Why do you love...?

As I casually stroll through life making friends and seducing enemies there is one question that I am always asked - How does a nice girl like {me} become such an Alabama football devotee?

Well, let's see...We moved to Birmingham, Alabama from Great Falls, Montana when I was seven years old. My father had lost his job at Grinnell Industries and work was hard to find in the 1972 Great Falls economy, and we moved to my father's birthplace of Birmingham for employment opportunities. As an adult I don't envy my father's burden at age 26 - five kids (of whom I am the oldest) and a wife. I tell everyone that it was at the age of seven that I knew that Alabama was my favorite team. How did I come to this life-altering decision? As with most newcomers to the state of Alabama I was forced to choose a team, Alabama or Auburn, or otherwise become a social pariah. On the second grade playground at Tarrant Elementary School in 1972 I decided I liked the color combination of crimson and white better than blue and orange so, truth be told, it was my fashion sense rather than rote knowledge of football statistics that made my decision for me. It was not until seven years later that my instinct proved correct.

It was at the age of 14 as I watched Alabama defeat Penn State that cold New Years' Day in 1980 that I began to understand the wisdom of my decision. I jumped up and down and SCREAMED as I watched my beloved Tide right a wrong committed on the Astroturf of the Louisiana Superdome as a fumble and a first-down conversion by the Nittany Lions placed the ball on the one yard line midway through the fourth quarter.

My dad had to tell me to calm down - my dad! The Goal Line Stand was not the Crimson Tide's first or last goal line stand, but is certainly the most well-known of all of them. We held on to win the National Championship, the last of six for Coach Paul Bryant while at Bama, and at the formative age of 14 I began to understand in my still-reptilian brain through emotion the life lessons that logic cannot always teach - why do we love what we love? What was it about Alabama football that was not (not!) just about winning? After all, I loved us after we lost, too. Along those lines and somewhat less existentially, what was the majesty of this team called the Alabama Crimson Tide and that of her helmsman, Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant? I attended and graduated from Tarrant High School in 1984 (yes, Marquis Maze and I share our high school alma mater. In fact, my oldest son Kyle played for the scout team on the offensive line for Marquis and ran blocking assignments for him when Marquis played quarterback in high school). I marched in the Tarrant Blue Regiment Marching Band on the Color Guard line and since I had a brilliant yet somewhat difficult band director, we auxiliary units were forced to remain in the stands with the musical units when not performing the halftime show, or escorting the team on and off the field. Through all those cool autumn nights that I was forced to sit and ACTUALLY watch football games I began to foster an understanding of the actual game and fell head over heels in love with the minutia, as well as with the big plays, of the game of football. I now understood with an obvious step-up of intensity and a difference of the rules, in the game of football that I watched on Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. I learned the difference between zone and man-to-man defensive coverages, 4-5 and 5-4, nickel packages, and offensive formations such as the 'bone, the "I", and the shotgun, plays like the naked bootleg and the Utah shovel pass; and the difference a good special teams effort could make - especially in the kicking game. It actually made sense to me now! I could sit and talk football with most grown men that I knew, and my knowledge actually turned on the guys that I didn't scare the hell out of during a conversation! It was heady stuff, this Alabama Power - and I was plugged in! It was at age 23 in 1988 that I gave birth to my beautiful first son, Kyle. His first toy was a stuffed Alabama football player created in the image of a Cabbage Patch doll, and his first T-shirt was an Alabama Crimson Tide onesie.

It was at age 27 in 1992 as I watched my beloved Crimson Tide complete a perfect season including a 17-0 thrashing of our cross-state rivals, the always-formidable Auburn University. About 10 days after the Iron Bowl I gave birth to my second child, a beautiful blond-haired, blue eyed boy I named Robert. He was a few days shy of a month old when Alabama completely humiliated a randy, hubristic, and heavily-favored Miami Hurricane team to bring home our first National Championship since that cold New Years' Day in 1980. As I was less than a month postpartum the only celebrating outside of the house that I could do was to flash my front porch light off and on to all the passersby in cars driving around and joyously screaming "Roll Tide!" It was also the first National Championship that Alabama had won
since the retirement and subsequent death of Coach Bryant. It was an emotional time, in both looking forward and glancing back. We Bama fans knew we were still in the throes of transition between that of Coach Bryant and the many who have come after him. After my third beautiful son, Bradley, was born in 1994 I had the joy of teaching all three of my children their first words - Mommy, Daddy, Jesus Loves Me, and Roll Tide! In 1996 when Coach Stallings resigned due to problems with then-AD Bockrath (don't get me started!) it seemed that we were back at Square One. Again. Even so, in 1996 you could not have told me how much worse it would get before it got better. Ugh - I just don't have it in me to look back and regurgitate my pain and disgust at what we went through for the next 10 years...you already know the details, I'm sure. We (Bama fans) had some shining moments of joy but we had far more head-hanging moments of shame as we watched our team's shining traditions and reputation lose
its luster, and the once most desired college coaching job in America became a dumping ground for pretenders to the throne.

Ok ~sigh~ next!

Who is the next knight in shining armor to take on this nightmare job in Tuscaloosa? We Bama fans had heard far too many rumors and become far too cynical to believe the rumors coming out of Miami. Oh, what do you mean that loser from West Virginia (don't get ahead of me) is going to come here? Thank God, and a certain Botox queen, the loser from West Virginia went to Michigan (toldja!). We would not have believed it if we had not seen the news conference on the afternoon of January 4, 2007. Nick Saban is coming to Alabama? I hate that guy, I remember when he coached for LSU and won a national championship - what a jerk - but a great coach! but - really, Nick Saban is coming to Alabama...? Really...? Then there was the news conference that heralded Mal Moore saving his legacy at Alabama by introducing Coach Nick Saban as Alabama's new head coach. Let the sour grapes from Miami ferment...Let the jealous exclamations of LSU and the rest of the SEC ring out...We got Nick Saban! Coach Moore FINALLY got it right!

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Auburn did not know what hit them in 2008. The next thing they knew, we had knocked down one block that Auburn had on us since Pat Trammell in 1971 and Bo Jackson in 1985...Mark Ingram won the Heisman Trophy. HA! Guess what Auburn? If your 1/2 of a national championship counts from 1950-whenever then our single Heisman Trophy counts the same way! Although Auburn University is ostensibly an institution of higher learning the powers on the BOT’s and the football program leadership cannot muster up enough critical thinking to conceive of winning a national championship on any other year except for the year after Alabama did it. Auburn seemed to push on in the quest for it all last year. I think they did it for the wrong reason – to prove to Alabama that they could do what we did the year before. Somehow their success has a ring of disingenuity to it for that reason - but not for that reason alone.

And now, here we are at the precipice of the 2011 football
season, with all its incumbent highs and lows to come, but expectations are high (again) for another national championship. Our feverish anticipation of another successful football season cannot erase the fear and pain that we faced on April 27 of this year, and continue to face on a daily basis in the storm's aftermath. There is no way the pain from the loss of those precious lives of our friends, family, and colleagues can be erased by a single football season. No way. It would be insulting to all involved to try. However, the ones we loved and lost that dreadful day and the days following will be happy when looking down upon us from above, and seeing themselves in our joy of carrying on with what we love, and what they loved. So, the question remains...

Why do we love what we love?
The dearth of information answering this question for all of humankind leaves me only able to answer for myself.

 Why do I love Alabama football?
Thirty-nine years after deciding I was an Alabama fan I have realized why. Because loving Alabama football makes me happy. Because beating Auburn makes me feel good. Happiness is its own reason, not a bullet point on a list of reasons for happiness. I have other answers I prefer not to enumerate publicly! Your answers will be different from mine, and there will be as many answers as there are those of us brave enough to ask and answer the question. Why does The Sound of Music make my heart soar every time I watch it? Why do I weep uncontrollably every time I watch young Shelby die in Steel Magnolias? The answers are in my heart, and my heart alone. The answers to your questions are in your heart, too. All you have to do is ask yourself . It is important that you ask yourself these questions because it leads to you finding out who you are and what you are made of. Knowing these answers also keeps the most disgusting of all Alabama fans away from the rest of us. You know who you are...that's right, fair-weather fans need not apply! There are enough of us real fans to fight over the ticket allocations, thank you very much!

No matter what happens this football season let's remember those whom we lost. Let’s remember why the ones we lost loved Alabama football. Chances are, they didn’t just love Alabama when they win, and neither should we. Oh, it’s definitely more fun when we win, right? So let’s have fun loving Alabama football this year for ourselves because we are the ones left behind, and we will deal with getting over the pain of our loss of our loved ones and moving on next year. After all, it’s an Alabama tradition.

Roll Tide, ya’ll!



©Copyright 2011
Lady In Crimson Private Publishing, Inc.
Any use of the above material requires express written consent of the author. If consent is not obtained then criminal and/or civil penalties will be placed against the unauthorized user. I mean it!