My fascination and desire for the 2005 college football season started about, oh, 45 minutes after last season drew to a close.

Watching the Cyclones come back from an 0-3 conference start to make a bowl had me pumped for what was in store.

Not a day went by where I wasn’t constantly thinking about college football. My three best friends are all Iowa fans, and I spent the entire spring, summer and fall fighting with them over anything even remotely gridiron related.

It was three on one all summer in my buddy Evan’s basement. I’m lucky to still be alive.

When I wasn’t talking about football, I was thinking about it. That blank look on my face during lecture – that’s me disregarding the professor and mapping out fade routes and defensive schemes in my head.

I can spout just about any Cyclone statistical figure without batting an eye, but ask me when my roommate’s birthday is and I’ll have to use a lifeline.

All that changes this week.

Thursday morning at 10:30, Cyclone football will be the last thing I will be thinking about.

Try to ask me about Iowa State’s running game or what they have to do to earn a postseason berth. I won’t even acknowledge your question. I might not even be able to tell you who Todd Blythe or Bret Meyer are.

I have something bigger and better to do.

While the Cyclones are finishing their preparations for their homecoming game against Oklahoma State, I will be sitting in a small, cramped gymnasium in the foothills of Kentucky.

Silently, several hundred young men will walk into the room and take the next step in their lives. My younger brother will be among them, graduating from U.S. Army basic training at Fort Knox.

I can’t begin to describe my pride when I talk about Jordan.

He made the decision to join the Army during the fall of his senior year of high school. He had the grades to go to college, he had the brain and the drive to excel at whatever university and in whatever field he chose.

Instead of taking the easy route and enrolling in school, Jordan made his way to the local recruiting station and volunteered to put his future on hold for his country.

And for that I could not be more proud. I’ve seen him once since he left for basic training in June, one week before his 18th birthday. I made the trip to Kentucky over Labor Day, as he was allowed off base for the weekend.

He spent the weekend telling me about the weapons he was being trained to use and the tanks he was learning to drive. I saw a confidence in his walk and his voice that hadn’t been there just two short months before.

He was on a mission. When he graduates Thursday morning, he will have proved his strength, toughness and determination – to himself and everyone else.

He will be able to call himself an American soldier, one of the few brave enough to serve and protect their country.

And to that, college football doesn’t hold a candle.

– Grant Wall is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Fort Dodge. He is the sports editor of the Daily.