Saturday was my last Badger football game as a student. Noting the occasion, I took a little extra time to walk around Camp Randall and the surrounding neighborhoods to take my last glimpse of the notorious pre-game revelry.

With the best Badger team I’ve had the pleasure of watching in five seasons, the spirit was has high as I’ve seen. Older tailgating alumni, younger redneck partiers, current students and the mixed bag of fans who make Regent St. bars their Saturday haunts were all anticipating a great game and a good time. Heck, the Gophers were in town, and the Axe was on the line.

Minus the good game, the 38-14 blowout offered me my last sight of the student section. Like most fall Saturdays these last three years, I was up in the press box. I haven’t sat in the student section since 2002, and for the first time I genuinely felt I had missed out on something.

I understand that for many students, Badger games are less about football and more about drinking, cheering and losing yourself in the thrall of red and white. For me, however, the game was always why I went. I dealt with the idiotic cheers, over-served fans and unorganized student seating just fine. It was all a necessary evil to see some of the best college players in the country, and yes, to cheer for the Badgers.

But I didn’t miss the student section when I moved upstairs. Things were better up there, and, like a king sitting on high, I looked down upon my fellow students. What I saw were a bunch of misinformed dolts who couldn’t get themselves to the game on time. There was no dignity and little sportsmanship in any of their cheering. Yeah, we all like beer, so I didn’t have much of a problem with that one, and we all like to jump around, but the eating of sh-t and shooting people like horses was all just tasteless. I was happy I could disassociate myself with that garbage.

Then last year there was all the commotion about Ohio State fans getting mercilessly taunted. Some of them even feared for their safety. These events shed a lot of light on the absurdity of Badger fandom and might even be more of a black eye on this school and city than three straight years of Halloween riots. Yes, I’ll agree Buckeye fans do deserve to be ridiculed, but threatened? Well maybe a little bit, but not enough to make them fear for their livelihood.

So in response the university “rolled out the red carpet” for visiting fans, making sure their visits went smoothly and without anything deterring their safety. There haven’t been any major complaints this season, and Saturday I even saw an older Gopher fan get on his knees and slurp down a two-story beer bong out of charity.

And I must admit, things have been different this year. Maybe it’s the way the Badgers are exceeding all expectations on the playing field, but the students do appear to be into every moment of every game. I still hear the cheers, which remain as vile and tasteless as ever. I maintain that they still shine poorly on our intelligence as a student body, but hell, it comes with the territory. I’ve learned to handle them.

So Saturday I stood up in the press box and jumped around a little bit after the student section race. I made sure to look up into the mass of students when the Badger players came by to present the Axe. You all certainly seemed elated — just as elated as the players — to have the trophy back in Bucky’s hands. I stopped for a moment to look around the whole stadium and take it all in. It had been a nice day, a great day for football. It’s been a great season, and I regained some respect for a student section I had lost all faith in.

Drew Hansen ([email protected]) understands many of you will be offended by this column. Let him know how you feel.