Emory students hail from all over the world, bringing with them their own diverse cultures and identities. The Class of 2020 alone includes students from 48 states and 78 countries, according to Emory News Center. Some students are thousands of miles away from home, and some are experiencing a culture completely alien to their own.
I didn’t travel thousands of miles for move-in day, and I don’t have to hop on a 13-hour plane ride to return home. I came to Emory from a small town in East Tennessee, about 270 miles from Atlanta. Sure, I had to make the adjustment from living in a town with a population of a little under 4,000 to a bustling metropolitan area like Atlanta, but let’s be real — the Emory bubble isolates most of us from the city. The “hey y’all” and sweet tea culture holds true across the Tennessee-Georgia border.
To me, the craziest — and maybe even only — cultural shift is how little everyone cares about football at Emory.
Of course, I knew coming into Emory that there is no football team. I think every Emory student has had a good laugh over the “Emory Football: Still Undefeated” shirts displayed proudly in the bookstore. Still, I ignorantly assumed that, like me, everyone else viewed the lack of a football team as a necessary evil, a flaw they were willing to overlook for the sake of Emory’s multitude of positive attributes.
My assumption was quickly put to rest when I arrived on campus. People spent their Saturdays doing a variety of things other than wistfully dreaming of being at a game: going to darties, volunteering in Atlanta, catching up on sleep or running a 5K.
It was strange to me at first, as someone who grew up in a region where football is followed and practiced in a borderline religious fashion. No matter where you went, you could find someone clad in an Oneida High School Football shirt. This year’s slogan read, “Faith, Family, Football: In That Order.” A majority of my town’s population showed up for Friday night high school games, and those lucky enough to afford season tickets drove the hour and a half down I-75 to Neyland Stadium to watch the Tennessee Volunteers play Saturdays. It wasn’t until I came to Emory that I even realized how much of my time and money I spent at games. Tickets, cans of bright orange body paint and dozens of pounds of hamburger meat for pre-game tailgates definitely took a toll on my bank account.
Of course, living in a city as culturally rich as Atlanta has taken a toll on my bank account, as well, just in different ways. I’ve seen a Broadway-level play performed at Alliance Theatre, listened to Twenty One Pilots perform live at Music Midtown and spent way more than I probably should have on quesadillas at La Parrilla. If Emory had a football team, I think it’s safe to say I would have skipped out on all of the amazing experiences I’ve had on and off campus so far to paint up in blue and gold and lose my voice cheering on the sidelines.
I’m not saying that there can’t be a balance; I supported my high school team when I was home for fall break, and I still stream every UT football game live on my computer. I still think football is the greatest game in the world. But now, I don’t find myself wishing for or even thinking about a football team at Emory. The absence of football culture isn’t a necessary evil, it’s an added bonus.
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