Guest Post: Virginia (And Dukes) On My Mind

Jason Kennedy (aka maddukes98) won our prediction contest last week. Here’s his guest post on the life of a JMU football fan far away from the Commonwealth. 

Having been born and raised in Virginia and lived there for almost 40 years, it’s painful for a JMU alum and fan like me to be living in an area where everyone is wearing purple and gold and rooting for a team that has a dog for a mascot.  I’ll wait until you re-read that sentence in disbelief.  

However, this pain is in some ways my reality because, well, where I live now is the land of a different Dawg (not a typo).  That’s right, the Huskies of the University of Washington.   It’s bad enough I see the colors all around, but to add insult to injury, they have a canine for a mascot (but ours is WAY better!)  My family and I uprooted ourselves and moved completely across the country, from East Coast to Left Coast to a little suburb of Tacoma/Seattle called Gig Harbor, WA.  While we are completely happy about our move (except for being almost 3000 miles from our closest family and friends in the DC area), as a fan of another team also sporting the purple and gold for their unis, it can be a little bittersweet seeing all the people wearing JMU colors masquerading as UDub fans.

Seeing the purple and gold all around my community of course reminds me of my strong feelings for the Dukes and my sense of school pride, especially now that football season is in full swing.  However reality does set in and I have to keep reminding myself that this display of color is not for JMU.  It sometimes makes me a little homesick for Virginia, Harrisonburg, and of course JMU.  I am not going to lie, without the local TV coverage that I have been used to having in Northern Virginia (I know, #FirstWorldProblem), it’s been a struggle to try to follow the team this season.  I know Madizone is a great free feature, but it doesn’t cut it most of the time.  At least in the DC area I was able to watch NBCSN or Comcast Regional coverage for most of the football and some of the basketball games.   To that point, it makes me even more appreciative of Rob and Todd for continuing to run the JMU Sportsblog (shameless plug to sponsors, check).  But seriously, it’s been my primary go-to for JMU coverage including the inclusion of good discussion, analysis, and even basic updates about the team since moving.  I want to thank them for their great work – it’s an extra-curricular activity and your effort is not lost on us fans.

To try to counter all of the Husky love, I of course do my best to rep the Dukes’ purple and gold.  But again, due to our status as FCS (I had to bring it up) and thus not being in the national sports spotlight like FBS teams, many people who see my JMU attire displayed on my car, house, or me ask where is James Madison or what does JMU stand for.  Thankfully they don’t ask who James Madison is or I might have to move back to Virginia away from that kind of stupidity.  The good thing is that I have a found a few people around that have either heard of, or attended JMU or have family members currently attending.  When I do run into those folks it does feel good to talk JMU with someone who appreciates our alma mater.  

While sometimes I do wish we had the notoriety of a bigger school so as to not have to go into the whole explanation, I am definitely not wishing JMU get it via an FBS move.  At least not yet.   Good luck Coach Withers at Texas State.  That place sounds horrible.  Houston, we have a solution.  Great job so far – I know it’s only 5 games into his tenure but I like what I see so far.  Defensively we are still a little suspect but much better than years under Withers.  I also like our seemingly more balanced offensive attack than what we were used to under Mickey.  But having the #1 FCS rusher in Abdullah doesn’t hurt either.   As for the rest of the season, although we can’t take W&M lightly, at home we should win comfortably this week.  To spit in the wind of sports clichés, I will look ahead on the calendar towards our meeting with ‘Nova in PA.  That is the game we should be circling on the calendar because that is the only real challenge that I see to JMU running the table in the CAA.  Once we get the auto-bid, it’s going to be interesting to see who we draw first in the playoffs.  Then, hopefully we have the ability to put it all together for another National Title. 

As for watching the rest of the regular season maybe I just need to work a little harder at trying to find the games on a real TV.  But in the meantime, I am happy to keep following the JMU Sportsblog and keep rootin’!  Go Dukes!!