This past weekend, I took my kids to my 20th college reunion. Naturally, the festivities were hubbed around a football game -- the kids' first-ever in-person, roam-the-tailgate, surrounded-by-rambunctious-students, wear-your-colors college football game.
Passing on your college allegiance to your children feels a little strange, given that it was an extreme confluence of circumstances and serendipity that produced that allegiance in the first place:
A few worse (or better!) grades, a few points lower (or higher!) on your SATs, a focus on Junior Achievement versus junior varsity, your parents' opinions ... that thin envelope could very well have been a thick one -- or vice versa. And, consequently, you could have caromed into an alternate path of college fandom.
Instead of 20 years of "Go Blue!" or "Go State!" or "Hook 'Em!" or "We Are!" or Chomp-Chop-Roll-Geaux-Woo-Pig-Dot-The-i-Boomer-Whatever, your Saturday tradition is thinking about those fierce weekend games of ultimate Frisbee at pick-your-favorite-liberal-arts-non-football-crazed smaller college.
Even more intriguing (or perhaps insulting), you aren't that far off from a parallel universe where you actually went to a rival school: the Michigan State alum in Ann Arbor, the Cardinal grad in Berkeley, the Longhorns loyalist at A&M.
Your college alumni fandom originated with an incredibly influential letter you received in the mail when you were 17 or 18, dictating to you what would become a die-hard allegiance for the rest of your life. So: Will your kids track their parental path to U. of You? Who knows!
Maybe they will follow in your footsteps, inspired by the onesies you put them in when they were babies, the Saturdays spent in front of the TV, the endless propaganda you wore/displayed/obsessed over.
Maybe they can't get in. (Regardless of allegiance, a common theme of everyone I know who graduated in the 1990s is that we all agree we could never get into the school we attended if we were applying today.)
Maybe they can do better. (Or at least different!)
Maybe they don't want to go there, a perfectly reasonable teenage rebellion: "Mom, after 18 years of Ohio State immersion, I'm very happy to go to college at Michigan. (Kidding! I mean Miami of Ohio!) ... Mom?"
Or maybe, partly because of a decade or two of fall Saturday saturations, it becomes the only place they want to go. (The best news is that you can still share your fandom together, even if they don't get in, don't want to go or just want to do something else.)
Your kids will continue to find common ground with you in rooting for your alma mater, a reflection of the unique connective tissue of an alumni allegiance: You were both drafted into that fanhood at a formative moment -- in your case, drafted by an admissions committee, when you were a teenager self-discovering your identity; in your kids' case, drafted by you, likely before they could have a fan opinion of their own.
This month, like a lot of you heading to college homecomings or alumni reunions with your families in tow, I walked my kids around my campus, Northwestern:
Hey, this the old dorm... this was my favorite library carrel... this was the intramural basketball court... and this is Ryan Field (Dyche Stadium), where in the fall of 1995, Northwestern football gave me and everyone around me the greatest fan experience of our lives.
My kids and I strode into the game, decked out in fancy school gear and whooping it up with the rest of the fans.
And my kids cheered loud and proud, incidentally because it was Northwestern but specifically because we parents pass along our alumni zeal, wherever we may have gone -- or wherever our kids may go.
Have you turned your kid into a fan of your alma mater? Tell your story at espnW's Facebook page (or mine), post a photo on Instagram cc'ing @danshanoff and @espnW or comment on Twitter @danshanoff.