The Secret to College Sports Passion

I am fortunate! My parents believed in a college education and supported me during my first round. When I decided to go back to school, my wife supported the idea also. We lived in married student housing about 3 miles off-campus.

I was a serious student the second go round. I had to be with my wife supporting me on a school teacher's salary! We didn't have a lot of money and entertainment was a luxury. We both look back on those days in amazement that we actually scraped enough money together to go see "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the theater, twice!

We discovered early on that my tuition payed for football tickets! So we would make a day of it. There was a bike trail that lead almost all the way to campus. When the game started at 2PM, we would leave the apartment about 10 AM. We would pack something to eat, or when we had the money, we would stop by a burger joint near campus for lunch.

We arrived at the stadium before it opened for the game after picking up a newspaper on the way. We entered the stadium about an hour or so before kickoff. We watched the stadium fill to capacity and read the paper until the band started the pre-game show.

The band was always great! They would play and march right up until kickoff. Then we watched our team in action against the best in the conference.

Then one day, I saw a man, the opposing coach, leaning against the goal post watching his "boys" in their pre-game warm-up. He was wearing the iconic hounds tooth jacket and hat. The Bear! It was at that point that I realized I had been watching the best in college football!

That's what college sports means to me. The secret to the passion is all the memories! Watching your favorite team in action against the best the league has to offer.

As a mat supplier, I found I could offer team logo mats as cheaply as anyone in the business, due to my contacts. Now I have also expanded that offering to other team logo merchandise at exciting prices as well.

May the passion live long for your favorite team, as it does for mine!

Cliff Bell, Pres. of Best-Mats