Everything changed, though, on a fateful pass-interference call in the second quarter. Columbia threw a deep ball over the middle. The defensive back gave a little shove, the receiver went down, the flags flew, and the home crowd (the reported 4,153 seemed about right) booed, then cheered loudly. Lucie asked me what had happened.

I told her “The Golden Pants” guy pushed down the “Light-Blue Shirt Guy” and broke the rules. She whipped her head around, mimicking the stern look her mother gives her when she’s caught smacking her little brother around.

“He pushed him?” she asked. She was ready to call The Hague.

“Yes,” I said. “And that’s against the rules.”

Lucie glared at the field, and with pursed lips repeated a line she herself had heard many times before in her own home, “We do not push.” You have never seen someone switch a sports allegiance so quickly