First NFL Game

When I learned that I would be attending my first NFL game, I asked around about what to expect. “Lots of drinking and swearing,” one friend said, who had lived near San Diego most of his life. “And make sure you're there at least two hours early and bring a cooler with a lunch and eat it in the parking lot. - Who do they play?”

“The Raiders.”

His eyes became wide while he gave one more bit of advice. “Expect lots of fights. The Chargers and Raiders are big rivals and a lot of fans buy tickets and drive down from Oakland. Expect to see half the crowd be Raider fans.”

That sounded exciting enough for me.

Last summer, we attended our first Major League baseball game and had a very enjoyable time. Now, we might as well step it up a notch and move into the realm of the NFL.

The Chargers were on a three game skid, and the Raiders hadn't won a game all year. But the quality of the teams was less important to me than was the opportunity to attend a professional football game and to witness the atmosphere.

Game day arrived, and we drove into the parking lot at Qualcomm Stadium. I was aghast! I felt like we were entering Tent City in Saudi Arabia. Blue and white canopies draped everywhere, all around the stadium. Smoke floated into the air and the smell of grilled beef soon drifted inside our vehicle. I quickly wondered how we would ever find a parking spot.

We were ushered to a side-lot, that was really a practice field, complete with grass. One by one, the cars filed onto the grass where they parked and let down the tail-gates and pulled out the charcoal and grills.  On one side, Tim McGraw blasted from someone's truck, while on the other, rap music took the honors. The people in the truck next to us grilled steak and fried up vegetables in a pan. The fans in front of us played beer pong. The sandwiches they ate were massive.

Sheepishly, we lifted the hatch on our Trailblazer and pulled out a blue cooler. I removed sliced bread from a bag and proceeded to make sandwiches for my family.

Yes, we felt out of place. Not only because of our puny meal, but because it felt like we were the only people there not wearing Charger or Raider memorabilia.

We wrapped up our lunch and made the long walk to the stadium. Yes, it felt long. We walked through the practice field and across the crowded parking stalls with fans still pulling their steaks off the grill and shoveling large plates of food into their mouths.

A large amount of fans wore team jersey's with their favorite player's name on the back: Rivers, Carr, Weddle, Tomlinson, McFadden. The Raider fans, especially, wore large gaudy necklaces. They seemed to fit the gangster stereotype of sunglasses and a sideways hat. Some wore skeleton masks.

We checked our bags, showed our tickets, and rode up the tall, steep escalator that conveyed fans to the upper sections. Our seats were on the opposite side from where we entered, so we had to circumvent the entire stadium. We might as well have walked around the moon, it was so far to get around.

Before arriving at our seats, the kids and I walked into an alleyway that enters the interior of the stadium, and once again, we were blown away! Four levels of blue seating, all stacked steep, with a deep, clear view down to the field; 70,000 seats in all.

We found our seats, completely on the opposite side, in section sixty, row twenty-three. In common jargon, that's the nose-bleed section. Just a few more rows higher and we would have been at the top of the world. For nose-bleed seats, our view of the field was impressive and didn't feel extremely distant. Our seats faced the sun. We didn't know yet if that would be to our advantage or not. As of now, the weather was a perfect seventy degrees.

Thirty minutes later, the teams were running onto the field, the Chargers getting a firework show and the Raiders getting booed. It wasn't all boos. There was a healthy amount of cheering also. At least half the crowd were Oakland fans. Right then you could feel a reverberating rivalry echo through the stadium.

Airman First Class, Michelle Doolittle, sang the National Anthem, followed by three Air Force jets that screamed over the stadium. It was time for the opening kickoff.

As far as a summary of the game, it can be done with just the first few plays. Oakland fumbled the snap on the first play of the game. Two downs later, San Diego quarterback, Phillip Rivers threw a perfect pass at the edge of the end zone to a receiver, who was leaping, stretching, and reaching, able to grasp and hold to the ball, pulling it into his arms for the touchdown.

That was the only touchdown of the game. The rest of the contest featured four field goals and only a handful of breathtaking plays.

But a lackluster game did not diminish the grandeur of the experience. The stadium was full of pure energy, bordering on chaos.

The lady behind us must have been drunk when she entered the arena. She was a Raiders fan. She spewed a line of obscenities at the young female Chargers fan that walked up the stairs. “You don't look at me like that you mother obscenity little witch! You think you can just walk in front of me with those ugly skinny legs? You get the obscenity away from me!” - The funny thing is that the young innocent female wearing the Chargers jersey was no where near the intoxicated lady.

Midway through the second quarter, three men in Raider's jersey's walked up the steep stairs and halted at our row. They looked at their tickets, then looked at us, then looked at the number on the row, then looked at their tickets again. They inched their way into our row, squeezing past our knees, and splashing their cups of beer as they shuffled. “It looks like we may have a problem here,” one of them mumbled five inches from my face. I smelt the fresh alcohol on his breath. “But that's all right. We'll work things out if it becomes a problem.” On our right were three vacant seats and they sat down. The last of the three men wore a mask with a skull painted on the front.

The man with the backwards hat sat down next to me and immediately I pulled out my ticket and compared it with his. “This is section 60,” I said. “You're ticket is section 59.”

“You're right,” he said. “Fifty-nine must be over there.” He pointed to the next section over, where a lady in black was standing up, waving at him. “My apologies,” he said as he got to his feet.

They shuffled back the way they came. “I like your Angels hat,” one of them said. “But you know that this is a football game, not baseball. But I truly like the Angels. They are my favorite team. But they are not playing here.” Another of the men commented on my daughter's mismatched socks. All three left spatters of beer on the cement behind them.

We spotted a few yelling matches during the game. Most of the fans, however, were civil with each other. Several friends with opposing preferences sat side-by-side.

I watched the game, hoping for an eighty yard run or a big interception or a hail-mary into the end-zone. I found none of that. Deep inside, there was a part of me that secretly wanted the Raiders to win, to pull off the upset. It was certainly within their reach. Boy, that would create some fights!

With only four minutes left in the game, the first blood was drawn. I couldn't see what happened, but very quickly the entire upper section was on their feet and craning to gain a view. A man in a Chargers jersey was on his feet and yelling and cursing at someone a few rows up whom I couldn't see. Soon there were two security guards pulling him down the stairs with his left arm pulled behind his back in a chicken-wing. I later saw this bearded man in the hall and his nose was cut and bleeding. I don't know what the scuffle was all about.

The game ended 13 – 3, Chargers taking the victory.

As we walked through the parking lot back to our vehicle, the tailgate parties appeared to resume. Not many appeared to be in a hurry to get out. They shoveled left-over plates of food into their mouths and some reignited the flames on their grills.

What was my final impression of my first NFL game? Chaos. From our entry into the parking lot, until our exit onto the freeway. Pure chaos! Was it an impressionable experience that I will never forget? Certainly! Was it worth $700 to bring my family here? Maybe. Was it the quintessential activity that I would love to do every Sunday? Absolutely not! Maybe once every few years. Sure.