This is not my writings but something I found years ago. Enjoy if you have the time: LWS
HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE!
As many of you who have participated on this list for more than 12
months know, this is the week that I live for the whole year. It is time
for me to post my annual treatise on why I HATE THE ALABAME CRIMSON TIDE.
While many parts of this posting are carry overs from several years, I do
add new parts to this annual posting each year so I hope y'all continue to
enjoy it.
THE BAMA GAME . For me, one of my main reasons for living and
breathing as a Tennessee Volunteer Fan is so that I CAN HATE THE ALABAMA
CRIMSON TIDE. As most of you know by now, I DESPISE THEM. I really don't
give a rip about Florida. Someone asked me two years ago to write an
equivalent post prior to the Florida game. I couldn't come up with anything
more than a few sentences. Once again this year, THE GAME officially
dubbed the "Third Saturday in October" will be played on the fourth
Saturday. This game belongs on the Third Saturday in October. You know,
there was never a book written titled Fourth Saturday in October. It just
"ain't" right, and I would petition the Athletic Directors of both schools
and the SEC Commissioner to put a stop to some of this nonsense. October is
my favorite month of the year. It always has been, not just the last two
years. It is when there is a crisp coolness in the air, and the colors
Orange and Crimson splash on a field of Green. You know, I really wish that
we could do away with the silly rule that states that the home team wears
dark and the visitor wears white. This is only really necessary if both
teams have the same color jerseys. I know that as recently as the early
& 80s, UT wore orange jerseys and Bama wore their red ones. But, I digress.
I hope y'all enjoy reading (or rereading) as much as I enjoy living it. All
in all, this post is getting harder and harder to write every year. Mainly
because we have beaten Bama each of the past four years. Also, since I no
longer live there, I don't see, read, or hear as much on a day to day basis
to inflame me like it used to. However, then I start to remember 1986-1994
and it is like pouring gas on a fire.
For me, this week is HIGH HOLY WEEK and the Saturday of the
Tennessee-Alabama game is the HIGHEST of my HIGH HOLY DAYS. It is bigger
than my birthday, the 4th of July, or all of the Federal Holidays that I get
all combined. It is the one day of the year that I literally think about
every single day the other 364. Not a single solitary day goes by that I
don't somehow, some way think about the Tennessee-Alabama game. Until 1997,
I lived in north Alabama, so I saw a lot of BAMA paraphernalia. Every time
I see an Alabama Bumper sticker I think about THE GAME. Every time I see
someone wearing an Alabama sweatshirt or T-shirt, I think about THE GAME.
Every time I see the color red, I think about THE GAME. I hate the color
red. Red is the one color that refuse to wear. My wife will pick out a
shirt or a pair of shorts in a store that she thinks will look good on me.
If it is crimson or red I will refuse to buy it. My wife bought a new car a
few years ago. A red one. It is a cool car, but I hate the color. Every
time I see it, I think about THE GAME. If I pull up to a traffic light and
the signal is red, I think about THE GAME. What makes it worse is there is
usually some "bubba" in front of me with a BAMA bumper sticker. If I'm
lucky enough to be first at the light, then the idiot on the other side of
the intersection will have a BAMA license plate on their front bumper. GOD,
I HATE BAMA; Every single night when I used to watch the sports news in the
Huntsville-Decatur area, there was going to be something said about the
Crimson Tide and I would think about THE GAME. Every time I saw a
Birmingham Paper and I saw Paul Finebaum or Bill Lumpkin's columns, you
could bet that somehow they were going to work in at least one sentence
about the Crimson Tide. It made no difference that they might have been
writing a column about equestrian or water polo. There was a restaurant up
the road from where I worked where I often had lunch. They had a picture
of Paul "Bear" Bryant on the wall behind the cash register. I would see
that DAMN PICTURE, and I immediately thought about THE GAME.
For me, BAMA not Florida, is Tennessee's nemesis. Tennessee and
Bama already had a series record long before Florida students knew how to
spell the word "football". I HATE BAMA's GUTS. I HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON
TIDE with every word I speak, every blink of my eyes, every thought that I
have, every breath I take, and every beat of my heart. I HATE THE ALABAMA
CRIMSON TIDE. I literally cannot stand the sight of em. When I first
moved to north Alabama and was single, I glued an Alabama decal to the
bottom of my commode in my apartment. It was a "natural law" on Saturday
afternoon that you would sit around the apartment all day watching college
football and drinking beer. It was a rule that you had to yell, "PISS ON
ALABAMA" every time you went to the bathroom. It was even better when I had
to sit down. 8 (no, I didn't have a wife or son at that time. Really the
only thing that I don't like about being married is that I can't do this
anymore.
I also know that a majority of the players we have on our team now
consider Florida to be our arch rival in the SEC. There are only a handful
of players on our team who can remember the last time we lost to ALABAMA.
However, I remember. From the time I was in the fifth grade at the age of
10, I was listening to Tennessee play football on a Magnavox transistor
radio that my Dad had. I carried that radio around with me everywhere I
went in the fall. I was never without that radio on Saturday afternoons
with it tuned to WREC AM600 in Memphis with John Ward blaring out on the
single speaker. Back in those days, Tennessee didn't play 9 out of 11
games on television like they do now. In those days usually only one game
per year was on TV. That was a team that I later learned to fear, then
learned to HATE, then suffered against. They were a team that wore red
jerseys and whose coach was called Bear Bryant. He was revered as a god. I
HATED THAT TEAM. There was a kid named in my neighborhood who was a few
years older than me. All I ever heard out of Matt's mouth during football
season was ALABAMA this and ALABAMA that. "Bear Bryant is the greatest
coach ever." "Alabama is the greatest team." "Alabama won back to back
National Championships, Tennessee can't even win the SEC because Tennessee
can't beat ALABAMA." "Tennessee can't beat THE BEAR." "Tennessee can't
beat the CRIMSON TIDE". I did fully understand what kind of a mascot the
Crimson Tide was, but I HATED them. For at least 5 years through the last
years of elementary school and junior high school, I heard this rattletrap
from that guy almost every single Saturday afternoon. Every single
afternoon after school that all the kids in the neighborhood played football
in the front yard, I had to hear this load from this guy. From my point of
view, he was right. In my short time of loving UT and being a UT fan and
"watching" all their games on the radio, I had never known us to beat BAMA.
tennessee.rivals.com
