Logan Rizal is a first-year international student from Indonesia studying exploratory business at Michigan State University.
When I left Indonesia for East Lansing, I didn't know much about MSU beyond one particular thing: sports and athletics are a huge part of the experience. So, when the season opener finally came around, I knew I had to be there, even though I had never watched a football game in my life. I did not know a single play, let alone a single rule.
Since my mom was still in town, we didn't sit in the student section like most of my friends. Instead, we ended up in public seating, surrounded almost entirely by MSU alumni. I thought I would feel a bit out of place, but it turned out to be exactly where I needed to be.
I ended up sitting next to Steve, an MSU alumnus who was there with his son. Once he found out it was my first football game, he started explaining things to me — the rules, what was actually happening on the field and even some of the traditions I had never seen before. I probably asked way too many questions, but he was patient with every single one and seemed genuinely happy to explain it all. It made the whole experience so much more enjoyable because instead of just watching people run around without understanding why, I started to follow what was happening.
By the end of the first half, I wasn't just watching football anymore. I was starting to actually get it. And somewhere between all the explanations, I ended up talking with a few other alumni sitting nearby, swapping stories about what MSU was like for them and what it's been like for me so far as a brand-new student. It didn't feel like small talk with strangers. It felt like being welcomed into something.
That's when it hit me why people talk about college football the way they do. It wasn't really about the score or even fully understanding every play by the end. It was the roar of the crowd during a big moment, the marching band pulling everyone into the same rhythm, and the traditions that clearly meant something to the people around me, some of whom had been coming to these games for decades. It was loud and grand and full of energy I hadn't felt anywhere else on campus yet. For the first time, I understood that this wasn't just a game people watched. It was something people belonged to.
What stuck with me most, though, wasn't football itself; it was Steve, a stranger who didn't have to spend his Saturday teaching a confused first-year student the rules of the game but did anyway because that's what being part of this community seems to mean. Even though I had just arrived at MSU, everyone around me had something in common simply because we are Spartans. Meeting Steve and the other alumni around us gave me something I hadn't expected to feel: there was no sense of distance between a new international student and people who had graduated decades ago. It felt like being welcomed into a community.
I walked into that stadium not knowing the rules of football. I walked out understanding something bigger: Being a Spartan is not only about being a student at Michigan State. It is something that connects people across different generations.
