With her Noles struggling, Jenn hits the road

By Jenn Sterger

It's not even Thanksgiving, and I've already had my share of humble pie. Come football season, I am normally a "trash-talking, beer-drinking-with-the-guys" type of girl, but this year there has been far more beer drinking and far less trash talking. What else can you do when your team, which used to treat the ACC as its personal chew toy, has become a very mediocre 5-4 squad? While this record might suit most schools just fine, it doesn't suit FSU. What was once a football town with a drinking problem is now a drinking town with a football problem. Is this what it feels like to be unranked? Well ... damn. This sucks.

With her Noles struggling, Jenn headed to USF for her weekend dose of football. Photo by Gene Haines

Don't think I have abandoned my Noles, however, as I am garnet and gold through and through. I'm just a tad disenchanted with the team's performance as of late. So I needed something to lift my spirits, to renew my faith in the sport that has become so near and dear to my heart. Hell, I needed a vacation. So I hit the road.

FRIDAY

Much of my Friday was spent in a car -- four hours to Tally, four hours back. Well, more like 3-½ hours they way I drive, but who's counting? (Right, mom and dad?)

I headed up to Florida State to attend a Seminole Booster event to help raise money for student-athlete scholarships. The drive isn't an especially long one, but the stretch of I-10 is ridiculously boring. Luckily, my friend Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus radio kept me entertained along the way ... and he even got an interview out of it, too. Once in Tally-ho, I rounded up my Cowgirls and headed off to the event with our dependable bodyguard Drew Hankin. As we reached the lobby, we were met with a big bear hug from the one and only  Buster Davis. He and Drew Weatherford had been there for some time meeting and greeting fans, and the two of them were grateful just to see some familiar faces.

After hanging with the boys for a few, the girls and I made our way to main room. We hadn't been there for five minutes before I noticed I was one cowgirl short. C.J., my free-spirited sidekick, was nowhere to be found. Allison, Drew, and I combed through the mass of people looking for her, but came up empty- handed. Finally, we spotted her walking across the main floor with enough food on her plate to feed a small country.

"Ceige, you've got more shrimp on your plate than Shamu. What is the obsession?" I asked.

C.J. just smiled and continued to dance as she ate her plateful of crustaceans. Sigh. God bless her. We posed for a few pics with people before I let the girls roam the room. When Allison returned she had her hand wrapped around a plastic martini glass containing . . . a duck made entirely of vegetables. She had snipped the duck from the cheese platter at the buffet and wanted to take it home for her cat, Carter, to maul. I just smiled and shook my head. Never a dull moment with these girls.

Figuring my posse had done enough damage to the buffet table, the three of us left the party and went home. I still had the long drive back to Tampa ahead of me, and definitely was not looking forward to doing it in the dark. A little alone time never hurt anyone, though, and given my schedule for the rest of the weekend, I would need a little time to relax.