The DirecTV show Friday Night Lights has a way of making every high school football player seem so altruistic, soulful and misunderstood, but that’s not how Mumbling Matt Saracen (which is to say, actor Zach Gilford) found the jocks during his own college days in Evanston (which is also his hometown). From the Daily Northwestern (H/T to @JimmyTraina.
Were you a fan of NU football while you were a student here?
Gilford: Growing up, I was a big NU fan. Then I got here, and I met a bunch of the players, and they were jerks. They weren’t good that year, so I was like, “Well, you’re not good and you’re not nice, so I’m not going to root for you.” But now that I don’t know them anymore, I root for them because I pretend they’re nice.
Can’t say that I have anything to add to this, as I don’t recall any Wildcats football players trying to work at WNUR in the late ’80s. I did, however, take freshman Spanish class with Academic All-American PK Ira Adler. He seemed nice (and probably got a better grade than me).
As a native of Evanston I’m hard pressed to think of a single soul from the town who “was a big NU fan” as a kid. I won’t deny carrying a rooting interest for them these days, but looking back it’s kind of astonishing that one can grow up literally minutes from Big 10 football and have it make so teeny of an impression. My impressions, such as they are, are of meaningless September afternoons at Dyche (without a ticket) seeing NU getting womped by the likes of UNLV and Fresno State in front of a couple dozen embarrassed looking alums. And of Lee Gissendanner looking kind of tired once at the Burger King on Orrington. NU football, I suppose I’m saying, seemed more like a curio than something worth getting behind. Although I left prior to the Autry/Fitzgerald Rose Bowl team, and that could have easily changed the dynamic.