Hooville Healing: Fixing a Broken Spirit
Dr. B discusses how incredible college football is and its unique ability to provide healing, and a sense of home to its loyal fans.
By: Dr. B
Started last season, “The Deep South’s Oldest Column” is a weekly feature from Biscuits & SEC. Each week during the season, B&S contributor Dr. B will examine an SEC topic from a cultural perspective. There will be examinations of the conference we love and why we love it. Stories of the role models who passed on the love of football in the South. Fun will be poked at other conferences - and often at ourselves. There will be introspection, life lessons, tales of big wins, crushing losses, history, tear-jerkers, joy...and the ties that bind us together.
Maybe you are like me in the fact that lately, I have been fighting the blues. Apart from the pandemic, our family has gone through the wringer for the past five years and although we are in recovery mode, life’s scars continue to hang around. For those of you that lead charmed lives, today’s column may not be for you. However, to those that can relate, please read on.
All families carry scars, and our family has had our share. In the last few years, we have anguished over the sudden deaths of two family members, we have endured cancer in our family and with close friends, have professionally chased down several rabbit holes that were not what they seemed to be, and endured a particularly traumatic situation that wasn’t a situation but was made into a situation (you follow that one?), where we found ourselves thrown to the curb, chewed up, and spit out. This recent string has been brutal to me because I generally tend to be an upbeat and positive person that takes life in stride, yet I have learned that death, sickness, and awful situations have combined to create a big old helping of misery and destruction for me and my family.
Upon hearing about a traumatic situation we had experienced, a good friend called me and nailed it...the problem was not entirely death or massive letdowns, but my spirit had been broken. I had seen dear friends who have had life altering events break them, and I did what I could to understand and encourage them well, but I had never had my own event that attempted to break me. Well, now I have. I have learned that jobs can be replaced, trust in humanity could be regained, but a broken spirit is really, really hard to fix. The pain associated with that process is depressing, discouraging, and plain brutal. Can you relate? If so, please continue to read on.
An aerial view of Charlottesville, Virginia. Photo via THOMAS JEFFERSON FOUNDATION AT MONTICELLO
When life beats you up, where do you go? We decided to retreat home, and for us, that home is Charlottesville, Virginia. It is located in central Virginia and is just a little over two hours south of our nation’s capital. C-ville is 45 minutes east of the Blue Ridge Mountains and just under three hours west of Virginia Beach and the Atlantic Ocean. Charlottesville is simply a terrific place to live. Generally, the people are nice, active, and take great pride in their community. My wife and I met in Charlottesville while we worked as teachers at a local independent school and we were married here in 2005. It is the type of place where families settle and raise their kids here, and after college or experiencing a bit of life, the kids return as adults to raise their own families in Charlottesville.
My high school coaching career took off in Charlottesville (lacrosse, football, and a tad of basketball), and upon returning for our second stint, almost weekly I go to coffee or lunch with former students or players that are local and are now fathers, and husbands themselves. In addition, the founders of Biscuits & SEC, the legendary Bossman Slim and The Hammer, are both former players of mine from Charlottesville. Hammer was a mean fullback and linebacker on my middle school football team and Bossman was a star midfielder on my lacrosse team who played a large role on a state championship team. They no longer reside in Charlottesville, and trust me, they both have turned out very well.
Another aspect that makes Charlottesville special to us is the fact that it is a university town. The University of Virginia doesn't quite dominate the town, but it’s pretty close. It’s president, Jim Ryan, is a super guy who has connected well with the community and who is an absolute master at celebrating the common as well as the easily noticeable. Known around town as “Thomas Jefferson’s University” after its founder, the university offers a stunning campus, a great education (I actually started my doctorate at UVA), and a competitive and highly accessible ACC athletic program that takes home titles in numerous sports on a regular basis. It is super easy to get to a game and there is a strong sense of local pride and community around Cavalier athletics.
Sunset over the University of Virginia with Scott Stadium in the background. Photo via virginia.edu
Similar to other schools with rich traditions, UVA has numerous unique ones. The campus is not called a campus but is referred to as “the grounds”, undergrads are labeled not in the traditional freshman to senior way, but by years. For example, a freshman is a “First Year”, a sophomore is a “Second Year”, and so on. Students and fans refer to themselves as Wahoos (which apparently is a type of fish) or simply “Hoos” (Charlottesville is sometimes referred to as Hooville...sound familiar, fans of “ How The Grinch Stole Christmas”? Rumor has it that the mythical Hooville in the classic Dr. Suess tale actually was modeled after Charlottesville, but I cannot confirm or deny). UVA’s equivalent of “Roll Tide”, “War Eagle”, or “Go Gators” is “Go Hoos” or you could be greeted by the more elaborate head scratcher “Wahhoowa”...don’t ask because I have no clue what that really means. Finally, after the football team scores, UVA faithful sway and sing, with arms around the shoulders of friends and strangers alike, together to a slightly odd tune called “The Good Old Song” that talks about how “We come from old Virginia where all is bright and gay” and how we “all join hands and give a yell for dear old UVA”. It’s not Wisconsin’s Jump Around, but it’s still pretty cool.
Little did I know that a step forward in my fight to defeat the blues would occur due to a University of Virginia football game. During our first stint in Charlottesville, my wife and I had season tickets and we would enjoy spending glorious fall Virginia afternoons in Scott Stadium watching the Hoos (yes, back then we were just as passionate about our Crimson Tide as we are today, which meant that we really did not much care about the end result of the games we attended). In addition, we had a 100% chance of running into numerous people we knew. It was a large social activity that included college football...perfect. When we had our son, we slapped UVA gear on him and brought him along. Back in the days when the Hoos were led by the likes of coaches George Welsh and Al Groh, they were always competitive and fun to watch. An 8-4 season with a bowl game was almost a guarantee, and it seemed like every year, they would catch one of the big boys at home and beat them, none more famous than a 1995 upset of 2nd ranked Florida State, a game that handed Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles their first ever ACC loss.
A few weeks back, the life blues were hitting me hard and I needed a cure. We had a weekend free from lacrosse and basketball and cheer and everything else we stuff into our lives with a 14 year old and an 11 year old, so when we learned that the 2-1 Wahoos were hosting the 3-0 Demon Deacons of Wake Forest in an ACC slugfest on a rare Friday night game, we purchased tickets in the upper deck for $15 each, let each kid invite a friend, and headed to Scott Stadium for the evening. It was the first time my son had been there since he was 2 and it was my daughter’s first time ever, so the night had the chance to be a special one. In addition, my wife and I were returning to the stadium for the first time in 12 years. Little did we know that it would become an important and wonderful healing event for us all.
Picture this...a perfect September evening, a casual mile walk along a tree-lined street with houses rented out by students towards the stadium. Cavalier fans are pretty mellow, so as we approached the stadium, there was a noted absence of the hooping and hollering you would expect in College Station or on the Plains or at The Grove. We passed a house where a small crowd gathered to listen to a band playing on a small front porch. Our kids and their friends walked a few yards ahead of us, decked out in their UVA garb, talking excitedly about whatever was important in the middle school world on that particular day. As we walked towards the stadium, I felt my spirit rise just a bit.
A closer overhead view of Scott Stadium. Photo by Lance King—Getty Images
Along the way were small tailgates here and there. My wife and I remember back in our earlier years when, through an SEC lens, we would look at the small tailgates consisting of simple card tables and small groups gathered around them sipping wine coolers and Zimas with a bit of arrogance...they certainly were not the elaborate SEC tailgates that we had grown to love over the years. No such feeling came across us twelve years later, as I took in all of the sights and sounds with great joy. No RV’s, no flags flying high, no massive football throws in open fields by kids dreaming of donning the jersey of their beloved SEC team, no problem...just small groups of mostly adults having fun, keeping very much to themselves, soaking in the evening...and it was wonderful.
We entered the stadium not needing to bypass long lines because, frankly, there were no lines. We were greeted by friendly gate attendants that scanned our tickets from my phone (no paper tickets at UVA, which made my nostalgic heart a bit sad) and each attendant greeted us with a “ Welcome to Scott Stadium '' and a genuine smile. We were handed small programs free of charge, and began our climb to the upper deck. On the way, we stopped by a concession stand (again, no line), and picked out our dinner for the evening...hot dogs, chips, soft pretzels, candy, soft drinks, all to the tune of roughly $80 for the 6 of us. I chuckled to myself, instantly thinking of the classic airport Seinfeld episode where Jerry bemoans the prices of food in airport terminals (“Do you think the people at the airport that run the stores have any idea what the prices are in every other place in the world? You hungry? Tuna sandwich for $9.00, yeah, that’s fair”).
With our treasures in hand, we continued our climb to the upper deck. The stadium is not that big, as it holds 61,500, so our climb did not take long. We found our section, went through a small tunnel, and there it was...the field and the teams warming up, and it was a glorious sight, not because we love the Wahoos, but because we were entering a place of such sweet memories with our complete family for the first time, and we were about to experience college football together. We found our seats easily, as in our section, there may have been a grand total of 25 people. Wahoo coach Bronco Mendenhall is doing a nice job building a UVA football culture, yet it takes time and the fans are still learning to buy into it, hence Scott Stadium, outside of games against rival Virginia Tech or a national brand like Notre Dame, is rarely full. I took out my phone and instantly started to take pictures, and my heart felt right again. The stadium has two levels and is in the shape of a horseshoe. The open area of the shoe, located beneath a large scoreboard and video screen, is a grassy area known as “The Hill”, where local kids and high school students gather for the games... It is their spot in the stadium. Our seats were directly across from the Hill, and as I looked at the area becoming more populated throughout the pregame, I remembered when we lived in Atlanta and whenever UVA played on ESPN at Scott Stadium, I enjoyed watching the games, reminiscing about my time there with my wife and good friends. Wherever the cameras would show the Hill and the kids having a great time, I would think how lucky they were to be growing up in Charlottesville. On this Friday night, as I gazed at the Hill, I looked on each side of me and watched my own kids having a ball with their friends, and realized how lucky they are because they are being raised in Charlottesville...and for the first time in two years, my spirit slightly soared.
Scott Stadium at night. The Hill is at the center of the photo, below the scoreboard. Photo by UVA Athletics
The game started and much of the lower bowl was filled, the student section was packed, the Hill had a nice crowd, and the upper deck was...well, pretty sparsely populated. Was it a great game? Not particularly, as Wake dominated the Hoos and came away with a 37-17 victory. UVA is not bad, and their southpaw quarterback, Brennan Armstrong, is very good, however the Demon Deacons are actually very good themselves and they were a fun team to watch. It was one of the most glorious games I have ever attended. Seeing my son analyzing each play with his buddy (who, by the way, is a big Wahoo fan and refused to allow us to leave the game early...God love that kid) and watching my daughter dancing to each and every song played over the PA system with her friend was priceless and frankly, healing. Looking at the game program, we noticed that I taught and coached the team physician’s sons...that I had coached a UVA graduate assistant’s brother...that a Wake defensive lineman’s father had served as my offensive coordinator. Midway through the first quarter, a colleague spotted us and enthusiastically visited with us for a while. And then another colleague stopped by for a visit. We all felt wonderfully connected and we knew that we were home...and my spirit leapt forward.
By the end of the game (outside of the band and a smattering of Wake fans), we were 6 of maybe 1,000 Hoo fans that had toughed it out and remained until the bitter end. Staying to the end of the game gave me more time to soak in the sights of a true college football healing experience, and I realized that it was time for us to start new traditions as a family...time to get season tickets for the 2022 Wahoo season...my wife wants to get a parking spot so we can create an SEC style tailgate experience for the Cavalier faithful...and time for my kids to take their spot on the Hill as locals. My son has even started to talk about how he might want to attend UVA one day...my wife and I could not be more thrilled, as how could we not love this school and this football program?
Broken spirits need hope that healing is possible, and on this particular evening, my broken spirit absorbed just a bit of that hope. It wasn’t in the house that the Bear built in Tuscaloosa, but it turned out to be the home of a midrange ACC college football team that moved my needle forward just a little. I have a long way to go, but it’s a start, and I will take it. For those that are working so hard to move your needle forward, find your home (literally or figuratively) and pay it a visit...soon. May you too find the hope that a broken spirit can be healed, and there is no better day to start that journey than today. Maybe your home, like mine, has an element of college football associated with it as well.
On my daily commute into the office, I listen to SiriusXM’s ESPNU channel, which covers college football pretty exclusively during the season (it’s awesome). The hosts of the different shows often talk about how incredible college football is. I simply couldn't agree more. Not only is it naturally incredible, but for some of us, it’s a source of healing as well.
Dr. B
Dr. B has lived and taught throughout the South, attending The University of Alabama and earning a Ph.D. from The University of Georgia. He has come to know and love the people and rich traditions of the SEC and its rabid fan bases.