Pep Band legend George Weilacher has not had good luck visiting Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. On his first trip there, in 1988, he was kicked out of their stadium and arrested for drinking on the premises. A tender Second Year at the time, he had not realized Stadium Authorities would be so vigilant, and he got a little too conspicuous with his imbibing. He paid the price, but he learned his lesson well. Or so he would have claimed.
The year is 1990, the scene is the same, but George has the benefit of hard-earned experience, and he's going to be damned if the rest of us don't benefit from it as well. Commandeering the bus mic., as we roll into Blacksburg, George gives us the low-down. He tells us to be low-key, to keep all alcohol well out of sight. He describes the binocular-toting spotters Virginia Tech employs to scan for drinkers, he warns of the roaming stadium security patrols. He drives his point home with the tear-jerking tale of his arrest and ejection of two years earlier. He spares no detail. We are suitably impressed. We take his advice to heart, learning his wisdom so well that no one in the Pep Band had any run-ins with any authority that day. No one, that is, except George.
Tech always puts us in the worst seats in the house (I can't imagine why - well maybe I can think of a reason or two), in these splintery wooden bleachers way back behind the endzone, from which position pretty much none of the game is visible. Unless you were paying very close attention, you found out something important had happened by the crowd reactions, at which point you could check the scoreboard, and maybe try to get a glimpse of the field. Well, there was George, sometime in the 3rd quarter I think, carefully pouring a drink down by his feet, when it became evident that our team had scored. Being nothing if not a loyal fan, George jumped to his feet, with his hands (and, of course, his flask) high in the air. Oops.
Officers Vindictive and Humorless were on the scene in seconds, and George left with them. But as he had done two years earlier, George somehow managed to regain his freedom as well as sneak back into the stadium. I guess you get good at that after a while.