Daddy - Daughter Date at Lane Stadium

What a wild, busy and successful last few days. As many of you know I took my soon to be six year old to Blacksburg for her first game. What a weekend it turned out to be, even with a little bittersweet ending. Warning I did less proofing (that means 0) than I usually do. Our story:

The plan all along was for #beercontrolfather to take the wife and 2 kids to Blacksburg to enjoy the great weather, changing leaves and Virginia Tech football in Lane Stadium. After years of having tickets and not being able to share the experience, this was going to be the year I learned my kids up on the things of VT football. Unfortunately, my youngest became sick Thursday night … 36 hours before leaving for God’s Country. Scrambling, I called friends and asked around for people to buy my tickets or go with me. No luck. At about 7pm on Friday, I decided to take my oldest on a Saturday roundtrip visit to Blacksburg for the Miami game. Something must be wrong with me to ask her to sit in a car seat for 10 hours and be surrounded by adults all day, but she was more than excited to spend a day with her daddy.

A brief time line of our events

6:20 - 8:30am
Daddy is showered and car is packed. Wakes a grumpy little girl up, but her first word was “football.” Promising start. After failing to convince her to take a nap, I decide to bribe … err share the first round of treats with her. Doughnuts for all. Soon after potty break number one. Wipes in hand, daddy hands the little princess a few and lets her take care of business. Somehow she convinced me to buy her cinnamon teddy grahams after. A 5 hour energy drink is consumed. A 10 minute stretch and run around the park in Crewe … right outside of Beamer Field. Another good omen.

9:00am-Noon
Time blurs, between music from my college days, a thousand questions many of the “are we there yet?” variety, another potty break and gas up we end up on 81 heading to Blacksburg. At this point we are both excited.

Noon - 1:30pm
I park the vehicle in a private lot off Southgate, hand her a juice box and we start walking to Campus. Walking we get a lot of, “isn’t she cute stares and comments” as she is happily skipping along going to see COLLEGE. Maybe she burns too much energy, maybe it’s walking or running up the hills but there are some feet hurt comments. It quickly fades as she begins collecting Orange and Maroon leaves to sell to people. A couple dozen leaves later and we are in front of my old dorm, Barringer Hall. I show her my 2 dorm rooms, from the outside (I don’t think the current students or my daughter needed the shock of a kindergartner walking the halls of a dorm.) She is impressed by the size of the place. A quick pace through the bookstore and then the outskirts of the Drill Field leads us to … potty break number 3. Luckily Owens does not let us down. Approaching 1pm I decide to hit the lots for tailgating and meeting @hokiewolf and family friend to buy my extra. This involved us walking outside of Cassel, through lot 1 and outside of Lane. And by walking, I mean I carried her a lot. Bumping into a few friends and finally meeting up with Wolf. We head for our tailgate and by now she was more than ready for lunch.

1:45pm-3:00pm
We tailgate, enjoy old friends, new friends and my daughter eats more junk food waiting for a stadium hot dog … and of course another juice box. With plenty of grass, she runs around until she gets hooked on watching people play cornhole. The coeds in attendance, thinks she is the cutest thing and dote her with attention, that she readily accepts.

3:20pm-7:10pm
First Half of the Game
In our seats, she is excited. Enter Sandman blasts and without being prompted she jumps up and down like she has been doing this for years. Excited is an understatement. She enjoys the game, cheers when everyone else cheers, before … Potty break. Thankfully close seats to the SEZ, means easy access to the family restroom. More importantly for her, hot dog and sprite time! She rarely gets soda. A big time get for her.

Halftime and Beyond
We go behind the East stands, she runs around on the grass with some other kids. She is happy. Come to find out @CharlotteHokies sits directly behind me (well the games I go to at least.) Wolf and I are very nervous as we see Miami gash our front 7 repeatedly, my daughter is happily oblivious. By the start of the 4th quarter her fun meter is full. She wants to run around and is tired of sitting. About the time Miami scores to go ahead … “Daddy is it time to go? I have to go potty.” Crushing. Ok, I hurry down like before, strategically stopping at various points to not miss much action. Unfortunately once in the restroom, I miss some, but am able to get to the standing room only corner and catch the LT go ahead score. She smells freedom, sees everyone’s excitement and really, really needs to run and burn energy. Stuck. Everything I have asked her to do for me this day. She has done and mostly very happy to do it. After 30 minutes or so of putting her needs and wants off … I did what needed to be done.

We leave with 56 seconds left in the game. I know, I know, but in the end, she is my daughter.

We move between tv’s in the lots 2 and 3. I could tell even being outside the field that the crowd was electric. When Enter Sandman was teased … I didn’t need Mike Patrick to tell me the place was nuts. Having been to 5 of Gobblercountry's Josh Parcell’s good but not complete list of big Lane games (no 2003 Miami, shame on you) only missing 2005 Miami game due to the birth of said daughter, I knew I missed a crazy moment. It’s bittersweet, but as a parent, sometimes other, more important things come up. Having said that, my daughter was happy, running like crazy in a big patch of grass and I watched the last plays on satellite tv. Maybe not the best solution but 24 hours earlier, I wasn’t sure I would be there at all.

7:10pm - 12:15am
We pull out of onto Southgate and head home. I wasn’t tired, I was pumped, but alert because 81 sucked. Pulling off at Cloverdale for some good ole McDonald’s and of course a potty break. Fifteen minutes after leaving, my little one is wiped and sleeping. I jam to a live Widespread Panic concert and make my way home, pulling in a few minutes after midnight.

Roughly 520 miles, 10 hours of driving, 7 potty breaks and lots memories … more so for me than her, but it’s a start. She is more than ready for me to take her next year, but this time she wants to bring her little sister too.

Those are my memories, if I had to guess hers would look like this:

Still dark outside. Tired. In the car. In the car. Potty. In the car. Potty. In the car. Juice box. COLLEGE. Leaves. Big stone buildings. Daddy lived there. Lots of cars and people. Walking. Being with daddy. Walking. Potty. Walking. Daddy Carrying me. Meeting people. Eating chips, dip and sweets. Being pampered by adults and coeds. Juice box. Jumping up and down with daddy. More Jumping and high fiving for some reason or another. Hot dog. Sprite. Sprite. Running around with daddy. Jumping. High Fiving. Running around. Car ride. Mcdonald’s cheeseburger with daddy. Home.

As a bonus the following day, Tyrod Taylor fresh from driving back that morning from the game was in town at a brand new Dick’s Sporting Goods was signing autographs. She helped daddy get his authentic #5 jersey and @magduffs work of ACCCG art signed by the Hokie legend.

Lots of WIN for me this weekend, even if I didn’t finish the game out.

Special thanks to Wolf and my friend Mandy for putting up with us. I appreciate the shared beer from Wolf and I have a feeling Six Pick readers will see it again … soon.