August 30, 2007 was a day that I had a big epiphany. I was in my first week of college and was so naïve. I had no idea that everyone wasn’t just like me (outside of course of the obvious, i.e. my being better looking, smarter, more charming, and funnier). I was walking around with a smile the size that Tiger would get, when he knew, he was about to “tap it in” with the latest breakout star of Back Door Sluts 9. The weather was warm, the southern California sun was shining as bright as ever, and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. As I was patrolling around campus, I noticed that everyone else didn’t have the excitement that I had. Most were trudging around campus sulking, most likely at the fact that for some reason they just found out that showing up to class wasn’t all you had to do to earn an A at a private university. (Side note, seriously grade whores suck. Just because you were a Straight A student at your local public high school, where your teachers “just knew you were going to do great things” because you understood subject/verb agreement and knew the inner-workings of a 5 paragraph essay, does not mean you deserve an A in every class in college. Seriously, if you think you deserve that, let me give you the best piece of advice you will ever get in two words, Communications Major.)
I asked my roommate why everyone wasn’t excited. Half-hoping that I was going to deliver an incredible punch line because at this point in our relationship, we were only going as deep as insulting each other while playing video games or telling each other jokes and funny stories, he simply responded, “Excited about what?” I told him, “Only the single best day of the year outside of Thankstaking of course!” He responded, “Oh sorry, I didn’t check Facebook, Happy birthday dude! Let’s celebrate.” I said, “No, No, No Dude, it’s not my birthday. It’s the start of football season today. 3 games tonight, a few tomorrow, and too many to count on Saturday, not to mention the special Sunday games and Prime-Time Monday games! It’s the best week of the year! This must be what it feels like to be Jewish, a little present everyday!”
My roommate looked slightly startled as he responded, “Dude I didn’t know the NFL started tonight. I have to go make sure my fantasy team is set.” The stare that I gave him and the silence that followed afterward were more deafening than listening to the entire Ke$ha album on repeat (Side note I seriously pray to everything that is Holy that she only has one album).
“Dude, seriously?!? First, the NFL doesn’t start until next weekend, so your fantasy team can wait. Actually though, I’ve seen your roster, and I would strongly suggest that you go find someone who knows less than you do about football and work some serious trades seeing as you still have time. But most importantly, tonight is the kickoff of College Football, the single greatest game that God has ever given us. It has it all, history, pageantry, coeds, excitement, coeds in sundresses, I could go on…about the coeds.” He looked very confused and just said, “Dude no one cares about college football out here. Just look at the football stadium.” Confused, I replied, “We don’t have one. We just have a soccer stadium.” I immediately regretted saying that as I now saw his point, and felt like an idiot.
The worst part of my revelation was that I now realized what every Saturday of the next four years was going to be like. I and maybe the occasional other southerner at the school, would be sitting alone watching football all day while everyone else was off doing other things. There would be no one else to talk smack to or ridicule because his barely literate star just showed that he really has no business being in college save for the fact that he can play football well, which apparently he can’t do either. There would be no house watching parties with people dressed up simply to watch a football game. There would be no weekday afternoons listening to call-in shows talking exclusively about what happened last Saturday. There would be no one whom I could impress by regurgitating every stat, random fact, and/or key play possible because simply no one would care. Sure I knew going to school all the way across the country in California was going to be different, but I never saw this coming. This was during the mid/late 2000’s when USC seemed like they would be ranked number 1 every year (That is until they would lose to some 4-8 team in the middle of the year then at the end of the season would gripe that they ran the table of perennial “challenges” like Arizona, Oregon State, Stanford, and the always formidable Notre Dame, combined I don’t think the rosters had 10 players sub 4.4, and deserve to be in the Championship Game, but they won’t be because there’s an East Coast Bias. I am so glad those days are over. How’s that post season treating ya lately men of Troy?). I figured the biggest difference would be the fact that I would have to actually defend the fact that the SEC was the best conference year in year out, and that our champion every year deserved an automatic invite to the Championship game because the SEC was just that much better. I was actually looking forward to this. Especially after the 18 years of misery and ridicule that came (and still does) with being an Ole Miss fan. I now could go on the offensive and actually win an argument. I couldn’t wait to lay it on some surfer bra.
But, that wasn’t the case, and even worse, no one even cared enough about Pac-10 football for me to argue with. I’m not sure what Hell looks like, but I guarantee you that was worse.
But, this year it’s different. I have now graduated and moved on to the next chapter of my life (unemployment and back living at home). Though my $200,000+ education hasn’t lead me immediately into that $100k/year job I was promised, I am happy. For, I know today will be the best day of the year (again outside of Thankstaking). It is the day college football starts. The Rebels are still undefeated and once again have yet to lose a party (at least that will still be in tact the whole season). Though I know my Rebels won’t contend for anything (at least on the field) again and this year will be yet another season I will watch knowing that there’s a better chance of my becoming Katy Perry’s 2nd husband than us making it to Atlanta, I am still happy. No, not because A&M will be in the SEC West next year, which means we will no longer be the only team from the West not to have gone the SEC championship game, but rather because on Saturday, I will smell the sweet smell of the Grove: the smell of meat on the grill or chicken in the bucket, the smell of delicious baked goods and side dishes, the smell of lukewarm cheap beer in a solo cup that for some reason seems to make it always taste just a tad better, the smell of a Coke that seems to have a hint of bourbon (ok mine will have a lot of bourbon but seriously how else am I going to forget the fact that there’s a decent chance we could lose to a group of guys that believe in the afterlife they will get a house filled with his wife(wives) and kids? If you ask me, that kinda sounds like Hell, but to each his own.). The food will be laid out on china far too nice to be used at a pregame tailgate. I will see the girls decked out in their Sunday best just to watch a football game (depending on the girl this can easily be replaced by a solid Quarter and a half of football, a respectable number considering she didn’t leave the Grove until Half Time). As I pass the time until game time by watching games on TV, I will hear the band warming up in front of the stage (Side note, I hate every student who continually yelled “The South Will Rise Again!” during From Dixie With Love. That was my favorite tradition during the games dating back to the first time I remember hearing that at my first game when I was 2. Seriously y’all suck. That song was amazing, and now it’s gone. I hope you’re proud of your heritage or whatever BS excuses you gave for saying something that wasn’t even a lyric in the song, and thus ruining it for everyone else.). Then at promptly an hour before kickoff, I will head to the stadium to sit in the same seats that I have sat in since my dad first got his season tickets in 1995. During the game, I will still stand, pace in the aisles, bite my nails, yell as if someone is actually listening and cares to hear my stern opinion of his athletic talents or lack thereof, curse every missed tackle or errant throw, change seats to end a cold streak on offense or defense, and give everything I can to my team. Why? Because that’s what a fan does. That is what being a Southerner on a Saturday means. It’s just who we are. Down here the school is interchangeable; Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, Tennessee, LSU, Arkansas, whatever your team might be, it is the same everywhere, just with varying degrees of success. My team chooses to be philanthropic and gives other SEC teams the wins that are so hard to earn. We're a hospitable bunch in Oxford.
There is a reason why the Number 1 rated radio show in the country is a call-in show out of Birmingham that preys upon the fact that in the South, we kind of have a problem when it comes college football. Sure, we might be crazy, but seriously I challenge any non-college football fan out there to show me something he/she loves as much as I love Ole Miss football and Ole Miss athletics in general FYI, you won’t win. I once went to an Internet café at midnight in Austria (For Mississippi State people that’s in Europe, not down under where there are Kangaroos and Bar-Bs) while all my other friends were out “studying abroad” just to listen to the radio broadcast of a game against a directional Louisiana school. Game. Over.
The lull between the BCS championship game and Labor Day weekend seems to get longer every year. Sure, you can pass the time rallying behind the Basketball and Baseball teams, but deep down everyone knows the truth. Football is king. Sorry Blair, I love you, but I would sacrifice the baseball program in a second if it meant a championship in football. I think virtually everyone would agree. But the wait is over, football is here, and I for one am as giddy as Rex Ryan in a room full of bare feet.
My name is Jeffrey, and these are my thoughts.
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