Going Old School....

This past weekend, the Spot went Old School, and spent a good portion of Friday and Saturday at the Pacific Alumni Reunion Weekend.  Now I know what everyone's saying...."oh yet another blog post about the Spot's beloved Univ. of the Pacific"...well, I hear ya, so the Spot would like to take this post and explain exactly why he bleeds orange and black.

From when you first walk onto Pacific's campus, it just screams out, "This is what a college is supposed to be like".  The Brick and Ivy buildings, the tree lined walk ways, students whizzing by on skateboards.  The experience, my experience, at Pacific was second to none.  It was what college is supposed to be.  A time of innocence, a time of growth, turning a 17 yr old High School graduate from a town with more cows than people, to a young man ready to take on the world.

Only at a school like Pacific could one have the kind of experiences the Spot was able to experience.  Having that first serious girlfriend from that exotic and faraway locale called: West Covina.  A girlfriend who went by the nickname (to her credit one she readily claimed title to) of Lion Hair.  Sitting in your Political Science Class with one Professor Courtland Smith, where he proudly proclaimed "Beijing in the 14th Century made Venice look like....Turlock", and watching the look on his face as you raised your hand and said "ummm...professor, I'm from there".  Only at Pacific could you be sitting in your History class and have an All-American worthy Softball player sit right next to you, take her pen, and in a scene reminiscent of elementary school, mark on your arm all class long, because, well, she liked you.  Only at Pacific could you sit right under the Utah State basket as the Aggies paid the Spanos Center a visit to take on our Tigers for conference supremacy.  And only at Pacific could you be sitting under that basket, incessantly taunting Utah State's 6-8 red headed power forward, and then bravely hide behind one of the members of the Volleyball team after he'd had enough and came looking for you.  Last but not least, only at Pacific could you be about ready to start your intramural co-ed softball game,  realize that you're one girl short, and have all your teammates say in unison "Check the Phi Delt house".  Yes, we checked the Phi Delt house, and lo and behold, who comes walking out, but our missing female teammate.

Yes, Pacific was a special place, and a special time.  It's a place where we all feel like family, where we all hold a special bond, that we were, or still are, Tigers.  At Pacific we knew, we're all in this together, and we created friendships that last a life time.  At how many other schools could you still be on a first name basis with the Head Coaches for Softball, or Women's Soccer, or Professors you had 15 years ago.  Would the Athletic Director of say, Ohio State, or Alabama, have given an interview to a some blogger trying to write about the haves vs. have-nots of College Basketball?  Not unless the Spot was a million dollar booster.  But, Lynn King, while he was still the Athletic Director at Pacific, did, and the Spot was extremely grateful for his generosity.

So that, Spot fans, is why I bleed Orange and Black.  Why I'll be a Pacific Tiger until the day I day, and why, from time to time, you'll get to read my sometimes not so insightful take on all things Pacific.

Until next time fans....stay classy....