Glory to Columbus!
As a Columbus native, I celebrate just about everything unique to this fine city. However, one aspect I feel I've neglected during my 26 years of life and love for Columbus is the Crew team. Columbus has an MLS soccer (or football, for the purists) team smack dab it its own backyard--literally a 20-minute walk from campus.
This past Saturday I attended my first game in 6 years, and man how I'd missed it. We played the Portland Timbers (I lived in Oregon the last two years, so this was an uncomfortable limbo for me to exist in. But come on, we all know where my loyalty lies.) As is typical in soccer, we were tied up for most of the match. But as expected, the Crew scored in the final few minutes to pull out the win.
The Crew team has some of the most fiercely loyal fans in the entire MLS, I'm convinced. Led by fearless leader (and brand ambassador, and retired Crew player) Frankie Hejduk, they have conceived a parody of nearly every popular and unpopular song, eloquently replacing the words with some crew-related lingo (hint: "you" and "Crew" rhyme, so that really opens up a lot of possibilities). You'll find the lyrics to a few of my favorites below:
500 Miles (The Proclaimers)
I would walk 500 Miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the fan who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at Crew’s door
Call: COLUMBUS
Response: COLUMBUS
Call: COLUMBUS
Response: COLUMBUS
Da lat da (Da lat da), da lat da (Da lat da)
Yellow Soccer Team (Yellow Submarine - The Beatles)
We all Cheer for the Yellow Soccer Team,
The Yellow Soccer Team,
The Yellow Soccer Team,
We all Cheer for the Yellow Soccer Team,
The Yellow Soccer Team,
The Yellow Soccer Team
(repeat, forever)
You Got What I Need (Just a Friend - Biz Markie)
Oh baby Crew
You got what I need
And it’s never going to end
And it’s never going to end
All in all, I feel lucky to be a part of a city with a variety of activities to do on the weekends. I wouldn't consider myself a die-hard sports fan, but it is fun to always have the option to go to a Columbus Clippers (baseball), Blue Jackets (hockey), or Crew game when the mood strikes. And, I feel fortunate to have a MHRM "Crew" of my own to accompany me.