PRE-GAME DAY:
I’ve only been attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a little over two weeks, yet I haven’t been able to go one day without people bringing up football season. When they find out that I just transferred here and haven’t experienced game day yet, they look at me with a huge expression of both shock and excitement as they tell me how I’m soon going to experience the best part of my college career. I obviously hear about the game day bibs everyone wears (those red and white striped overalls for those of you who don’t know), and how everyone goes crazy when the play the song "Jump Around," but all I know is I probably won’t understand the extent of everything until I experience it myself.
POST-GAME DAY:
Wow. Never in my life have I EVER seen a group of people come together with so much spirit for a sporting event. Yes, most other colleges have their game days and their traditions, but never have I seen anything like what goes down on game day in Madison, Wisconsin. Like most schools, every single person wakes up during the early hours of the morning. 6:00 AM... 7:00 AM... 8:00 AM... But even by 8:00 AM, a lot of people are already heading out. Regardless of the fact that most of these students struggle waking up for their 9:00 AM classes, they surely jump right out of bed when they know it’s game day. Game day for seasoned Badgers usually begins with a pre-pre game at their place, followed by a pre-game closer to the stadium, followed by the actual football game or just another pre-game. According to College Atlas, UW Madison is ranked in the top ten party schools of 2015 – we aren’t called Madtown for nothing!
Walking towards the stadium and past all of the apartment complexes, the streets are flooded with students and families decked out in their Wisconsin gear, and all you can hear is yelling and music blasting from all of the apartment buildings. Because this was the first home game of the 2015 season, my friends and I arrived in the student section at 10:40 AM exactly, ready for the 11:00 AM game to start.
Once they played the montage of the history of the Badger football team that led into the current players running onto the field, that’s where it set off all of the craziness. You look around the entire stadium and it is completely packed with a sea of red and then the game finally begins! So here is a bit about all of the craziness that goes down:
1. Every time we score a touchdown, not only does the entire stadium go crazy, but the band begins to play a song while the entire crowd intensely leans forward and back really quickly. It sounds really weird but it’s actually really fun and hilarious when it happens.
2. Every time we score a field goal, the crowd sings "On Wisconsin," which also includes some random-yet-on-beat fist pumps.
3. Every time the score changes, our wonderful mascot Bucky the Badger gets lifted up onto a wooden platform and does the amount of push ups equivalent to our score, and since our score shoots up pretty quickly (*cough cough* 58 to 0 *cough cough*), you can imagine that Bucky has to do A LOT of push ups!
4. Randomly throughout the game, the cheerleaders will hold up signs and cheer, “We want more!” and the crowd adds on to that statement by responding with “BEER!” (Which is pretty self explanatory when thinking about UW Madison).
5. Bucky holds up a sign where one side says “Eat Chips” and the other side says “Fondue,” but what ends up happening is the sections start yelling, “Eat sh*t!” and responding with “F*ck you!” This was definitely one of the weirdest and funniest traditions, but it happens often and randomly throughout the game!
6. When everyone screams “OOOHHHHHHHH” for kickoff, only section O is allowed to hold up their arms in the shape of an “O”
7. Okay, at most sporting events you go to they do the wave. But NOTHING is like the wave that happens at a UW-Madison game, because let me tell you, there is so much detail and it’s pretty intense! It starts out with your regular wave that goes around the stadium. Once the wave hits where it started, it becomes a slow motion wave. When that wave goes around the stadium it becomes a super fast wave. Then everyone chants, “Send it back!” and the wave gets sent in the other direction. Once that wave makes a full circle you send the wave in both directions and watch them cross over each other throughout the stadium. Everyone cheers on the wave and it’s seriously so amazing and hilarious. It was definitely my favorite part of game day rituals!
8. And last but not least, it has been called “the greatest tradition of college football history.” At the end of the third quarter, when they play the song “Jump Around” by House of Pain, it was one of the funnest things to be a part of. The entire stadium starts jumping and going crazy. FUN FACT: it actually registers as a small earthquake on the Richter scale. And I know, jumping up and down does not sound like that much fun, but I can promise you it is. There is so much anticipation for this part of the game and it totally lived up to the excitement that was built up.
Once the game is over, everyone grabs some food and heads back home for what seems like a “campus-wide nap,” because the day doesn’t stop once the game is over! Everyone rests up for all of the craziness that will continue that night!
Overall, my first game day was unreal. It completely went above and beyond everything I expected it to be. Thousands of people fill Camp Randall stadium on game day, and you feel such a bond and high energy because of how much everyone loves the badgers. I feel like I can officially say how proud I am to be a badger and how happy I am that I attend the University of Wisconsin.
Now, many of these traditions may sound weird and hard to imagine if you don’t actually go here, or seem like something that would happen at any college football game. But I swear if you come to a UW-Madison football game, you will fall in love with all of the craziness for yourself.
