JamieUMBC

Walking in the Commons between the Bookstore and the Flag Court, I looked up at a large poster and my eyes became fixated on this sight:

My heart raced and my imagination exploded with visions of Saturdays spent at UMBC Stadium, cheering on the Fighting Retrievers football team. Without stopping for even a moment to consider family commitments or mortgages, I envisioned spending countless hours and untold treasure on what would surely become the focal points of my future autumns. In my mind’s eye, I could easily see the enraptured alumni, gathering in the parking lots to tailgate and celebrate the arrival of football at UMBC. It had happened at Stevenson, and now it was happening here!

And then, as quickly as the dream could be dreamed, it was just as certainly shattered as I read the rest of the banner:

It was all a promotion for open positions at the Office of Residential Life. There would be no football team, no Saturdays spent on campus in mad delirium, no suddenly galvanized alumni flooding the campus each Fall at Homecoming.

Yes, one day I dreamed a dream of football, but it was only that – a dream. But even if I only lived it for a moment, the dream was sweet indeed. And as I walk our campus now, I still can hear the roar of the crowd echoing in my ears, as if calling to me from beyond the hills across the Loop, tantalizing me with what might have been. And what might still someday be.