t was a beautiful Saturday for football. Much improved over last week’s wet weather. Much more football AND fashion friendly. While the football result was sorely disappointing (let’s just pretend that 4th quarter didn’t happen okay? Okay!), the day was still fun.
First the fashion recap, then we’ll talk about the rest of the day!
I decided to wear a light yellow Lilly Pulitzer seersucker sundress for this game. I am not sure which year (it was in the last 5 though) Mizzou decided that “gold” would be the official gameday color. I think this was a great decision since yellow “pops” so much more than black does, especially on tv. I figured since it was early September, this would be my best opportunity to wear the lighter shade of “gold”. I didn’t end up with any photos of just me in the dress taken (we were running a bit late that morning) so this photo will have to suffice. My husband has his eyes closed, but this is all about the dress, not about him right? J It’s always about the dress J. I wore a pair of tan wedge sandals, pearl stud earrings, and carried a lemon yellow purse to complete the ensemble. And of course, my favorite accessory: my tiger print koozie!
We headed down to Columbia bright and early with our friends Emily and Andrew, Andrew’s mom, and another couple—John and Emily. As we headed east on I-70, we saw quite a few other cars with gold clad fans and Tiger Tails blowing in the breeze (I assume our fellow SEC Tigers also sport these tails from their vehicles as well? I think the idea is a bit silly (is there actually a tiger stuck in your trunk?) but nonetheless, they always make me smile. We arrived and immediately headed to the downtown Shakespeare’s, where some of Andrew’s aunts and uncles and cousins who had arrived earlier had staked out a table for us. The line was out the door, so this was very fortunate. We put in our order for pizza and found our way to the back corner. Shakespeare’s is Columbia’s iconic pizza place and not surprisingly, the place was filled with alums and visitors from Georgia. There were quite a few Georgia fans in town and I enjoyed scoping out THEIR gameday style. A lot of red pants, sweater vests, and even one bow tie on the gentlemen, and most ladies had on cute tops and jeans, sundresses, and other red and black finery. I did notice there were quite a few more dresses from the Mizzou girls. And lots of shorts, heels, and blouses in gold. Quite a few cowgirl boots, and many of the dresses made from tee-shirts. I loved the people watching.
We headed to Trops next. Trops is another Columbia icon. Any Mizzou grad could immediately identify the white styrofoam cup and red straw. “Trops” is short for Tropical Liquoers and serves frozen alcoholic slushies—TO GO. Probably 98% of Mizzou grads have spent a long summer day by the apartment complex pool sipping on a “trops.” It’s almost a rite of passage and it was certainly the perfect libation on this mild and sunny Saturday. The place was also packed and we ordered and ended up sipping ours on the patio. We did notice a few Georgia fans that had apparently been tipped off to this wonderful Columbia treat. (Sidebar: interesting article on Georgia fans thinking MU fans were “too nice”)
We wandered around downtown for a bit, many of the local shops and restaurants had SEC banners and stickers in their storefronts, along with Tiger apparel. Everyone is super excited about being in the SEC and it’s so much fun to see all the spirit displayed! Andrew’s fraternity had undergone a huge facelift, so we stopped by the Beta house to check out the changes (and to check out his freshman year composite….while the remodel was impressive, the photo was pure awesomeness). It was getting closer to gametime, so we walked across campus and had an impromptu tailgate in a lot near the business school.
As far as tailgates, this was very weak on our part. Mostly because boys planned the outing. In this regard, we certainly failed in being “SEC-worthy.” So far we are batting .500 on fashion and huge strikeout in the tailgating department. We’ll plan to remedy this soon…please be patient in our rookie season.
We stopped by a couple other tailgates closer to the stadium and then went into the game. I got to help hand out pom poms/shakers to everyone in our section, which was fun for someone who used to work in sports marketing (in fact, someone told me “they should pay you to do this…” to which I thought in my head “they used to!!!” Once in sports marketing, always in sports marketing I guess!!!) The atmosphere was giddy and electric as Missouri kicked off its first SEC conference game. The stands (and hill) were packed and everyone was wearing gold (well, except for the Georgia fans of course). As we sang the alma mater at the top of our lungs and Truman wheeled around the track on the fire truck with the “Big Mo” drum pounding, it was a beautiful sight.
The game was close for 3 quarters and then Mizzou completely unraveled. Not so beautiful anymore. It was pretty terrible 4th quarter. With a couple key injuries, poor execution by our offense and the failure to stop 3rd downs, it made for a long quiet ride back to KC with our friends after the game. I have to also give credit to Georgia, who played a great game, and give their fans props for chanting “Old Man Football” (in response to the bone head comment made by Sheldon Richardson last week…touché!)
However, we still love “dear old varsity” and will always be proud to be Tigers…can't wait for next Saturday when our boys can redeem themselves against Arizona State...
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