Football Widow Not Thrilled With Hubby

[AU Tailgating Rules 0]

Georgia football foul for Moms

Is it fair for 'hardworking' husband to spend weekends on sports? Why can't 'game day' be family friendly?

By Theresa Walsh Giarrusso |

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It's great to be a Georgia Bulldog.

Yeah, it's great to be a Georgia Bulldog - if you're not the one home alone with the kids.

My husband's season football tickets to our alma mater mean he gets fantastic Saturdays in Sanford Stadium with his best friend reliving his college days.

I know Michael works hard and deserves down time. However, if I said he had to take care of the kids for eight hours while I went shopping every Saturday, you better believe we'd have some problems.

I used to be included in these glorious game days. We would tailgate and cheer on the Dogs together.

But after our first child arrived four years ago, my season ticket got transferred to my husband's college roommate. The only game I ever attend now is Homecoming.

Two seasons ago, I decided to take the 2-year-old and 5-month-old to visit a girlfriend in Athens during a game so I wouldn't feel so left out. We drove over with my husband and his friend and dropped them off by North Campus. I was later told that wouldn't happen again - the kids had ruined their buzz.

Last season, I had completely had it by the fourth consecutive home game. The house needed repairs. I had a terrible cold, and I just needed a break from the kids. I begrudgingly took Michael to a garage to pick up his car so he could head east to get trashed on Jack and Coke and bark like a dog.

As I drove home with the babies in their car seats, listening to the Disney's Greatest Volume 1 album for the 900th time, cussing my husband, Mark Richt and the whole Bulldog Nation, I got pulled over for speeding.

As much as I want to be included in the game-day experience, I'm not quite ready to commit to the eight-hour odyssey that my husband turns each game into. He arrives early, drinks, eats and then stays late to sober up. Even if I was ready to devote that much time to a game, I'm not willing to spend $9 an hour for a babysitter.

Even though I don't want to root against the Dogs, the better they play, the worse I get screwed. Game days turn into game weekends. When they're winning, Michael wants to follow the team around the Southeast. And of course there is always the exciting annual drunken call from Jacksonville after the Florida game. (I put my foot down this year. He stayed home - and ignored us while he watched the game here.)

On the rare occasion that the whole family goes, there still are problems. The University of Georgia insists all children, even infants, pay the full adult ticket price. However, it does very little to make the experience family friendly.

Drunks spew profanity and tobacco juice. Newer ticket holders like us are stuck in the hot sun. There is no place to take kids to cool off except the concourse at the top of stadium, which is full of smokers and drunk sorority girls stumbling around in their stilettos.

There's no official stroller parking inside or outside of the stadium, which makes it tough to get my 31-pound 2-year-old to the game. There also is no decent place to nurse. One year, a paramedic took pity on me and let me sit in the back of his ambulance to breastfeed and change Rose.

I don't really want to go to every game, as much as I just want to tailgate in Athens. If the university wants to make even the littlest Bulldogs welcome, it would open up the Ramsey Student Center to season ticket-holder families. The kids could play in the air-conditioned gym during the game and the moms could chit chat.

I can't imagine the preschoolers could do more damage than the college students.

Comments

By Dave the Dawg

October 28, 2005 08:49 AM | Link to this

Could you be any more whiny and selfish? Let the man enjoy a few Saturdays each year! You're lucky he hasn't left you yet.

Now go change a diaper and fix your husband a sandwich and bring him a Jack and Coke.

By stop whining

October 28, 2005 08:53 AM | Link to this

And I am sure he whined until you had kids. Get real lady. You summed up your argument in the last paragraph...you want to sit around and "chit-chat." Save it for the bridge club, this is football. If you don't like it, as others have said, hire a babysitter. But, I am sure YOU are the buzz-kill.

By Captain James T. Kirk

October 28, 2005 08:59 AM | Link to this

Madamme, your husband is likely out chasing women who are not crazy.

By Sad but true

October 28, 2005 09:09 AM | Link to this

Poor, poor man. A grand total of 6 home games and you've got to bend him over a barrel for going to Athens. 6 Saturdays out of the entire year. Get a hobby, find a friend , or here's a wild idea, go do something with the kids.

By Waaaah!, Waaah!, Waaaah!

October 28, 2005 09:13 AM | Link to this

Wow, your husband gets to go to the game without you?! He must be living right.

My wife insists on going with me, complains about how early we leave for Athens, complains about the lack of parking, complains about the heat, complains about the drunks, complains about my drinking, complains about what I eat, complains about our seat location, complains about the crowd, complains about the ticket prices, complains about the concession prices, complains about Larry Munson and then wants to leave early to beat the crowd.

Do us all a favor lady, and stay home. Better yet, divorce your husband, take your kids and move up north of the Mason Dixon line where they've never heard of college football. Maybe you'll find some gonad impaired husband who spends his every waking moment making sure you are comfortable and entertained.

By Mark Richt

October 28, 2005 09:24 AM | Link to this

Theresa,

Shut-up and get your whinning butt back in the kitchen!!!

Mark

By mike

October 31, 2005 08:46 AM | Link to this

want some cheese with that wine? shame on the AJC for printng this crap...

By brent

October 31, 2005 08:51 AM | Link to this

What editor approved this idiotic story. Why don't you run a story about the % of men lined up outside Lenox Mall the day after Thanksgiving.

By Joe

October 31, 2005 09:58 AM | Link to this

You Bulldogs are some quality people, huh? How many of your cars are on cinderblocks? While your husband's at the game, what are you cooking - possum or squirrel? Go Jackets!

By GAHATA

October 31, 2005 12:26 PM | Link to this

WAAAAAAHHHHH!!! Grow up loser. Let the man have his Saturdays. Women should be at home raisin the young uns!

By leon

October 31, 2005 01:00 PM | Link to this

I sure am glad I'm not married to you!

By GEORGIA97

October 31, 2005 01:13 PM | Link to this

Look ladies, there are 6 home games a year so that's a measley 6 Saturdays out of 52 that your husbands want to themselves. You wanted the kids, you don't want to work for a living, so shut up and let the bread winners have a little fun just 6 times a year. Go play Bunko or have a tupperware party!

By James

October 31, 2005 01:21 PM | Link to this

The whinning wife must be from North Fulton or Dunwoody. Get a grip lady, it's just a few lousy Saturday's and after the season is over you have all the other week-ends to ride around with your cell phone planted to your ear driving your SUV like the world owes you and your little darlings a living. Married to you, the poor guy needs not only a few football games but I'd throw in a couple of lapdances at the Cheetah Club. I'd be introducing you as my first wife.

By Jason

October 31, 2005 01:27 PM | Link to this

Funny thing is, I now call a women who started acting like this, my first wife.

[WarTim 3,456]

Just one question.....Would Jenny's corndog qualify as a "Football Widower"?

[Jenny AU-92 0]

Just one question.....Would Jenny's corndog qualify as a "Football Widower"?

Carl will tell you flat out that when it comes to sports, he is the luckiest man in the world. Football, baseball, and golf without a whimper at our house. From GameDay to the end of the last PAC-10 game on the Left Coast, and all day Sunday and even Monday night, the TV is focused on one thing.

Our current deal is that when the Auburn game is on, he deals with any Katie issues, and vice versa when the LSU game is on. For the Auburn - LSU game - we hire a sitter.

The only bonus he gets out of the whole kid thing is that he has an automatic post-game designated driver when I am pregnant or nursing.

I get this woman's point tho - it gets on my nerves when I can't have as good a time at football parties because when Katie is there, I have to be in Mommy mode because he neglects his Daddy jobs. We have a huge Super Bowl party every year and I don't think I have seen 5 minutes of any one game because I am forced into total hostess mode while he kicks back on the couch with a brew. But you'd better believe that if I was the one forced to stay home and miss out on season tickets because WE had kids, then there would be some SERIOUS issues at our house. It sounds like she got default mode - oh, we have kids and a babysitter is too expensive, so guess you are the one staying at home, honey... I DON'T FREAKING THINK SO...

[otterinbham 0]

This reminds me a lot of a discussion I had once with my wife about six years ago. I only go to one or two games a year. The rest of the time I watch Auburn on the television. Once when we were playing Vanderbilt on Jefferson Pilot, I could tell she was getting mad over some unspeakable offence. So I opened another beer and just kept watching the game. She started slamming around things in the fourth quarter, barking at the kids and...well, you know the drill.

So the game ends and I stroll out in the yard. And she proceeds to let me have it with "We've got all these things to do and you're watching a football game half the day, and....."

I calmly stopped her by slowly raising my outstretched palm to her and replied,

"Dear, I don't hunt. I don't fish. I golf twice a year, three times tops. I don't have a weekly poker game with the boys. I don't go out drinking and carousing. All I ask for IS ELEVEN OR TWELVE LOUSY FOOTBALL GAMES A YEAR, AND IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THAT, THEN LET'S RETHINK THE 3 OR 4 GIRLS TRIPS YOU TAKE EVERY YEAR BECAUSE, HONEY, YOU COME OUT WAAAAAAY AHEAD IN THE LEISURETIME DEPARTMENT."

Then I calmly walked out to the garage, picked up the rake, and began working on the chores she needed done.

Funny. She's never begrudged me a single Auburn game since. Methinks that Theresa needs to get a clue.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

I feel sorry for the woman. Her husband is an ass.

[saniflush 0]

This reminds me a lot of a discussion I had once with my wife about six years ago. I only go to one or two games a year. The rest of the time I watch Auburn on the television. Once when we were playing Vanderbilt on Jefferson Pilot, I could tell she was getting mad over some unspeakable offence. So I opened another beer and just kept watching the game. She started slamming around things in the fourth quarter, barking at the kids and...well, you know the drill.

So the game ends and I stroll out in the yard. And she proceeds to let me have it with "We've got all these things to do and you're watching a football game half the day, and....."

I calmly stopped her by slowly raising my outstretched palm to her and replied,

"Dear, I don't hunt. I don't fish. I golf twice a year, three times tops. I don't have a weekly poker game with the boys. I don't go out drinking and carousing. All I ask for IS ELEVEN OR TWELVE LOUSY FOOTBALL GAMES A YEAR, AND IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THAT, THEN LET'S RETHINK THE 3 OR 4 GIRLS TRIPS YOU TAKE EVERY YEAR BECAUSE, HONEY, YOU COME OUT WAAAAAAY AHEAD IN THE LEISURETIME DEPARTMENT."

Then I calmly walked out to the garage, picked up the rake, and began working on the chores she needed done.

Funny. She's never begrudged me a single Auburn game since. Methinks that Theresa needs to get a clue.

I like your style on this one!

[Draven 0]

Comments seem a little harsh to me, the lady is just expressing that the University makes it a little difficult for a family with young children to spend a weekend in Athens. I agree with her on the part about opening the gym to season ticket holding families, the parents get to buy tickets support the university but have a good safe place for the children to play. Charge the families that want to take part in the program more money to cover cost of finding the staff needed to supervise the youngsters. Obviously insurance and liability on the universities part may be something of a concern to this idea I am not sure how all that would work. I don’t have children but I have seen a number of 5-8 year old kids just running up and down the concourse and stadium steps in JH. This “gentleman” in the article and I use this term loosely, should be a husband and father first and foremost. I have never met a bigger Auburn fan than my father (TruAubFan), I swear if Auburn does anything he wants to be there to cheer them on, from football to competitive riding and everything in-between. Than never stopped him from going or doing anything when I was growing up, I grew up in Trussville so it was only about 2 hours to Auburn from my home so it would not have been a far drive . I can remember playing little league football and baseball, he would be at the ball park from sun up to sun down each saturday helping my team and any other who needed it Auburn game or not. School events or events with my sister recitals and such, he never missed him or my mother. It was not because my mother wouldn’t let him go or anything like that, he loved Auburn and everything to do with the city, school and teams but his family always was first.

[johnwegl 11]

I feel sorry for the woman. Her husband is an ass.

What? The only thing he's guilty of that would make him an ass is being a UGA fan.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

I feel sorry for the woman. Her husband is an ass.

What? The only thing he's guilty of that would make him an ass is being a UGA fan.

It sounds as if he expects her to be his personal babysitter. While otterinbham had a point with his wife getting her 3-4 girl's weekends and such, it doesn't appear that he reciprocates by watching the kids and giving her a break:

However, if I said he had to take care of the kids for eight hours while I went shopping every Saturday, you better believe we’d have some problems.

He didn't want to make it a family affair because it "killed his buzz."

He doesn't just want to drive over and watch the game and tailgate a little. He turns it into an all-day marathon every home game and sometime on road games.

I don't begrudge anyone wanting to watch their team's game on Saturday or even go to some games. But I can't imagine not wanting my wife with me. I realize I'm lucky in that my wife is a huge AU football fan. If she wasn't, I could content myself with watching a few of those games on TV or not feeling the need to turn every game into an all-day or all-weekend beerfest. Or I'd make darn sure that she got a few Saturdays to herself while I watched the kids to thank her for letting me enjoy the games. It doesn't sound like that guy really cares as long as he gets to get plowed with his buddies. It's called priorities and it's called being a husband and father, not just the resident male.

[quietfan 233]

Seems like a simple compromise here.

First: For every football Saturday he spends in Athens, she gets the equivalent amount of cash and time away from the kids while he babysits to do with as she pleases, which she can use at her convenience/schedule including, as otterinbham suggests, overnight trips with her girlfriends if she so desires.

Second: The chauvinist a%$holes that responded to her story with real venom spend one day in hell living in her shoes for each football Saturday she had to endure before the compromise with her husband took effect.

[Oh, and buy him a portable breathalyzer so he can be truly sure when he "stays late to sober up", and perhaps some extra life insurance to protect her and the kids when he ignores the breathalyzer and drives anyway.]

[otterinbham 0]

This reminds me a lot of a discussion I had once with my wife about six years ago. I only go to one or two games a year. The rest of the time I watch Auburn on the television. Once when we were playing Vanderbilt on Jefferson Pilot, I could tell she was getting mad over some unspeakable offence. So I opened another beer and just kept watching the game. She started slamming around things in the fourth quarter, barking at the kids and...well, you know the drill.

So the game ends and I stroll out in the yard. And she proceeds to let me have it with "We've got all these things to do and you're watching a football game half the day, and....."

I calmly stopped her by slowly raising my outstretched palm to her and replied,

"Dear, I don't hunt. I don't fish. I golf twice a year, three times tops. I don't have a weekly poker game with the boys. I don't go out drinking and carousing. All I ask for IS ELEVEN OR TWELVE LOUSY FOOTBALL GAMES A YEAR, AND IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE THAT, THEN LET'S RETHINK THE 3 OR 4 GIRLS TRIPS YOU TAKE EVERY YEAR BECAUSE, HONEY, YOU COME OUT WAAAAAAY AHEAD IN THE LEISURETIME DEPARTMENT."

Then I calmly walked out to the garage, picked up the rake, and began working on the chores she needed done.

Funny. She's never begrudged me a single Auburn game since. Methinks that Theresa needs to get a clue.

I like your style on this one!

Well, I think she was shocked because I NEVER raise my voice. It's happen twice in our marriage. The instance I just cited above, and the time she blew the IRS refund money that we had slated to pay off some bills. Other than those two times, I'm about as mild-mannered as they get.

[TitanTiger 20,499]

Lost in all this was how bammers can find an obscure blog and manage to show their behinds even if they have to go off-topic to do it:

By James

October 31, 2005 12:44 PM | Link to this

It is a waste of time to watch UAG football….real men watch real football teams, like ALABAMA ROLL TIDE, best in the SEC, undefeated and they did what the Dawgs couldn’t do, stop Florida. Roll Tide Roll. You smilin’ big, aren’t you Bear?

By BAMA RULES

October 31, 2005 01:43 PM | Link to this

ROLL TIDE!!!!!! The ONLY undefeated TOP 5 team in the SEC!!!!!!!!!

Choke on that DAWGS.

Dont worry crylady, your husband will be at home with you for the SEC Championship Game as the CRIMSON TIDE plays the FLORIDA GATORS AGAIN!!!!!!

Go GATORS! Bye pretenders!

Too bad they didn't see the impending doom coming on the horizon. 11 sacks later they weren't crowing about SEC titles anymore.

[Draven 0]

Too bad they didn't see the impending doom coming on the horizon. 11 sacks later they weren't crowing about SEC titles anymore.

Karma >noun (in Hinduism and Buddhism) the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as affecting their future fate.

That should explain it, get to boastful get brought back to earth in a hurry. If your Brodie you get brought back to earth over, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, and over again.

[WarTim 3,456]

I would just like to add that My Lovelly Bride has FIRST option on one of OUR season tickets. IF she decides, for whatever reason, that she can't/doesn't want to go, THEN JayDubb is the lucky winner!

For most of our girls childhood years, we took them with us and we split the Mommy/Daddy duties. I am, as I have stated before, married to the greatest woman on earth!

[big dude 0]

WarTim, I'm with you.

Although I don't have season tickets (yet), I purchase my tickets on e-bay (at an "inflated rate" most of the time). My wife truly roots for me to win them every single time. A little background on my lovely bride:

To say the least, she came from a "sports handicapped" family. Two sisters (one a twin to my wife), a doting mother and a workaholic father. Sports was the LEAST of their concern. Ever.

In my family, I played football and baseball all the way through HS, ran track for a number of years as a child and had a brief (and traumatizing) stint in the world of basketball. Through most of my formative years, my father was both my football and baseball coach. Both sisters cheered for a number of years. Mom supported all of us until she was blue in the face and broke in the pocketbook. Sports were a constant in my house.

When I met my wife, she had been in the band in college at the University of Memphis. That was the ONLY reason she had EVER been to a football game. Ever!! (Can you imagine?)

Now, I'm VERY, VERY proud to say that she sits RIGHT next to me at EVERY Auburn game I can get to, and she somehow sees every game on TV through to the bitter end, even when my hat and the TV remote have flown across the room innumerable times. She's TRULY become a fan and FINALLY understands where I was coming from all those years. God blessed me with her. Mrs. Big Dude totally rocks!!

[SouthLink02 8]

I am not saying I agree with him or her but I fell on the floor laughing with some of the responses. Come on, you can tell many of them are just giving her a hard time

[TitanTiger 20,499]

I am not saying I agree with him or her but I fell on the floor laughing with some of the responses. Come on, you can tell many of them are just giving her a hard time

Some of them probably were. Others were slack-jawed dumbasses.

[quietfan 233]

Lost in all this was how bammers can find an obscure blog and manage to show their behinds even if they have to go off-topic to do it:

By BAMA RULES

October 31, 2005 01:43 PM | Link to this

ROLL TIDE!!!!!! The ONLY undefeated TOP 5 team in the SEC!!!!!!!!!

Choke on that DAWGS.

Dont worry crylady, your husband will be at home with you for the SEC Championship Game as the CRIMSON TIDE plays the FLORIDA GATORS AGAIN!!!!!!

Go GATORS! Bye pretenders!

Too bad they didn't see the impending doom coming on the horizon. 11 sacks later they weren't crowing about SEC titles anymore.

It's doubly funny because not only did his beloved Tide go down the drain, but let's see...who DID end up representing the East and winning the conference last year? Yep, those DAWGS really choked on it.

[TigerHeat 9]

WarTim, I'm with you.

When I met my wife, she had been in the band in college at the University of Memphis. That was the ONLY reason she had EVER been to a football game. Ever!! (Can you imagine?)

Now, I'm VERY, VERY proud to say that she sits RIGHT next to me at EVERY Auburn game I can get to, and she somehow sees every game on TV through to the bitter end, even when my hat and the TV remote have flown across the room innumerable times. She's TRULY become a fan and FINALLY understands where I was coming from all those years. God blessed me with her. Mrs. Big Dude totally rocks!!

Ditto for me! My wife was a spoiled only child, and she'd never been to any sporting events (how plebeian!)

However, now that my son and I got her to a few home games to see AU she's gradually become a fanatic! She's so far gone now that this spring she came outside to wash the car in her brand new home jersey sporting #12. My poor son just about fell out....we didn't know she'd bought it! Why #12? "He's the cutest guy on the team".

Now she goes to the games or watches them on the giant Tigervision TV we bought for the games we can't attend due to my boy's football games. She has finally figured out the "our guys go that way, and their guys go this way" thing. She loves Toomer's Corner and all things AU now. Her college didn't have anything like the traditions that Auburn has given us. Thank God for it, too.

Of course, I have to reciprocate...like taking her to all the obscenely boring Egyptology exhibits that I've endured over the years....

War Eagle!

[Jenny AU-92 0]

I also have to say that I don't understand why any child under the age of 2 has to have it's own ticket. If I am holding a 4 month old baby, it's butt is not taking up a seat. I figure they would try and make pregnant women buy two tickets...

There could certainly be better ways to make the games more family friendly. I can't wait to take Katie to her first game, but what if it was at LSU that year? Yikes!!!

[CCTAU 3,333]

We are all assuming this guy is a jerk based on the word of is "womderful" wife. Now he may or may not be, but we have not heard his version. This woman may get the best vacations, drive the best cars, shop at the best places and generally have a great life. If you were to ask my ex-wife to describe me, it would be a lot different than my lovely bride describes me. Am I the same guy? YES. Its just that some people are so focussed on themselves that they cannot see anything else.

This is a one-sided story where we assume the side telling it has given us a correct perspective.

[Bottomfeeder 244]

I also have to say that I don't understand why any child under the age of 2 has to have it's own ticket. If I am holding a 4 month old baby, it's butt is not taking up a seat. I figure they would try and make pregnant women buy two tickets...

There could certainly be better ways to make the games more family friendly. I can't wait to take Katie to her first game, but what if it was at LSU that year? Yikes!!!

The ticket thing is just another example of how greedy the state really is. As for LSU, I would never take a young child to that stadium.

Georgia football foul for Moms

Is it fair for 'hardworking' husband to spend weekends on sports? Why can't 'game day' be family friendly?

By Theresa Walsh Giarrusso |

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

On the rare occasion that the whole family goes, there still are problems. The University of Georgia insists all children, even infants, pay the full adult ticket price. However, it does very little to make the experience family friendly.

Drunks spew profanity and tobacco juice. Newer ticket holders like us are stuck in the hot sun. There is no place to take kids to cool off except the concourse at the top of stadium, which is full of smokers and drunk sorority girls stumbling around in their stilettos.

There's no official stroller parking inside or outside of the stadium, which makes it tough to get my 31-pound 2-year-old to the game. There also is no decent place to nurse. One year, a paramedic took pity on me and let me sit in the back of his ambulance to breastfeed and change Rose.

I don't really want to go to every game, as much as I just want to tailgate in Athens. If the university wants to make even the littlest Bulldogs welcome, it would open up the Ramsey Student Center to season ticket-holder families. The kids could play in the air-conditioned gym during the game and the moms could chit chat.

I can't imagine the preschoolers could do more damage than the college students.

Not only should they open Ramsey Student Center, they should also install a big screen for the mothers and children to watch so they don't miss a thing, if they choose to. If not in the main auditorium, then they should do it in a classroom or three. Most every state resident pays enough taxes to allow for family related actives with no need for wealthy psychologists/psychiatrists/sociologists to get involved. The divorced rates in this country are high enough without the freakin' state making it worse. It sounds to me like the state of JAJA needs a serious ### whoopin'.

Two seasons ago, I decided to take the 2-year-old and 5-month-old to visit a girlfriend in Athens during a game so I wouldn't feel so left out. We drove over with my husband and his friend and dropped them off by North Campus. I was later told that wouldn't happen again - the kids had ruined their buzz.

What a thankless ###hole. That guy needs to grow up, IMHO. Stop getting drunk and be thankful that he can have children, b/c there are couples who cannot and must find other reasons to keep on going. Some have even lost their children. We all know how God deals with those who take others for granted, don't we? Let's hope this guys wakes up before it's too late.

[Wishbone 0]

My wife would be too smart to sass me on a game day, however I would probably be too drunk to do anything about it anyways.

[wegle1 0]

I'm just glad I don't have to worry about a husband on Saturday wanting MY ticket. I had the pleasure of informing my new boss today to not expect me on home game Saturdays. I have had season tickets for 11 years and I don't plan on giving them up anytime soon.