My wife and I were recently given two tickets to an Indianapolis Colts preseason football game. Since my wife, admittedly, pays no attention during games she told me to do whatever I wanted with the tickets. After much debate, I decided to take my oldest daughter. The Colts no longer had Peyton “Nanny” as she calls him, but she was still pumped up and excited to go.
We live just a couple of miles from the Lucas Oil Stadium, so it was a quick car ride downtown. I managed to find free street parking, too, and all I had to do was cross four lanes of traffic and cut off two cars to get it. From our parking spot, it was about a half-mile walk to the game. As we walked up to stadium, I said, “Isn’t this place big?” and my daughter replied, “No, dad, this place is humongous.”
After entering the stadium and taking the lone escalator up, we finally made it to our seats. As soon as we sat down, my daughter wanted food and something to drink from the concession stand. I was able to hold her off until the end of the first quarter.
During the game we spent a lot of time following Blue, the Colts mascot, as he wandered around the field heckling fans. We watched the cheerleaders (because SHE wanted to, of course) do their dances on the sidelines. We even watched some actual football.
And there were questions. Lots of questions.
Are the guys dressed in black and white the referees?
Why are the Colts wearing white instead of blue?
Is there an out-of-bounds line like soccer?
Why aren’t the cheerleaders wearing pants?
Where are the cameras that put the game on TV?
At the end of the first quarter, we headed to the concession stand as promised. After much agonizing over what to order, she finally came decided on a hot pretzel and Vitamin Water.
We walked around for a while, looking at the race cars and boats on display all over the stadium. We went up to look out the big window on the south side of the stadium the overlooks downtown. We spent a lot of time figuring out what downtown buildings we knew. We found several cameramen, which satisfied her question about how the game gets on TV.
As the final seconds of the first half ticked down, we decided it was time to head home. If I’ve learned one thing over the years involving children, it is to end on a positive note. Besides, it’s preseason football.
It was a perfect day with my daughter. She felt special because she got to go on an adventure without her brother and sister. I enjoyed an outing without a stroller and diaper bag.
I’m not sure the conversation we had about the cameras putting the game on TV completely sank in, though. When we got home we turned on the TV to watch the end of the game, my daughter said, “Dad, lets look for us at the game on TV.”
A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child. Football cheerleaders photo: ©moodboard / Adobe Stock.
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