http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/football/article/0,1426,MCA_478_4864216,00.html My Football South By Ron Higgins July 23, 2006 Ron Higgins has been covering college football for 28 years. On the eve of the 2006 season, he explains why Southern college football is a year-round -- and intensely personal -- subject. With apologies to the Turner South network and its "My South" promotion ... IN MY COLLEGE FOOTBALL SOUTH: A mixed marriage is an Alabama alum married to an Auburn alum, or an Ole Miss alum to a Mississippi State alum. We don't think we invented college football, we just believe we perfected it. It's cool for women to call the Hogs and for men to bark like Dogs. An RV is considered a fall vacation home. It's an honor to be arrested for trying to tear down a goalpost. It was the most people I had ever seen. It was the loudest noise I had ever heard. I'd never actually seen drunk people before. And Grandma, why is that live tiger in a cage sitting next to the bench? Welcome to my introduction to college football, way back in November 1962. I went to a game in LSU's Tiger Stadium between LSU and TCU, won by LSU 5-0. Funny thing is, after all these years as a sportswriter -- 28 and counting -- I've never seen another 5-0 football game. But what I remember of that night is something that gets me revved up every year, something that gets me through the dog days of summer, into preseason practice and finally another season. It's the passion. We like our other sports in the South, but we love college football every day of every year. We love the pregame parties, the games, the postgame parties, the Monday morning breakdown of the game at the office water cooler, recruiting season, spring practice, summer workouts ... it goes on and on. In the South, we probably can't tell you the exact date of when man first walked on the moon. But we can tell you that a Georgia freshman running back named Herschel Walker ran over a Tennessee defensive back named Bill Bates. We can tell you it was Dana Moore who kicked the game-winning field goal for Mississippi State when the Bulldogs snapped No. 1 Alabama's 28-game win streak in 1980. We can tell you former Alabama quarterback Joe Namath's middle name is Willie, that former Ole Miss coach Billy Brewer's nickname is "Dog," that Alabama beat Tennessee and Peyton Manning the exact number of times that the University of Memphis did (once) during Manning's career and that Steve Spurrier is the only person in SEC history to win the Heisman Trophy as a player and later guide a team to a national championship as a coach. Once college football in the South grabs you, it never lets go. It recruits you from the cradle. My 12-year old son Jack is an LSU fan, his friend Sam is a Memphis fan, another friend Alex is a Tennessee fan, another friend Brad is an Arkansas fan and another friend Evan is a Florida fan. They settle their differences by playing each other on the EA Sports NCAA College Football video game. College football in the South also keeps you feeling as spry as a spring chicken. Consider my dear late English grandmother, who lived to be almost 100 years old. She was kept going by two things -- hot tea and following her LSU Tigers. Thank the Lord her tea time never interfered with kickoff. In my college football South: Archie Manning is forever scrambling and giving LSU fits, Billy Cannon never quits weaving 89 yards through an Ole Miss kick defense and into immortality on a humid Halloween night, ol' Larry Munson can't stop screaming "Run Lindsay Run," Bear Bryant still looks fashionable in his houndstooth hat and the Majors boys never quit dancing through defenses in the crisp Saturday afternoon sunshine of Neyland Stadium. Beautiful coeds never age, even 30 years after graduation. Once a Southern belle, always a Southern belle. Roll Tide, War Eagle, Hunker down Hairy Dawgs and Geaux Tigers are acceptable substitutes for hello. Pregame parties are almost as good as the games themselves. It's not unusual for season tickets to be a major point of contention dividing property in divorce proceedings. No one south of the Mason-Dixon seemingly gets tired of talking about college football. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, Southern college football fans sweat wins and losses, blue-chip recruits who commit and de-commit, who's going to be the second-team right offensive tackle in spring practice and whether an incoming recruit has academically qualified and is attending summer school. It's why radio sports talk shows in the South consider themselves fortunate. They have a built-in, 365-day-a-year topic. "If I want the phone lines to light up and get more calls than I can handle, all I have to say is something like "Tim Tebow is going to give Chris Leak a run for his money as Florida's quarterback,' " said former college assistant Max Howell, whose daily three-hour show "Max-ed Out" is heard in 70 markets across the South. "You won't see that type of response in Kansas City or St. Louis." Those places have long been pro markets. And perhaps that is part of the secret why college football is still king in the South, despite the influx in the past 40 years of pro sports teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL and major league baseball. "Passion has always run deeper in the South for college football, and I think it's rooted in the fact there was always a lot more to do at other places around the country," said Marvin West, former longtime Knoxville News-Sentinel and Scripps Howard sports editor, who was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame on Thursday night. "For the longest time, there were no professional sports in the South, and college football was the game. It was in every Southern town." West said he recalls going to a UCLA-Southern Cal game in Los Angeles, and being stunned by the lack of enthusiasm at a rival game. "There were 33,000 people in the stands and nobody cared," West said. "Tennessee could play North Texas and tickets would be scalped. It's that way all over the South. Look at the size of the stadiums. "It's more than the game. It's the pageantry. It's the bands." Jackie Sherrill, who was a head coach at Washington State, Pittsburgh, Texas A&M and Mississippi State, said that college football in the South is deeply woven in the region's fabric of life. "It's a social setting, since people plan all year for those 11 or 12 weeks," said Sherrill, who was born in Oklahoma and raised as a Sooners fan, but who played for Bryant at Alabama. "It's like a religion. It's like being a Catholic, or Methodist or Baptist or Presbyterian or Jewish. If you're an Alabama fan or a Florida fan or an LSU fan, you are true to that team always. You have an unshakable belief, a faith. "And college football in the South may have done more than anything else to advance race relations. I played on an Alabama team that was the first to play an integrated team when we played Nebraska in a bowl game." In my college football South: Five-star dining can be on a grill under a tent in The Grove, a spread of hors d'oeuvres on a white table cloth on a boat on Lake Loudon or next to a crawfish boiler in a Tiger Stadium parking lot. A cowbell is a fashion accessory. Football stadiums are considered cathedrals, and it sure costs a lot more these days to sit in those pews, doesn't it? You always find a way to get one of your buddies, Jack Daniels, into games undetected. Sunday is a day of worship and reflection, meaning you pray your head coach gets fired because you've been obsessing why he never changes his predictable offense. Nobody is happier to start a college football season than head coaches. For some, it's the anticipation of a new year, a fresh start. That feeling never wanes, no matter how many years a coach has been in the business. "If you don't get jacked up at this time of year, you shouldn't be coaching," said Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, who has been involved in college football as a coach or a player for almost 40 years. "There's a sense of anticipation. You can feel it around the office. You can see it in your players. "It's a new team and a new year. Last year is history. You've got new players excited about their first time in a college uniform. You've got veterans who can't wait to get back at it." For many coaches, it's the relief of finally having daily contact again with their teams. Since NCAA rules prohibit coaches from having any sort of practices from the end of the spring semester to the start of the fall semester, coaches sweat through roughly two months hoping their players don't get into trouble off the field. "In June and July, coaches are the best deep-sea divers in the world," said Pete Cordelli of Memphis, a former head coach at Kent State and former assistant at such locales at Notre Dame, Minnesota and Arkansas. "Because every time their phone rings late at night during those two months, they hold their breath." Those coaches know a phone call could mean a player arrest. Or a car accident. Or worse. "The summer is a scary time of year," Alabama coach Mike Shula said, "just because there are so many things that can happen out there to kids ages 18-to-22 on college campuses." That's why it's a relief to start practice, to know where your players are. They know this is what they work all year toward and so does the head coach. "For all the things that go into being a head coach -- the recruiting, the administrative work, the academics, the public relations -- the thing you live for is the season," Fulmer said. "You live for those Saturday afternoons in the fall." In my college football South: January means bowls, February is signing day, March and April is spring practice, May means preseason magazines hit the stands, June is hoping your star player doesn't get arrested, July is for buying a new cap for the season, August is preseason practice, September through November is bowl bliss or bust and December is firing and hiring of new coaches. It doesn't even matter if you live don't in the South. Once you become a Southern college football fan, forever it follows you. This past week on a vacation to New York City, I walked in Ben Benson's, regarded as the best steak restaurant in the Big Apple. "There's a guy you've got to meet," restaurant manager Jimmy O'Brien told me. "He talks about college football all year. He's my bartender, Mark Moody, he's from Tennessee and he's a huge Vols' fan." O'Brien introduced me to Moody, and the first thing he said was, "Do you think (David) Cutcliffe has helped (Erik) Ainge? And did you see where that kid (signee Ramone Johnson) is eligible?" Yes, in my college football South, there are no boundaries. -- Ron Higgins: 529-2525
Thanks Tailback, that's a good article and pretty much describes how us football fans in the SEC operate. And it's nice to read a positive article.
Good read, it's the same here in Texas even though we don't consider ourselves "Southern", we're Southwestern...you know cowboys, cows, rattlers and mexican food! Terry
Great read...thanks TB! I agree about the passion. That's what makes college football so great and so much better than the NFL...IMHO. The South certainly has its share and it makes watching SEC games on TV tons of fun for us outlanders. My only disagreement is with the guy who claimed that he went to a USC-UCLA game where there were "33,000 fans who didn't care." I guarantee you that fellow has never been to a USC-UCLA game. The game was played exclusively at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum from UCLA's football birth in the 1930's until the 1980's, when the Bruins moved to the Rose Bowl. I've never seen a game between those two schools which wasn't sold-out and the Coliseum has had seating arrangements of from 103,000 to 93,000. If that guy went to a game with a crowd of only 33,000, then he attended a game before WWII when UCLA was a brand new school... I attended my first USC-UCLA game in 1972. My Irish buddy and I sat in the middle of the USC student section down in the first row near the field and what we observed was shear mayhem. The USC students were out-of-control crazy, drunk, and spoiling for a fight the entire day, beginning several hours before the game, to several hours after. The Coliseum itself is surrounded by fraternity houses and Bluto Blutarski would have felt right at home in any of them. USC is a private school for spoiled juvenile delinquents who can't get into more respectable universities and the campus police simply corral them into different areas. It would be impossible to arrest them all. The frat animals had control of entire streets and would play drunken games of chicken with any cars that dared to enter their turf. A student would run full tilt, right at the car which was moving toward him, then hit the hood with his hands and flip over the roof of the car and land on the other side without getting killed... Inside during the game, 101,000 fans screamed obscenities at each other for nearly four hours making it difficult to hear the bands. Students from our section repeatedly escaped onto the field in an announced attempt "to kill the bastards", only to be returned to our section by the friendly campus drunk-herders who were posing as security guards. There were fights at the snack bars, food fights in the stands, and more f-bombs dropped than I've ever heard at a football game. It was a near riot from start to finish, with several fights on the field and the players taunting each other during the TV time-outs. We're talking real hatred here. No fun time, good sport cheering: real hatred. Nope. That fellow has never been to a USC-UCLA game... ...........JO'Co
8) I did some research to determine if there was any possibility of anyone going to a USC-UCLA game with an attendance of 33,000 and the answer is...no. UCLA began life in the 1920's as the "South Branch of the University of California." It played some club football until the early 1930's, when it came into its own as both an academic and athletic independent power. Here are some typical old attendance figures for the USC-UCLA game that I was able to find: 1954.......102,548 1947.......102,050 1945.......100,333 UCLA's average attendance for all games in 1940 (before WWII) was 50,123. Typical USC-UCLA attendance in those days was 98,000+. If that writer actually saw a USC-UCLA game with an attendance of only 33,000 he would have had to have attended a game in the 1920's when the Grizzlies (Bruins) played club football. He's lying... ............JO'Co
yup <t>I really enjoyed that, but JOCO caught the same thing I did. I long to take El JOCO to an SEC game. As someone, like me, who enjoys college football but just doesn't care two hoots about which team wins it is something to behold. The sheer passion day in and day out for SEC football is amazing. It truly is different. Its the same passion that is shared by other programs, but top to bottom, they are all that nuts for their teams in the SEC.<br/> <br/> However, and this is a big one, he is lying about that USC-UCLA game. I'll go as far to say as he's never been to one, let alone taking poetic license on the numbers.<br/> <br/> I've met exactly 4 southerners who have attended SC-UCLA games. All 4 are fairly well to do financially and make it a point to try and attend 'the big games' that are played around the country. Just football nuts like the rest of us really. Anywho, each of those 4 were surprised to see just how barbaric that jihad is. You can catch USC or UCLA at any other time of the year, and that guys comments MIGHT be reflected in the crowd. However, not at a game for the bell. No way, no how. If I had his area code, I'd call him on it.</t>
8) That writer forgot that Southern California used to be exactly like the Deep South: there were no pro sports teams here. The Rams didn't get here until the late 1940's and the Dodgers didn't get here until 1958. Before that time, there were plenty of decades for the USC-UCLA rivalry to settle into the bitter affair that we know today, because those two schools were the only big-time show in town. Another thing that the writer is unaware of, is a group of people known as "Angelenos." They are the real natives of Los Angeles who were born and raised there. They're a minority now, but there are still millions of them (this is a big place) and they are among the most obnoxious human beings on the face of the earth. They're the ultimate "Homers" and they regard everything from out of town as being from a different planet. They even have their own peculiar accent, which you don't hear much anymore. Mayor Sam Yorty was an Angeleno and he was typical. He pronounced his home town as "Los Ang Glus" so that no one would confuse it with any of those Mexican sounding names like San Francisco or San Diego. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev visited here in the 1950's, Mayor Paulson tried to prevent him from landing at the Los Angeles Airport and the LA City Council passed an ordinance urging Disneyland to bar him from attending there. (They did.) As someone who was born in another state, but raised here among these true-blue, homie-patriots, I can assure you that they were/are stone-crazy and that carried over into the only sports entertainment that they had here for decades. It was in this cauldron, that the Rose Bowl and the USC-UCLA game became the Grand-Daddies of them all... BTW- Happy Birthday Corey... .........JO'Co
8) Further research shows local high school games in the old days with attendance around 33,000... All-time Orange County record: 32,808 when Anaheim beat Mater Dei, 12-7, in the AAAA semifinals at Anaheim Stadium in 1966. All-time Southern California record: 41,383 when Anaheim tied Downey, 13-13, in the CIF championship game at the L.A. Coliseum in 1956 (Mickey Flynn vs. Randy Meadows). The largest crowd for a game that I played in was 17,500 for Damien vs. Bishop Amat in 1967... I also attended several high school games in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's at the Coliseum, Anaheim Stadium, and the Rose Bowl where the attendance was more than 30,000...
Thanks for all the history, very interesting. As to High School, when I grew up in Miami we had three big high schools and we played our games in the Orange Bowl. Thanksgiving day was the big Miami Edison - Miami High game. In spite of the fact that Miami High dominated the series, Edision didn't win the first time until 1952, the Orange Bowl was largely filled. I don't have the number but believe it would get in the 40,000 and above range. Nice to hear from you Corey. I sent you an e-mail a couple of weeks ago and didn't hear back. Did you get it?
Some of the biggest crowds in Houston were always for the marquee black schools before intergration. Booker T. Washington and Jack Yates High Schools always played on thanksgiving to huge sold out crowds that filled old Jeppesen Stadium (Oilers played there for first 4 years of their existence). The down side of integration is that game no longer means much. In fact alll the old black powerhouse schools in Houston are pretty much non-factors as the black community has moved out to suburbia. Terry
8) Another thing that guy said was, "It's that way all over the South. Look at the size of the stadiums. " When UCLA was drawing over 50,000 per game in 1940 and USC was drawing even bigger crowds than that since the 1920's... were there even any Southern schools that had stadiums that big? Southern ignorance of Western football still astounds me...
as one of those natives <r>i assure you that JOCO speaks the truth. while my father's side of the family is a transplant, my mother's family goes back a ways. i forget how many generations deep of a SoCal that I am, but let me assure you, there aren't many caucasians that go back that far who are natives. as crazy as it sounds, and as much as i like living here in the south, its all bullsh*t to me if it isn't SoCal.<br/> <br/> i'm sure none of you here will agree with me, aside from my mother, but then again we wouldn't expect you to or even care <E></E><br/> <br/> Thanks Dad.<br/> <br/> btw- a fun southern aside, there is a real rivalry between alabama and mississippi high school football. not a lot of big games played, but a whole lot of debate. both states produce a ton more talent than you'd ever think two states of this size would. neither can agree, or even acknowledge, that one may produce more/better than the other.<br/> <br/> the crowds aren't that big because, quite frankly, there aren't that many people. but the football is real good.</r>