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On behalf of KPMG, we would like to congratulate Florida State University on winning the 2013 BCS National Championship!

Way to go NOLES!

10% discount with student ID on regular-priced items store-wide

2013 BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONS FSVIEW & FLORIDA FLAMBEAU | JANUARY 9, 2014PAGE 12

Setareh BaigArts & Culture Editor

@heysetareh_

Thousands of people congesting into the Civic Center this past Monday night to cheer for the Na-tional Championship game was more reminiscent of an intimate viewing party in someone’s living room rather than an overfl owing auditorium.

Though there were mass-es of people packed into the center, the scene evoked a peculiar sense that friends were just huddling around a television screen to watch the game. Toddlers of FSU alumni and Tallahassee natives cheered alongside their college-student breth-ren. Dance battles took place across the audience between people who had never met before. Strang-ers voyaged in below freez-ing temperatures to campus just so they could be togeth-er to watch their team.

Before I entered college, watching football used to remind me of how masses of people gathered to watch gladiators battling in An-cient Rome. Football cul-ture to me was like human beings fi ghting to the death like savages, as a barbaric crowd cheers on their blood-shed. It was primitive and inhumane. Even up until

the national championship game, I made it a point to ignore football, despite how much everyone else cared. It wasn’t until experiencing the fandom fi rsthand that changed my perspective.

In essence, the game has no actual bearing on any fan’s actual lives. The out-come of it has absolutely no effect on an individual’s short term and long-term success. So why, then, are the deep-rooted emotions people feel towards their team so profound? Why are people so devout as to paint their entire bod-ies, road trip thousands of miles to Pasadena with minimal resources, when the outcome of the game will be ultimately pointless for them? Ancient Romans worshipped the gladiators like deities and the FSU stu-dent body nicknamed their quarterback Jameis Christ. Bobby Bowden is immortal-ized as a messianic fi gure in the fi eld of Doak Campbell Stadium.

The secret— the driving force of college football— is removed from the game entirely. Football, like or-ganized religion, is a chan-nel for human togetherness. College football fandom is essentially religious wor-ship.

The human yearning for social companionship

is universal and eternal throughout human history. Evolutionary psychologists have argued that it’s why human beings evolved into the most dominant species on the planet—because helping and interacting with one another allowed us power over the other species. A person wears a cross around their neck for the exact same reason someone else decides to wear a Doctor Who shirt, while another will do the ritualistic chop upon meeting a fellow Seminole. Each ritual is a tangible identifi er of unity to let other followers know: I am a part of your tribe. I am with you. There is a rea-son why the Florida State fandom is known for their enormous spirit—a team’s success is fueled by their tribal sense of fellowship.

It wasn’t until Monday night at the Civic Center, with thousands of other Seminoles with one ul-timate purpose, that the spirituality in football be-came palpable. Though I remain detached from foot-ball culture, I’ve come to realize that while humans simply cannot fl ourish on their own, a common bond over something—whether it’s Harry Potter or the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the Seminoles

of Florida State— offers hope for something better and bigger than oneself. It is solidarity within a school of 45,000 people.

A National Champion-

ship title and being the best team in the country will become another sa-cred holiday in our team’s history. But the outcome of the game was irrel-

evant. Win or lose, our clan will survive for as long as our unity remains intact.

For today, Seminole Na-tion is resilient as ever.

Katie Dolciato/FSViewFSU running back James Wilder, Jr. stands atop a ladder to conduct The Marching Chiefs following the Seminoles defeating the Auburn Tigers 34-31 in the BCS National Championship in Pasadena, Calif.

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