My feet are pointed toward one endzone, my head toward the other. I’m lying on my back in the middle of the giant 50-yard-line “O” on the field at Autzen Stadium. It’s windy and chill, a quiet Monday night in late April, far in every regard from football season. But this evening on a walk, an old friend and I found the gate open, and what he calls the “big quiet” of the empty stadium drew us in.
It’s deeply peaceful here. The green turf is softer to the touch than I would expect, and from field level, the imposing stadium walls look anticlimactic, giving way easily to the wider span of the sky. There’s something calming about the ordered rows of empty seats around us. The darkening blue of the evening sky is occasionally revealed through layers of clouds moving above.
The images I carry with me of the public life of this place make this moment all the more oddly poignant. Absent tonight are the noise, the crowds, the security, the violence, the uniforms, the music, the cheers, the smells, the play-by-play, the Jumbotron, the whole circus. The stadium feels like nothing so much as an empty stage, waiting patiently to be called to its purpose.
Four more months.
