I have a confession to make. I have no school spirit.
Although I DID enjoy my tenure at Arizona State, I only went to two games while I was there, and then only because the tickets were free. I think I left early from one of them.
It's not that I didn't like my school...I just don't feel any real loyalty there. I could've gone to any old school -- this one just happened to be 5 miles from my house and offered me a scholarship.
Last summer, I met some people with some actual school spirit. And boy were they spirited. They were so in love with Penn State, and would drop a name of some famous faculty or alumni with no provocation. It drove me nuts! For a long time, I couldn't figure it out! But it finally dawned on me: the 30,000 annual tuition. When you are paying that kind of money for a bachelor's degree, you better love your school. You better hold it and squeeze it and garner some sort of meaningful relationship, because if you don't, you may realize that you just got the same education as the girl who paid nothing to get her journalism degree from ASU. And she's even in the same summer program as you. Gooo Penn State!
So while I may not really care where I went to school, I will root for the home team and try to keep up on what's going on. Not because it's important to me, but it just feels so good to not go to owe thousands of dollars to Penn State. And that's a reason to cheer.
