COLUMN: Selling your OU-Notre Dame ticket is just blasphemous

Alright, guys, I can only take so much.

As each Saturday approaches, my Facebook news feed and Twitter timeline become crowded with students selling their tickets to football games. And that’s fine.

It’s your ticket (even though, let’s be honest, you probably charged it to your Bursar and made your parents pay for it); you can do what you want with it.

I understand not every student who attends OU is a sports fanatic; I understand not everyone here was raised on Sooner football; and, as a “poor college kid,” I understand the convenience of having a little extra cash in your pocket for the weekends.

Some students are going to sell their tickets. I can accept that.

But I can’t accept any student in his or her right mind selling away a seat inside Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

It’s blasphemy. You just can’t do it.

You’ll be missing the experience of a lifetime, and I’m not exaggerating or speaking in hyperbole. I’m dead serious.

This isn’t a game against a storied rival that symbolized the resurrection of a program after a decade-long slump (Nebraska in 2000).

It isn’t a grudge match against a program that prevented the Sooners from winning two more national championships in the 1980s (Miami in 2007).

And it isn’t a teacher-meets-pupil faceoff for conference supremacy (Texas Tech in 2008).

This is Notre-freaking-Dame.

Not to downplay the significance of those other momentous games and what they’ve meant to the Stoops era of Sooner football, but this is different.

Here at Oklahoma, football is king. It’s the trademark by which this school is known, and like it or not, its success is what keeps it afloat.

There are only a handful of schools around the country like this, and Notre Dame is one of them. In fact, it is THE football school.

Notre Dame is to college football what Kentucky is to college basketball, the Yankees are to baseball and the Lakers and Celtics are to the NBA.

Just look at the history: 96 All-Americans, 11 consensus national championships and seven Heisman winners, according to Notre Dame’s 2012 football media guide.

Have you ever had an old relative or family friend describe a game to you from some year decades before you were born when OU played whatever team and how it was the loudest, rowdiest game ever, and they’ll never forget it?

This is that game.

This game will provide the watermark for every other sporting event — not just football — you attend for the rest of your life.

Have you ever experienced in person what millions across the country are watching on TV? Have you ever been surrounded by so much noise you couldn’t hear yourself think? Have you ever danced to House of Pain’s “Jump Around” with 85,000 people?

You will Saturday.

No matter what the outcome, you’re going to remember this game for the rest of your life. Are you willing to sell away that experience?

I hope not.

Dillon Phillips is a journalism junior and assistant sports editor for The Daily. You can follow him on Twitter at @DillonPhillips_.

Dillon Phillips

Dillon is a former staff member of The Oklahoma Daily who worked as Sports Reporter, Assistant Sports Editor and Sports Editor.