ready to leave by the end of the 3rd quarter, but then a sports miracle happened.

As it turns out, the stadium had taped colored cards to the backs of each chair for one of those stadium card stunts. That typically works, when you have a capacity crowd in the stadium attempting the stunt. Stanford’s new digs had plenty of empty seats to that whole thing fizzled.

Those that did attend decided to do their aeronautical engineering homework by using those cards to design, develop and test fly giant paper airplanes. With Navy firmly in front of the Cardinal, the paper airplanes began to rain from the new upper deck.

Ryan found this to be the most interesting part of the evening and decided to join in by heaving every airplane that landed within 20 feet of us. The stands around us had cleared out, so he was free to run up and down the aisles, grabbing all the airplanes he could hold.

Future test pilot

With a mighty two-year old heave, those planes found themselves airborne once again.

When he ran out, two women decked out in their finest Stanford garb would point to a discarded plane for him to reintroduce to the atmosphere. There was one sitting right in front of him, but he failed to see it. They were pointing and urging him to look at his feet, but it just didn’t register.

“He’s Cal material”, I bellowed.

To which there was a roar from the gallery. It was the only thing these Cardinal faithful could laugh at all night.

[More Picture of the new Stadium]

[Video of the first points in stadium history]

911

Hard to believe it’s been five years. I remember getting that phone call from my mom on that September morning and instantly recognizing the urgency in her voice. “Turn on the television set…a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.” Her call woke me, so I was still in a fog. What I would see on the television moments later cleared the haze instantly. It’s eerie how vividly the images still are, all these years later.

I glued myself to the front of our T.V. for 18 hours that day. I, like just about everyone in this country, couldn’t believe it had happened. We would learn that our attackers were simply a weak band of animals who fought their battles like cowards under the cloak of terrorism.

Sonya and I had begun planning the expansion of our family, but I remember pondering the events of that day in a conversation with her about the type of world we would be bringing a child into. The world had become a pit of venom in a few hours. Rather, our red, white and blue sanctuary had allowed a little bit of evil to finally hit home.

We would obviously go on to have a second child, but not without the additional worry of having to raise children in a very different world than the one we knew as children. Will my children ever get to see the world, for fear of being blown up on a plane or murdered by extremists outside the confines of their own home?

The only way my children will be able to experience the wonders of the world is to eradicate this honorless threat. So I support it’s eradication. Do what we must to get the job done. The rules were broken on that September morning, so we need to redefine the rules. Do what we must.

I got up this morning, and flipped through a few channels as I got ready for work, skipping past all the coverage of the memorial services being held around the country. I finally landed on MSNBC, which decided to air NBC’s coverage of that black day. As I sat there buttoning my shirt, the hair stood up on the back of my neck as I watched the first tower fall for the second straight time.

We flew our flag today, in honor of those that gave their lives five years ago. We also flew in honor of a way of life that we do not take for granted. It is something that we must protect at whatever costs. The rules have changed, so we must to.