Nuts Fell On Alabama

One conclusion that I have come to at this stage of my life is that most college football fans are clinically insane in a nice way. Ground zero for most of the insanity is here in the South, where Jesus is our Savior but Football is the King. (If you want to read a good book, buy the book God and Football, by Chad Gibbs. This is a young man who convinced the largest evangelical publishing house, Zondervan, to finance his 2009 college football road trip. For this, Gibbs deserves the Noble Prize. If I had to describe Gibbs' writing style, I would say: young Dave Barry.)

The bull’s-eye of that ground zero is the State of Alabama in which there are sixty-nine (69) colleges and universities in theory. In reality, there are only two: The University of Alabama and Auburn University.

As I have said before, college football is my favorite professional sport. My fondness for college football pales in comparison to many Alabama football fans that would not jump in front of a train save their cousin, but would for a 5-star running back from Eufaula that has committed to their school of choice. Hey, cousins are a dime a dozen while a running back rated that highly doesn’t come around that often.

Many say that the University of Alabama and Auburn University are rivals. That is nowhere close to accurate. The most accurate description is: People who hate each other for various psychotic reasons.

In the South, most states have the Large University and then a school that focuses on Engineering. Here in Georgia, you have the University of Georgia being the large Land Grant University with Georgia Tech being the Engineering school.

The University of Alabama is the large land grant school in the state and Auburn, while not totally focuses on engineering is the “Agriculture and Mechanical” school of the state. UA fans do not look down their noses at AU because of that. They look down their noses at AU because UA has won a billion college football championships under the leadership of Paul “Bear” Bryant who is probably second only to Jesus of Nazareth as the most popular historical figure in Alabama.

One interesting factor in the AU v UA rivalry is that many of the fans have never stepped one foot inside their favorite school’s classroom. Many actually go to another of the sixty-seven colleges in the state.

Auburn fans can be wacky, with all of the “War Eagle” greetings that make them seem like a bunch of cultists. However, in my experience, Alabama fans tend to be the most mentally deranged. Read very carefully: I do not think all Alabama fans are crazy. Some of them are just plain nuts, Andy.

The poisoning of the oak trees at Toomer’s Corner is just an extreme example of this. First, Harvey Updyke gets upset that Alabama’s loss to Auburn. Instead of doing what most sixty-plus year old men would do (go to the bathroom and forget about it) he takes upon himself to right this terrible wrong by poisoning the iconic Oak trees on the Auburn campus as if they had anything to do with the Tide blowing a big lead.

Then he calls Paul Finebaum. Paul Finebaum has a sports talk radio show in Alabama that is about college football all the blessed time. People say Rush Limbaugh is influential. He has nothing on Paul Finebaum. Somehow, Mr. Updyke gets on the air and then he brags about his act. This leads to an investigation which leads to his arrest which leads ultimately to the “Free Harvey Updyke” website.

Now there are calls for civility and I’m surprised Sarah Palin hasn’t been blamed for it. What will happen is that all of the great college rivalry jokes will now be banned from the public square and we’ll have to be politically correct about one more area of life.

Thanks a lot, Harvey.