It's not "good riddance," per se.
Perhaps it's just time to move on.
I looked out across the Sea of Orange on Saturday as our 12th ranked Cavs -- in what I think was the single biggest play this season thus far -- stopped the Orange on the four-yard line to maintain their 14-point lead.
And I was glad I was wearing my tie.
On my head.
In a school of secret societies, popped collars and pink pants, where tradition is sacred and "change" is a dirty word, the orange glow of Scott Stadium this season is a welcome sight.
Last year, football smelled like starched shirts and Candies perfume. We cheered "Bloody good show, chaps. Way to score some points for the U.Va. Capital, really." Bow ties and seersucker abounded.
This year football smells like sweat, body paint, blood.
It smells like victory.
This past Saturday, I saw an adorable four-year-old girl wearing an Orange Fever T-shirt sitting in the front row with her daddy shouting, "Slice his calves! Slice his calves!"
She had a Cavalier "V" on her left cheek and the word "Blood" traced in orange on her right.
Adorable. Violent. Football is different this year.
For the home opener, I scoffed at Al Groh's declaration that the tradition of "Sunday Best" at Saturday football games was over. I ironed my white dress shirt and tied my tie with a perfect dimple down the middle.
There may or may not have been jazz music playing in the background of my apartment.
But on the way to the game something took hold of me. The flood of orange T-shirts. The smell of hotdogs. The distant thunder of the marching band's drums.
Terrifying. Exhilarating. Primal.
I loosened the tie.
By this past Saturday, I was sitting in the front row, tie around my head, face painted orange, screaming at a 290-pound Syracuse tight end, "You look scared, son. Are you scared? You ninny? You little boy?"
This gentleman could have eaten me. But irrational cheers are just another symptom of Chronic Orange Fever, or COF. Neither voodoo nor witchcraft, charms nor modern medicine, offer a cure.
Don't even consider asking your doctor about Cialis.
Just submit. That's all that we, the infected, are asking. Tradition has its place. Tradition has its merits. But football is about more than tradition. It's about delving into the deepest, darkest nether regions of your soul. Crying for the blood of opponents and the glory of the home team. Chanting, cheering, pulling hair and raving like savages over the improbable flight of an oblong ball through the air.
Cheering at football games should be anything but civil. It must be brutal, crude. The English language reduced to its least common denominator. No one says you have to curse. It's welcome, but creativity counts more. So does volume. I've sat in the front row for the past two weeks, and I'm learning slowly the nuances to truly effective heckling.
"You are bad at football!" screamed loudly enough, and with enough body paint, is sufficient.
Upon realizing that the cornerback for the abysmal Akron Zips (the Zips?) was in fact named Corner, my friend Mike O'Brian shouted, "Corner, your name is the same as your position. That's silly. It's silly, Corner."
No doubt, Mr. Corner was terrified.
One particularly imaginative Cavalier fanatic yelled at another Zip (they're really the Zips -- it's pathetic), "You're fat. Stop being fat."
Do you think that his words could have been intimidating if he was wearing linen?
Of course not.
But dressed in an orange apron, wearing Cavalier oven mitts and holding a special edition Wahoo spatula? He was a chef to be reckoned with.
With a 4-0 record heading into a bye week, the average Cavalier fan must take time to reconsider the importance of every single fan's contribution to the Sea of Orange. Every part of the Cavalier football squad needs support. From big positions like Hagans and Lundy to workhorses like "Big E" Elton Brown.
Even "Flagman" (whose last name is not Flag) needs a helping yell now and then.
Flagman is the captain of the cheerleading squad. He retrieves the gigantic Virginia flag from the student section side of the end zone after every Cavalier score. He sprints to the other side of the field, waves the flag and sprints back.
Then he waves it again.
Flagman is one of the unsung heroes of Cavalier football. But second-year Eli Adler recognizes his importance.
"Flagman, I love you! Wave that flag, Flagman!"
And Flagman, who humbly accepts the cross he is to bear, waves that flag. He does his job with honor and dignity, hardly showing emotion. One can only imagine the burning love for the Wahoos that he holds in his heart of gold.
It is for the running backs, the tight ends and the defensive line that we wear orange. But it is also for Flagman, Cavman, Aquafina Man. The cheerleaders ("Throw her higher!"), the dance team ("Marry me, PLEASE!"), the Band ("I love your music so much, but please don't ever play Rock and Roll Part II again!"). We cheer for all that is football at U.Va.
In reality, football was never about dressing up. We pretended it was. Deep down, we were waiting for the day to come when we would be unified, not by pastels, but by the orange that runs in our veins.
We wear orange not to forsake our past or to forget our traditions.
We wear it to as a symbol of a new era. An era of unity, pride and shameless screaming. To appreciate that now, when we do the wave at the stadium, it really is a sea.
"Man, it's just so ... so majestic," whimpered my friend Jack as the wave made its second trip around the stands this past Saturday.
(He may or may not have smelled like whiskey.)
Join us, all who yet don bowtie and pocket square.
Become a wave in the most majestic of seas.
A-J Aronstein can be reached at aronstein@cavalierdaily.com
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