I couldn\u2019t explain on what grounds I was so emotionally overtaken by last night\u2019s national championship game. It\u2019s not that I have some overwhelming Bama fandom, and I didn\u2019t even watch the game – I had an event in the city and a trip to the saloon on either side of it, so all I saw of the game were glimpses of the second quarter on the TV in the background of my meeting. \u00a0And to be perfectly honest, the last two times the Tide played for the title, I was pulling for LSU and Notre Dame respectively.<\/p>\n
So why was I overcome with this one? Probably because, as you can guess by the turn this blog took in the last week or so, I\u2019ve had a lot on my mind about days gone by. And in those days gone by, I was a Crimson Tide fan. Not a sports fan, not a college football fan, an Alabama<\/em> fan. It was one of those things, like Baptist or Chevrolet, that was a cultural shibboleth. \u00a0And it went by the boards while I was in DC, and I basically shoved all in on Vandy in 2006, and my only concern was that the Tide handle the Vols every year (which they have been doing with aplomb) and beat Texas when offered (which they did). \u00a0After all, Nick Saban\u2019s squad is as mechanically ruthless and joyless as the Soviet Red Army hockey team\u2026or maybe an industrial bandsaw. Supporting the Tide was functionally similar to cheering for Germany in soccer or the Yankees of the late 90s – the moral equivalent of rooting for the blackjack dealer.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing: I\u2019ve been consumed lately with how much I no longer enjoy football. The collegiate game is a mess; the have-nots are without hope and Vanderbilt in particular is hamstrung by standards in a conference without them. The game is fixed. But I have decades of historic and family ties to the team that is at the top of the heap, the one everyone hates for their joyless efficiency, the one which has racked four titles in seven years and routinely destroys Vanderbilt\u2019s arch-rival. Why not allow the team of my old affections to act as my agent now? Let Vanderbilt be a team I support for all the right reasons and let the Tide be the one I support for all the wrong ones? I don\u2019t even have to be that plugged into it, I just have to look up occasionally and nod gravely as they blank-face piledrive yet another contender, like a giant crimson version of the Undertaker at Wrestlemania.<\/p>\n And I guess in some way, it worked. That – and the cocktails – broke a weeklong funk, made me smile, reminded me of happier days, and pointed up the fact that it\u2019s been over forty years since Alabama lost a national title game. In my lifetime, since I was old enough to watch, whenever it\u2019s one fall to a finish with the belt on the line? \u00a0Penn State, Arkansas, Miami, Texas, LSU, Notre Dame, and now Clemson. If they get to the last game of the year, they\u2019re not going home empty-handed.<\/p>\n Rammer jammer yellow hammer – give \u2018em Hell<\/em>, Alabama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I couldn\u2019t explain on what grounds I was so emotionally overtaken by last night\u2019s national championship game. It\u2019s not that I have some overwhelming Bama fandom, and I didn\u2019t even watch the game – I had an event in the city and a trip to the saloon on either side of it, so all I … <\/p>\n