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sports nut: The stadium scene.

The Bulls Are No. 2!My South Florida Bulls. They're a college football team. Yes, South Florida is a real school.

By Jamie Allen
Posted Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007, at 7:10 AM ET

(Continued from page 1)

It's like this: I want respect, for once. I want a Gator alum to smarmily ask me where I went to college. And when I tell him, I want to see the dark look that passes over his face, the orange-and-blue smugness wiped away by the undeniable truth: My football team is ranked higher than his.

I think this is called "school pride." It will be on full display Thursday night, when the Bulls take on Rutgers on ESPN.

As the game approaches, I'm searching for outlets for my newfound school spirit. The other day, I was driving through my Atlanta neighborhood when I saw a guy mowing his lawn. He had on a USF shirt. I had never seen this before. Sensing a potential bonding moment with another hard-core fan, I wheeled the car over to the side of the road. The guy stopped mowing.

I shouted, "Hey, you went to USF?"

"What?" he said.

"USF! You went there! I did too!" I was pointing at his shirt.

"Oh, no, my brother went there or something," he said.

"Oh!" I said. I was still excited, because I was only one person removed from someone who went to USF (or something) and had a shirt to prove it.

"They're doing pretty good!" I added. The guy nodded and went back to his mowing.

I wanted to grab him by the collars of that shirt. I wanted to shake him. I wanted to look him in the eyes and say, Do you have any idea what this means?

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Jamie Allen is a writer in Atlanta.
Photograph of USF quarterback Matt Grothe by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images.
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