This one is about Alabama football, but in general about sports and our portion of the South. It closes with a poem by Louie Skipper from his newest book It was the Orange Persimmon of the Sun, (only one at Amazon left in stock!) - a poem that probably says more about Bear Bryant, the man versus the myth, in just twenty-one lines than most could with 21,000 words of prose.
~~~~~
Talking football for just a while longer. Well, we have a respite until Thursday, January 7, 2010 7:00 PM (CST) when Alabama meets Texas I the Rose Bowl for the National Championship. I hear there are other Bowl games being played, but ... well, I will pretend to be interested! What on earth will we talk about after that?
Given my usual nature, I am uncomfortable about feeling confident that Bama will beat Texas. After all, we have played those dumbass Texans (yeah, I said it) nine times over the past century, and have yet to win a game:
Texas and Alabama will meet for the ninth time in the 2009 BCS National Championship Game. Since their first meeting in 1902, the Longhorns lead the series 7-0-1. The last time they met was the 1982 Cotton Bowl with Texas winning 14-12. A heart-breaker for Alabama's first black Quarterback (thanks JP) Walter Lewis, who went on to suffer another unforgettable loss (aren't they all?) in the 1983 Iron Bowl. After 108 years, it's our turn, dammit!
Texas vs. Alabama Game History
1902: Texas 10, Alabama 0
1915: Texas 20, Alabama 0
1922: Texas 19, Alabama 10
1947: Texas 27, Alabama 7
1960: Texas 3, Alabama 3 ("like kissing your sister"?)
1964: Texas 21, Alabama 17
1972: Texas 17, Alabama 13
1981: Texas 14, Alabama 12
That's good news now. Keeps the team hungry. And you know Saban won't miss the opportunity to remind them of the Patriots of 2007.
That Texas would get into the BCS was, I recklessly and wishfully proclaimed before the Nebraska game, a done deal, a matter of Fate - they had to win, according to my fairy-book, so that the QB story between Bama and Texas, and plenty more, could play out! Here's what I put up at Facebook:
Sat December 5, 2009: It is written: Alabama and Texas will meet again. This time, it's Alabama's Greg McElroy against Texas's Colt McCoy for all the marbles in Pasadena. This time it's for our second-string Texan to meet their first-string Texan, our reject to meet their star, our Seabiscuit (McElroy, everybody's "other quarterback") to have one more match-race with War Admiral (now played by Colt McCoy, after Tim Tebow passed the role) ... you gotta love this story, folks!
Who knew Texas would get in only on the final play, that field goal? You have to feel for Nebraska, a proud tradition and a heat-breaking loss, but they couldn't fight Destiny (how about that for analysis?) On the SEC Championship, you were dead on, I think:
With this game, it's even hard to predict the winner. Somehow I just have a feeling Bama will pull this one out. I think more than anything else, I think Bama wants it more. I'm sure Florida wants it too, but I think they have a bit of a sense of almost entitlement and maybe a wee bit of over-confidence. Bama knows everyone is picking Florida. And I think in this game it definitely helps to go in being the underdog - a sense of something to prove. And having lost last year's game in the 4th quarter, Bama knows they can play with Florida. And their motivation to finish the game will be at an all-time high.
Don't you feel that your conclusion before the Florida game - that Alabama wants it more - is also a factor in the game coming with Texas? I am working off that, but I also think Bama is also a superior team, and Texas probably on par with, or a tad below, Florida. My guess, without consulting the spreads or experts? Bama by two touchdowns. Setting aside our dreams as Bama fans, what's your pick for the National Championship? Anyone care to commentatorize?
And now?
With college football 2009 coming to an end what will we all talk about? I hope that you are, like me, a Saint's fan (that'll get us through an extra month, as I need to step up my interest in March Madness and NBA, since I never played much basketball). For long-suffering Saints fans, this is a dream season - and for both Alabama and NewOrleans (still, we're get a test tonight) to be undefeated? even Hollywood couldn't pull off that storyline! Talking about coaches showing no class, and Florida's Urban Meyer. I was turned off of NFL football (though I stil watched some games) by the arrogance of William Stephen "Bill" Belichick, head coach of the Patriots.
To continue the topic debated at Facebook - basically sportsmanship as it is defined in 2009, I feel his attitude infected almost the whole team (it was reflected in Tom Brady to a degree) But Bellichick did not help the sport, in my view. By contrast, you could appreciate the less arrogant, though deservedly cocky attitude of Randy Moss, and I always loved that workhorse Wes Welker, the most underrated MVP in football, especially since he is never even thought of as MVP!) but this notorious incident, and more significantly Bellichick's "who cares?" attitude after he go busted was a real kick in the pants!
Despite "Spygate," Belichick got the 2007 NFL Coach of the Year Award, as voted on by the Associated Press. Winning has always been number one, but these days winning seems to pardon almost anything. But haughtiness goeth before a fall. Right, Tiger Woods? Right, Barry Bonds? Not that fans are always fair (right, Roger Maris?) but who you are as a human being is part of what makes someone a champion, rather than a record-holder only.
Of course Bellichick is a great football coach (the Patriots have gone 102–42 in nine regular seasons with him as head coach) but my feeling is that losing the 2007 Superbowl could help him, if he can accept the humbling, and even Brady's awful injury that kept him out of the 2008 season can win back love since fans like their heroes to rise from adversity effect on Brady, who is a terrific player and pretty haughty himself, though not so sour as Belichick. But how about the kid in his third season of his first job as a head coach - he's been with the Saints since 2006 - Sean Peyton. Anyone from anywhere who loves an underdog has to root for the "Aints" - Who dat? - make that the Saints! Before this season, from their start in 1967 through 2008, here are the cold numbers:
Regular Season wins 262
Regular Season losses - 375
Super Bowl Appearances (Conference Champs) - 0
Division Championships - 2
Not much to show for 32 years of football, eh? (The Saints weren't around for Super Bowl I, played on January 15, 1967). Hope springs eternal, but this year Hope has a betting chance. Season 33 for New Orleans - maybe this time it'll be different. As I write this they're still 14-0 with three games left in the regular season. The hot-shot, big-money Cowboys coming to the house tonight [Just squeaked by in the final 6 seconds with an interception, won 24-17], then it's Tampa Bay on the 27th, then to finish up in Charlotte with the Carolina Panthers at high noon on January 3. Your odds on the Saints at this moment having a perfect season? [Zero, since this was written. But hey, we'll take 16-1. Even 14-3 would be a phenomenal season. But it's not enough if the Saints at the very least win a post-season game, or even more to finally play in a Superbowl. Come on, we're 0/32 in this department!]
Professional sports for the sports-crazed South, despite the prowess of Southerners (mostly African-Southerners) in baseball and in football (go, SEC!) there's never been the interest one would expect, given the NFL and MLB teams in Atlanta and Florida. But this year, how could any fan hailing from the true deep South (which excludes the Florida pro teams, but keeps Atlanta) not celebrate the Saints, and also the Mannings of the NYG and the Colts? Archie was a great QB for both Mississippi and New Orleans, but no QB can touch his record as a father!
In the US, baseball is supposedly having banner years in fan interest, according to the hype. But there are lies, damn lies, and stats, as ark Twain famously observed. The epicenter is probably somewhere between New York and the Red Sox. Sure the Phillies, the Cardinals, and all the other MLB teams have die-hard fanatics in their cities, and yes there's always the great NL/AL divide (No middle ground on this one. You're either for or against. Me? I am a National League guy, hate the designated hitter rule!)
But baseball isn't cutting it with my son's generation. It is so deep in our hearts, but somehow our appreciation for the Great American Past-Time (to re-coin a phrase) the relaxed, bucolic sport hasn't been transferred to our GenX kids, raised on instant-everything. As someone rightly observed, baseball is a tradition passed from fathers to sons (or in our case, from elder brother to baby brother - remember that other year of wonders, the annus mirabilis of 1961 and even us in Mobile glued to the old rabbit-eared Motorola every time a game was broadcast to watch the home run chase by M&M. I still carry a secret place in my heart for the pinstripes, and Mickey Mantle was my first sports hero. But I cannot relate to the teamsand mega-buck players under the regime of the Steinbrenners, George & sons)
Eric, you're New York born and bred. Which is bigger in Manhattan - baseball or football? You guys have four (4) freakin' Major League teams! PS: Say thank you to Mobile. We supplied the entire outfield for the Mets, I believe. How many major league teams got the benefit from Mobile, back when kids still played baseball. (Black kids, of course, along with a few white guys who can jump.)
That next generation? In the parks where we once played Babe Ruth , and Connie Mack baseball interest plummets after Tiny-Mite football, and T-ball and Little League. Teen-agers (free from the dreams of their fathers) all choose to play basketball, not street stick-ball or whiffle-ball.
Down here a few cities like Mobile even tried to drum up interest hockey with a minor league team gt at a price the budgets could afford, since games could be played in existing civic centers. We went to watch people who could skate on the stuff they call ice. That team persisted for a few minutes. What was the name of the Mobile hockey team again?
We do have a minor-league baseball stadium here, built after most of you left Mobile. The one in childhood was called Hartwell Field, and the Chuck Coners, aka, The Rifleman, played for the erstwhile Mobile Bears. you know who. The new stadium is out on Hwy 90. It's called locally, "The Hank." You know who again. Let's not foget the great Satchel Paige, whose nickname came during his days working baggage downtown at the trains station. Both of them left as soon as possible and never looked back. Wonder why?
Back to football, the 1970's, Alabama, and the Man. This is the poem.
Bestiary for an October Night
It was the late 70's and I sat in the bleachers
one windy night to toast a coach named
after the bear he wrestled down as a boy in Arkansas.
An old man now, he waited us out
while under the lights a dance troupe from New York City
took to the twenty, more than a hundred
moving in unison in hound's tooth hats.
The Bear never looked up.
Could be so many images of one man repeated
was too much even for him. Still,
when the elephant came out of the end zone
he was quick enough to mumble into a megaphone,
"What the hell is going on?"
I do not believe he had ever stopped to figure why
an elephant was the mascot of a football team
named after a tide of biblical blood,
only how the Crimson Tide came
between the Bengal Tigers and the Nittany Lions,
and where he himself stood, a game away
from passing Amos Alonzo Stagg
who, like the elephant, would soon be left in the outer dark.
Louie Skipper, from It was the Orange Persimmon of the Sun (2009). Used with permission.
For football fans in the South, 2009 has been a great year. It might be a good time for non-fans, even the die-hard anti-fans, or ex-fans, to get interested in football in particular and sports in general.
Later at Clark-Works, more posts, other topics. We'll see. For now, let this do as my version of a Sporting Christmas Card, with love for the game.
Happy holidays,
Clark
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