The ASU Athletic Department has spoken. And, for once, we intend to listen.
We won't bring firearms, weapons, pitchforks, artificial noisemakers, glass bottles or ice chests to tonight's much-anticipated football season opener. After all, they are against the rules.
But we will bring tortillas. You heard us right. The tortillas are back.
On Tuesday, the department issued it's annual allowable/non-allowable items list for Sun Devil Stadium games. There was no prohibition of tortillas mentioned.
For years, the school has been denying us our freedom of expression -- the freedom to show school spirit by chucking one of our southwestern pancakes onto the field after a touchdown, field goal or amazing play.
In recent years, our beloved tortillas have been confiscated upon our arrival into the stadium. Security guards also patrolled the aisles, quickly taking away any stragglers.
There will be no denying us tonight.
Tortilla-throwing is one of ASU's finest traditions. It goes right alongside painting the "A" on "A" Mountain, our tradition of having a line of exceptional quarterbacks and, of course, our gold T-shirts. In a school short on tradition, the tortillas stand tall.
No one really knows how the tortilla-throwing originated on campus. Some say that during the 1996 Rose Bowl season, ASU fans threw them in honor of Juan Roque, an offensive lineman who could pancake block with the best of them.
It could have started much earlier for all we know; perhaps with a concerned mother tossing her football-playing son a tortilla to eat while standing on the sideline bored, or from a student (who randomly had a tortilla) wanting to see just how far the Frisbee-like shape would fly.
The origins aren't important. The point is that it became an ASU tradition.
Detroit Red Wings fans throw squid. Figure skating fans throw flowers. ASU fans throw tortillas.
Salsa is too messy to clean. Tortilla chips don't fly far enough. Those round shapes of flour are clean, aerodynamic and incapable of causing bodily harm.
Critics argue that tortilla-throwing could be dangerous. They say that it is disruptive. We disagree.
It is a good, clean, fun tradition that has a special place in many fans' hearts. And isn't football about the fans? Isn't it about the atmosphere?
After all the oppression in years past, we admit that we don't know what the Athletic Department was thinking. Was it just an oversight not including tortillas on the non-allowable list? Are they actually showing approval with its omission? Could they have finally seen the light, granting us our freedom of expression?
We don't know what to expect for the rest of the season, but we do know what to expect tonight -- thousands (yes, thousands) of fans decked in gold, letting the tortillas fly, perhaps for the only time this season.
And with a loaded ASU passing attack against a depleted Temple secondary, you better bring a lot of them.
