This thread, FTW.
First Gopher game was when I was in high school. I went to school waaaay up in Superior, WI. Our football coach would take the entire team to one game a year. I'm sure he picked Minnesota because it was closer than Mad-town. Our school rouser is the same as the Gophers, and our crowd chanted, "S-U-P-E-R-I-O-R, Superior! Superior! GOOOOOO SPARTANS!!" after every touchdown. That may had something to do with it as well. Anyway, I think the first game we attended was in '98, home game against MSU. TC was a stud, if I remember correctly. The next year, we attended the Ohio State game. I think we went into that game ranked in the top 25. Lost it, obviously. It was around those times I REALLY started to follow the Gophs, as I normally just followed the Twins and Vikings. A couple of Saturdays after that OSU game, I remember hanging with my mom's boyfriend, we were at a sports trading card show in a strip mall in Mounds View and we were listening to the Gophers play PSU. At Beaver Stadium. When PSU was ranked #2. You all know the story. When we kicked that winning FG, the entire strip mall erupted (everyone was sports fans, obviously). ((BTW, why can't I find a link to the highlights of this game.. EVERY site I check out that claims to have it, says either the url is forbidden or the video has expired.. I smell a conspiracy!!))
The Gophers grew on me. I remember the Final Four team, with the paid off refs and everything. I think how they seemed to be a fringe tourney team and my mom's then-husband was a huge Minnesota homer, I ended up following them because of that. The Final Four year happened and I started getting hooked.. Then a few years later my experiences with my HS football team all added up to being a Gopher fan. For awhile I didn't follow them too closely because of the WI market, but I kept tabs with family that lived in the TC and they kept me kinda in the loop.
Handful of years later, after I moved from Superior to Menomonie, WI, my huge Gopher fan uncle started pulling me and my sports loving cousins together at his cabin in Osceola, WI to watch the Gopher-Badger games. One of my cousins at that time (huge Bucknutt) lived in Madison and worked at UofW, so he had connections for tix. The 2004 Gophers @ Badgers game was my first outdoor D1 football game. Sat in the section RIGHT next to the student section. We got blown out, but still got under the students skin enough for them to start a stadium wide 'A$$HOLE' chant. Was friggin' awesome. That was the same year my previously mentioned uncle bought season tickets. He would bring me to a game or two a year as his schedule allowed, and his seats were pretty nice.. On the 45-50 yard line row 3, right behind the visitor's bench. When TCF was built and he was offered his chance to bid on his seats, he almost didn't. I talked him in keeping his season tickets, offering to split the cost with the exception I got to go to my choice of games. He obliged and to this day I attend almost every home game (typically my schedule runs that I end up missing one game a year). Nice thing, we have almost similar seats than he did at the Dome.. This time we are on the 30 yard line, behind the visitor's bench.. but we have 1st row seats. Coincidentally, the guy that sat next to us in the Dome sits right behind us at the Bank. He's also the guy that writes the Friday match ups on The Daily Gopher.
