On Monday night, my Stanford Cardinal defeated the Virginia Tech Hokies 40-12 to win the Discover Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. Some of my classmates took their talents to South Beach to attend the game in person, while others were already back on campus watching in downtown Palo Alto's sports bars. I, unfortunately, had booked a flight from New York to San Jose weeks before I knew that Stanford would be in the Orange Bowl on January 3 (at that time, it seemed like it was New Years Day's Rose Bowl or bust for the Cardinal). Luckily, though, I was scheduled to fly JetBlue, and if all went according to plan I'd be spending the last three hours of the six hour flight watching Stanford dismantle the ACC champions via the airline's DirecTV feed.
After an utterly inexcusable and completely unexplained three hour delay, I boarded my flight just after the opening kickoff. Much like the game itself, my in-flight viewing experience was a tale of two halves. Similar to Stanford's first half performance, JetBlue's DirecTV was extremely inconsistent during the Orange Bowl's first two quarters. Each time the audio cut out, a Stanford lineman would miss a crucial block. Every time the video feed dropped while searching for a satellite signal, the Cardinal would have a defensive meltdown. When the obnoxious European woman sitting next to me decided she needed to get up to use the bathroom ten minutes after takeoff (climbing over me and my aisle seat in the process), Andrew Luck threw an uncharacteristic interception. I watched the first half in a frustrated and uncomfortable trance, knowing that Stanford, and the JetBlue DirecTV broadcast, was severely underperforming.
The second half was an entirely different story for both DirecTV and for the Cardinal. With the plane at cruising altitude, the video and audio feeds went undisturbed from halftime on, and my European neighbor slept quietly throughout the remainer of the flight (perhaps she went to the bathroom to pop an ambien or something, because she was out cold for five consecutive hours folllowing her walk). As the viewing experience settled into a rhythm, so did Stanford. Suddenly, Luck was unstoppable, the defense was impenetrable, and the team cruised to its first BCS bowl victory and an almost-guaranteed Top 5 finish. In the end, the in-flight viewing experience and the on-field performance matched each other quite nicely and, if nothing else, provided me with an interesting response to the "Where were you when Stanford won the Orange Bowl in 2011?" question, in case someone ever asks me.
While watching your team play in a BCS bowl game during a cross-country flight is far from ideal, at least I got to see (most of) the game live. I always try and fly JetBlue because of its superior in-flight entertainment options, and I recently learned that the airline now has NFL Sunday Ticket as well. I'd rather not have to watch a big game that I care about on a flight again any time soon, but I wouldn't mind watching the Broncos battle the Jaguars to pass a few spare travel hours. Thanks, JetBlue, for letting me enjoy Stanford's Orange Bowl victory and for getting me back to campus safe, sound, and three hours late.
BONUS: Once back on campus, I went to Maples Pavilion (Stanford's basketball stadium) to welcome the football team back to campus on Tuesday afternoon. I had seen this on TV dozens of times before - coach buses pulling up to campus in front of thousands of cheering fans - and was excited to finally experience it in person. Not at all surprisingly, though, the Stanford "fans" disappointed; the crowd was extremely sparse and the "press conference" was short and unemotional. I've said it before and I unfortunately think I'll say it again, but Stanford sports fan are shockingly weak. It makes Andrew Luck's decision to return to school for his red-shirt Junior season all the more surprising.
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