Shannon sat on two old newspapers but that didn’t help her see over the dashboard of my `84 Camaro.

So she craned her neck and sometimes propped herself on her hands, and then she could see the road.

Shannon Hoyle, my seven-year-old cousin, has never attended a college football game.

That is, until last Saturday when Iowa State played Baylor.

“Are you excited for the game?” I ask, as we draw closer to Ames. “Yeah,” she says.

All of Shannon’s answers on the ride from Hubbard are terse.

I wonder if she’s upset about the soccer game she isn’t playing this morning.

Or, it could simply be the number of questions. I remember back to second grade, riding to ISU football games with my grandpa.

He always asked questions like “Do you like your teacher? Are you getting good grades?” Or worse still “Are you excited for the game?”

I also remember pleading with Grandpa to take me to McDonald’s afterward. He never would.

“After the game, if you want to, we can stop at McDonald’s,” I tell Shannon.

We stop first at my apartment because Shannon wants to see the place.

Before we leave, I help her tie her press pass on to the belt loop on her carpenter-style blue jeans. She stares down at her white tennis shoes and pulls up her red Iowa State hooded sweatshirt high enough so I can finish tying.

Hubbard is a town of 885. Today, 44,189 people attend the game.

I take her first to the press box. Shannon eats her grilled chicken sandwich with ketchup and potato chips with dip, taking tiny bites.

By the time she gulps the last of her Mello Yello, I’ve been waiting for 10 minutes.

Still plenty of time before the game, so we go to a tailgate in the north parking lot.

I thought Shannon would be full, but she grabs a brownie while I talk with some fans.

Shannon wanders a lot as we walk to our hillside seat.

The northeast hill has enough of an incline to allow a person to lie on his or her back and see the game with great ease.

Shannon doesn’t lie down, however.

Presently, she squats like a catcher, bouncing in time with the bass drums from the Cyclone marching band.

Now she stands as the ISU fight song blares on.

But Shannon is more interested in the bazooka-like instrument shooting T-shirts into the student sections than pledging allegiance to a university.

The band leaves. The Cyclones enter. Shannon runs down to the railing.

Cyclones are thumping their fists to their chests and jumping around and possibly swearing under the deafening roar a few mere feet from Shannon and myself.

It’s too loud to talk. Shannon says nothing anyway. Just stares.

The game begins.

“Cy,” Shannon shouts. She waits for me to say she can go, runs down to him, and slaps his hand. She comes back smiling.

When Seneca Wallace throws a 19-yard touchdown pass to Lane Danielsen with 11:34 left in the first quarter, Shannon is watching the 10-year olds below us tackle each other.

There are kids running, grownups to look at, cell phones to listen to, grass to pull from its roots – there are a lot of distractions here on the hill.

As Iowa State gets set to kick off after Tony Yelk’s 26-yard field goal I give Shannon my keys and tell her to twirl them around and yell “Ohhhhh” like the college students. She curls up her nose and says, “You do it.”

Halfway through the second quarter, we get something to drink. I wonder if the game is boring her.

I slap down a five and get a Coke in a souvenir cup for her.

“Do you want to walk around some more?”

She says she does.

Shannon again walks slowly, wandering.

When we return to our grass, I’m satisfied to see only two minutes remain in the half.

With 17 seconds left, Jack Whitver scores on a slant pass from Wallace.

When the post-touchdown cannon goes off, Shannon turns to the field and raises her right fist. Otherwise she was watching the people behind us.

At halftime, she runs to the railing. Before the game, no Cyclone would slap her hand. But now, with Iowa State leading 24-0, she tells me she gets so many fives from Cyclones her arm hurts.

With 11 minutes left in the third quarter, Wallace throws a 9-yard touchdown pass to Craig Campbell while Shannon de-roots grass.

She raises her customary fist when the post-touchdown cannon fires though.

I realize how unbearably long football games can be.

I try to get Shannon to count how many push-ups the cheerleaders must do after the score, but soon, she’s back to her grass.

With one minute left in the quarter, Shannon stares at me a second longer than normal. I take that as my cue.

“Shannon, do you wanna go?”

“Where?” she says.

I smile.

The final quarter begins. Thank God.

“Can we walk around?”

“Yeah,” I say.

We take a seat three rows from the top of the balcony on the southeast side.

After she buys a frozen lemonade, Shannon and I walk through the vending masses again. I point out Cy, walking around too.

Unimpressed this time, Shannon gives him a wave and a nod, like she’s known him for years. I ask her if she wants to go to the press conference.

She says she does and I wonder if she’s being polite.

McCarney says it was a “well-played football game” and Seneca Wallace had a “great performance” and next weekend’s opponent, Nebraska, “is in a class by themselves in college football.”

“What did you think of that?” I ask.

Shannon shakes her hand, scrunches her face and says “Good.”

Later, at McDonald’s, over a cheeseburger Happy Meal, I ask, “What was your favorite part of today?”

“I don’t know.”

“If you had to pick one part, what would it be?”

Shannon stops mid-french fry and thinks it over.

“Probably going to your apartment.”

Paul Kix is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Hubbard.