“Oh. Wow,” ESPN tweeted the second the New York Giants defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. Although thousands were watching their televisions, ESPN summed it up in just those two words.
Across the Baker University campus, there were some diehard fans with their eyes set on a victory and not the commercials, which filled the time between plays.
Sophomore Dom Reiske is a Giants’ fan who celebrated the victory.
“I started being a Giants’ fan starting with Tiki Barber in fifth grade,” Reiske said. “He played the same position as me.”
Reiske spent his Super Bowl Sunday at the Delta Tau Delta fraternity house surrounded by his fraternity brothers, including Patriots fan junior Cody Kabarrubias.
Kabarrubias, who is from Boston, has been a fan of the Patriots all his life because it is his hometown team.
In the last few moments of the game, Kabarrubias was hoping the Patriots would pull something together and come out with the ring, but he said there were a lot of dropped passes and he “thought the boys had a little more in them.”
“To be honest, it was heartbreaking. They were doing well all season,” Kabarrubias said.
Being next to a Giants fan during the end of the game did not help.
“(Reiske) was going crazy. I just fell to the back of the room and walked out,” Kabarrubias said. “I congratulated him later on.”
While most students on campus had the opportunity to watch the game, one group was missing out.
“We had a wrestling tournament,” junior Jarid Price said. “We had to wrestle all the way through it. We missed the whole thing.”
The Wildcat wrestling team was in Marshall, Mo. during the Super Bowl, competing in the Missouri Valley College Open.
Price said the only way anyone knew what was going on was when people were checking their cell phones and receiving delayed score updates. He was excited the Giants won, but had his mind on wrestling since he could always watch replays of the game.
Price doesn’t regret being at a wrestling tournament during the Super Bowl, though.
“Nationals is coming up and it’s worth missing the Super Bowl for,” Price said.