Clare’s fiancé Chris
was out the door around 7 AM this Saturday morning, rain be damned. Chris was meeting his father and brother to
enjoy a belated birthday gift, a Northwestern University home game at Ryan
Field against Minnesota. The wind, by
the way, will likely be blowing in off Lake Michigan, which is about a mile or
two from the field.
As a future
father-in-law, I take the associated responsibilities quite seriously. If the boy was sitting in the rain to root
for Ohio State or Notre Dame or Illinois, even, I might be tempted to give him
grief. NU, though, I approve of. They’re an Ivy League program stuck in the
Midwest. Harvard and Yale at least get
to play in the same academics-first conference while Northwestern tries to
compete in the sports-before-schooling Big Ten.
They ought to get points just for trying.
Along those lines, I
give my future son-in-law points for being a big fan of Pat Fitzgerald, the
Wildcats’ head coach. Fitzgerald
recruits players who are familiar with books and class attendance while
expecting them to compete against the likes of Michigan and Ohio State. Personally, I’m a fan of his news conferences,
which are always a study in humor and honesty, with Fitzgerald criticizing his
own performance on the sidelines as much as he does his players’ on the field. You have to like a guy like that.
So, make it a perfect
birthday gift and beat those Gophers, NU.
And see what you can do about that lake breeze while you’re at it.
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