While it may not be entirely clear in the picture above, that beautiful motion 'W' is not only carved into a pumpkin, but the work of my own doing. Nevermind that the motion 'W' trends to the left and mine seems to be trending right. I was never the best at art.
In fact, as a kid, I only drew athletes - usually Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Emmitt Smith, or Deion Sanders. I also had an affinity for basketball cards. So I drew my own basketball cards, and put myself in a Bulls uniform.
Pumpkin carving was never an integral part of my childhood Halloween doings. Eating candy, particularly of the chocolate, nougat, and caramel variety, and shivering my ass off in the rain are my two fondest Halloween memories.
So when my girlfriend approached me and not asked, but told me we were going to carve pumpkins, I scoffed like Lou Piniella after one of his pitchers bunts the third strike foul. I learned from various people over the years that relationships are all about sacrifice. Sacrifice the small things and make sure that the big things, as long as the big things aren't destructive, remain a part of your life. Two hours of my time and a general dislike of the color orange and the Cucurbitaceae family fall into the 'small things' category.
It's probably a good thing I didn't carve pumpkins as a child. I would have given up within the first five minutes. It's surprisingly hard work. After about 30 minutes of digging and scraping what looked like shredded cheddar cheese, I was able to finally hallow out the thing. It came as a surprise to me that there wasn't a couple of Chilean miners buried under all the seeds and orange rubbish.
No, that's not what UW students threw up at two in the morning after celebrating the victory over Iowa. That's all of the insides we dug up.
To back-track, we actually did the pumpkin carving after UW pulled off a 31-30 road win that had me feeling how I assume Mark Dantonio felt after the Notre Dame victory. Not quite that bad, but I'm pretty sure my heart was beating irregularly for the better part of that night.
I had planned on carving out the motion 'W' all along, but should have thought the timing through a little better. What if Wisconsin had lost? A real, more than likely possibility. I might have just smashed the pumpkin in the street myself while a group of stoned and jealous twelve year-olds stared from across the street.
But I underestimated Bret Bielema's coaching and our punter, Brad Nortman. It's not often that a punter decides a game, and when they do, it's in a fairly indirect way. For instance, they repeatedly pin the other team within the 15, making them march down a long field the entire game. Rarely can you put your finger on one game changing play, and the punter is right in the middle of the action.
Down 30-24, and approaching the six minute mark, fourth and four, and Bielema decides to dial up a fake punt. It's calls like this that remind me why I'm not a head coach. I'd watched the entire game, noticed that Iowa was basically sending one man to rush the punter and dropping the rest back. I never thought to put two and two together and call a fake. Bielema did and it was a brilliant call. Nortman scampered for the longest seventeen yards of his life before he slid to the grass, avoiding contact. And boy did he get down fast.
Wisconsin would convert another fourth down on the drive en route to a Montee Ball one yard touchdown run to give his team a one point lead. Ball was the unsung hero of this game. The offense was without their two most explosive weapons, tight end Lance Kendricks, and freshman running back, James White almost the entire game.
Ball was the forgotten man in the backfield that has primarily consisted of Clay and White since the Big Ten season began. He stepped up, particularly in the passing game, catching five balls for 41 yards.
That's the motion W I cut out of the pumpkin, which unfortunately, looked better than the pumpkin itself. Now it's decomposing in a landfill somewhere.
When two teams are as evenly matched as Iowa and Wisconsin are and have been over the years, sometimes it takes a trick play to gain an advantage. I wonder if Bret Bielema is getting his Hawkeye tattoo converted into a Badger as we speak, laughing at Kirk Ferentz's time management.
As far as the pumpkin, it's not doing so good. The hanging pieces of the pumpkin (spaces in between the W's columns) have began to curl up and resemble Doctor Claw gripping his armchair. It's OK. In a few days I'll leave the pumpkin outside and let the stoned teenagers do what they will with it.
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