OSU vs. USC

This Thursday OSU upset #1 ranked USC at home in Reser Stadium. It was legen...wait for it...dary. It was definitely the biggest game I have ever been on the sideline for, but the problem was that I was so stressed that SC was going to come back and win that I couldn't relax the entire time. It was nationally televised, and that has to be the first time that I've seen the Beavs put together a big win when we're on national TV. It just never happens. We had to hustle all of our gear off the field during the last 3 mins. of the game, because the fans were undoubtably going to rush the field at the end of the game. Everything just seemed to go our way, but I guess sometimes that is what happens when you do the preparation and then go all out when it comes game time.

I was really proud of the guys, and you can't help but think this win wouldn't have been possible without some of the tough losses/learning situations against Stanford & Penn State. At Stanford we played flat, but even though we ended up losing the team showed that they had an ability to hang in there and compete. At Penn State we got a chance to measure ourselves against one of the better teams in the country. That game we looked slow and just plain 1-step behind. It was an opportunity to see what level we could have to play at to compete against the best. So now that we've got the kinks worked out, here's to a 10-2 record?

On a funnier note - I was forced to wear a noise dosimeter the entire day for the nice people at the health and safety board. They had a person from every department, Athletic Training, Equipment, Coaching and various others I'm sure that they rigged up with this ridiculous device to see how much noise we would be exposed to in an 8 hour day. They originally wanted my boss to wear the thing, but he was with the team at the hotel when they arrived and I figured I would man up and take one for the team, as the boss man doesn't much like to deal with extraneous issues on game day.
At first it worked out very well to my advantage, I told the students that they needed to be quite around me due to the microphone. It was great because we have one real chatty cathy that is always making me insane. Too bad that only lasted about 10 minutes. Things turned for the worse when my co-workers decided to try to drive up the sound levels by screaming all of their everyday conversations in the office. Another positive is that it did provide grounds for several cheesy jokes:

Co-Worker: Hey Heather, I have an idea...
Me: Oh yeah, well I'm all ears, and a microphone (turns shoulder with microphone toward person)

Co-Worker: Some random smartass comment
Me. Oh yeah, why don't you say that into the mic if you're so tough.

At the end of the day, it was all worth it though, because we beat USC!!!! GO BEAVS!!!