 Alumni stay warm on a 20-degree morning with food, fire, and fellowship more than four hours before Saturday's game. |
The Wabash football family chartered buses and hopped on airplanes to cheer on the Little Giant football team in their David and Goliath matchup with two-time defending national champion Mount Uniion College.
While the Purple Raiders continued their winning streak with a 45-16 win over the Little Giants, who finished 12-1, the alumni and fans cheered and sang for the gridmen until the final gun sounded.
The enthusiasm started a full week before when Wabash defeated Wittenberg 25-14 in second round play, thus earning a berth in the Round of Eight quarterfinals.
Alumni clubs in Cleveland and Columbus began working with Tom Runge, Mike Warren, Michele Tatar, and Heather Bazzani in the Wabash alumni office. Pretty soon two hotels—in Canton and Alliance—were booked to capacity with Wabash fans.
On Friday night they came by the car, bus, and RV load. Alumni took over sports bars and restaurants, generations blurring in a football frenzy.
By 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning, temperatures in Alliance had dropped into the teens. That didn't bother the Wabash faithful, who simply started their grills, lit fires, and began what has become pre-game tailgating ritual.
Hundreds of fans took part in tailgates on several parts of the Mount Union campus. Tim Kirk of Indy Anna's catering held down one side of campus, while a group of seasoned tailgate veterans anchored another side.
Mount Union students and adminstrators even joined the fun and later remarked that Wabash fan support was unprecedented.
Indeed, the Little Giants' season was unprecedented: no Wabash team in a football history that dates to 1884 had ever put up as many wins (12) as the 2002 team did. Virtually every offensive record in the books fell this year.
And not in decades has alumni enthusiasm been as strong and vibrant.
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