As the Internet has discussed ad nauseam, the show, set in 2010, takes a retrospective view on the news of a couple years ago (sort of like using a several-years-old MasterCard joke in a blog post!).
While critics have ripped on this approach, I find myself loving it, if for no other reason then I am a total sucker for Remember When-ing away the hours. And with the Cal's 2012 opener against Nevada bombing toward us faster than yet another Aaron Sorkin monologue, I figured, what the hell, if dramas about two-year old news stories are good enough for HBO, then posts about two-year-old games are good enough for SCF!
Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story ... [CUE FLAMES] "The Tale of the Reno Roadtrip."
It started on a Thursday (September 16, 2010, to be exact) that upon first glance seemed like any other. But if you dared to dig just below the surface, you would find that, for me and my four friends, hardcore Cal football enthusiasts all, the day had that mystical tingle that can only mean one thing -- in mere hours, we would be in a state with legalized gambling and no closing time!
After work, a coworker (one of the aforementioned four) and I carpooled to the East Bay to meet up with the rest of our party. Our spirits were high -- Cal had won its first two games of the season by a combined score of 104-10. So what if those wins came at home against UC Davis and Colorado! We had no reason to believe this would be anything but a magical season!
(Quick tangent: Against the Buffs, Kevin Riley completed 63% of his passes and threw four TDs and no picks. I wonder if this was the game that made the British Columbia Lions think, "That is EXACTLY the kind of QB we want on our team for 10 days!")
Once our crew of five intrepid explorers was united, we encountered the first droplet of foreshadowing. The SUV we had planned to borrow for the trip was undergoing repairs. (Cal's star linebacker, Mike Mohamed, was also undergoing repairs, for a sprained toe, and would be scrubbed from the match as a game-time decision.) Disappointed but undaunted, we located another SUV we could borrow in Sacramento, squeezed into a Volvo and headed out into the northern wilds.
Roughly an hour and a half later, we arrived in Sac-town, traded vehicles, made a pitstop for supplies and hit the road again, this time in a comfortable Chevy SUV.
The clock read 1 AM by the time we arrived at the Reno Nugget, which is actually in Sparks, which are definitely things the Bears could have used against the Wolfpack haha ha ha ha ha ha.... We checked in and made quick work of the casino staff who foolishly objected to our insistence that they open a $5 blackjack table just for us. Once our demands had been met, we gambled and drank through the night like conquering heroes:
I was feeling a tad gingerly the next morning, and as I attempted to nurse myself back to health with Starbucks, the barista noticed my Cal cap.
"You guys are gonna lose!" he said with heavily caffeinated enthusiasm.
"Yeah, someday, maybe," I replied sleepily. "But not today and not to a team from the WAC."
"Dude, we have Colin Kaepernick!" He said his QB's name like he was proclaiming the birth of Christ. "You guys are screwed!"
"We'll see," I said while walking away with my mocha and conveniently ignoring his tip jar. "I'll be here tomorrow morning to see how you feel then."
Throughout the day -- in the casino, around town, at tailgates in the stadium parking lot -- the unabashed love-fest of Kaepernick became a real trend. The Nevada fans absolutely worshipped him. I knew going into the season that he was a talented dual-threat QB, but I had faith that either our defense would handle him or our offense would outscore him.
I was wrong.
While walking back from the game, we saw a drunk Nevada fan crosscheck an Old Blue to the concrete right in front of us. When his fellow Old Blue confronted the attacker, he too was shoved to the ground. The guy took off in a panic as bystanders started shouting for the cops, but he was held up and quickly corralled by the police. Though it was sweet to see such a complete asshole being handcuffed and shipped off to jail, the incident summed up the game pretty well: The faster, stronger Wolfpack knocked the shit out of the creaky, broken-down Bears.
The next morning, I did return to the Starbucks, and the same barista was behind the counter. Maybe he didn't want to get in trouble for antagonizing a customer, maybe he was too busy to talk smack, but for whatever reason, he didn't say anything about the game. Our eyes met, though, and I knew he knew. Kaepernick had gotten us.
The speedy QB, now Alex Smith's backup in San Francisco, is long gone from the Nevada backfield. So when the Bears destroy the Wolfpack on Saturday to christen the revamped Memorial Stadium, it will be nice, yeah, but it won't be the same.
As my friends and I drove back to California, I consoled myself somewhat by hoping that what happens in Reno stays in Reno.
I was wrong again, as Cal would limp its way through a 5-7 season -- the first losing record in the Tedford Era. But that, friends, is a tale for another day.
I was feeling a tad gingerly the next morning, and as I attempted to nurse myself back to health with Starbucks, the barista noticed my Cal cap.
"You guys are gonna lose!" he said with heavily caffeinated enthusiasm.
"Yeah, someday, maybe," I replied sleepily. "But not today and not to a team from the WAC."
"Dude, we have Colin Kaepernick!" He said his QB's name like he was proclaiming the birth of Christ. "You guys are screwed!"
"We'll see," I said while walking away with my mocha and conveniently ignoring his tip jar. "I'll be here tomorrow morning to see how you feel then."
Throughout the day -- in the casino, around town, at tailgates in the stadium parking lot -- the unabashed love-fest of Kaepernick became a real trend. The Nevada fans absolutely worshipped him. I knew going into the season that he was a talented dual-threat QB, but I had faith that either our defense would handle him or our offense would outscore him.
I was wrong.
While walking back from the game, we saw a drunk Nevada fan crosscheck an Old Blue to the concrete right in front of us. When his fellow Old Blue confronted the attacker, he too was shoved to the ground. The guy took off in a panic as bystanders started shouting for the cops, but he was held up and quickly corralled by the police. Though it was sweet to see such a complete asshole being handcuffed and shipped off to jail, the incident summed up the game pretty well: The faster, stronger Wolfpack knocked the shit out of the creaky, broken-down Bears.
The next morning, I did return to the Starbucks, and the same barista was behind the counter. Maybe he didn't want to get in trouble for antagonizing a customer, maybe he was too busy to talk smack, but for whatever reason, he didn't say anything about the game. Our eyes met, though, and I knew he knew. Kaepernick had gotten us.
The speedy QB, now Alex Smith's backup in San Francisco, is long gone from the Nevada backfield. So when the Bears destroy the Wolfpack on Saturday to christen the revamped Memorial Stadium, it will be nice, yeah, but it won't be the same.
As my friends and I drove back to California, I consoled myself somewhat by hoping that what happens in Reno stays in Reno.
I was wrong again, as Cal would limp its way through a 5-7 season -- the first losing record in the Tedford Era. But that, friends, is a tale for another day.
One year later a nasty brawl broke out in the Reno Nugget: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-09-24/us/us_nevada-casino-brawl_1_vagos-sparks-police-nevada-casino?_s=PM:US
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