A-Day

To be a true Southerner you have to love football. Really love football. Specifically, Southeastern Conference football.

Football is the second religion of the Deep South, and the 100,000 seat stadiums of the SEC are its cathedrals. It's hard to convey to outsiders just how important SEC football is in the life of Southerners and to their self-identities. One of the most popular radio programs around here is devoted largely to SEC football. The show is several hours long and runs each weekday year round. Given the teams play only in the autumn and only 12 games a year (up to 14 if they're lucky and go on to title and bowl games), those radio shows can get mighty dull in June and July. Somehow they manage to fill the air time.

There are ten universities that comprise the SEC--twelve if you count Vanderbilt and Mississippi State. I was fortunate to attend an SEC school, the University of Georgia, and I graduated a few months after we won our one and only national football championship in my school's 225 year history (of course we've only been playing football for 118 of those years). Go Dawgs!

My adopted home state of Alabama is blessed with not one but two SEC schools, and everyone who lives here strongly identifies with one or the other. To be a citizen of Alabama, you must declare fealty to Auburn or 'Bama. You must love one and hate the other--rooting for both schools just isn't done. It doesn't matter if you attended either institution or have even set foot on campus--you're either Auburn or Alabama for life.

This creates a bit of a quandary at our house. As a graduate of another SEC school, I'm exempt from the normal rule of citizenship and am free to cheer for either Auburn or Alabama as the spirit moves. But Teri has no such option. She graduated from Auburn University and teaches at the University of Alabama. She loves both institutions, and her loyalties are deeply divided.

One glorious Saturday a year, everything in the state comes to a screeching halt for three hours as Auburn and Alabama play each other in what is known around here as the Iron Bowl. No commerce is conducted, no weddings or funerals are held--absolutely nothing is allowed to get in the way of the game. It's Christmas, New Year's and Mardi Gras all rolled into one.

Last year Alabama narrowly defeated a plucky and stubborn underdog Auburn team to preserve its undefeated record. 'Bama then went on to win the national championship. As an Auburn graduate, Teri cheered for her alma mater, but she wasn't disappointed when 'Bama won. Since Auburn had no championship hopes at that point, and a loss to Auburn in the Iron Bowl last year would have made life miserable at her office, she was okay with the result.

'Bama is used to winning national championships, but last season's was the first in a long time. They've won somewhere between eight and a hundred and seventeen titles, depending on whether an 'Bama fan is doing the counting. They definitely have a superiority complex in Tuscaloosa. 'Bama fans are a smug bunch.

Teri's building is next to the football stadium, and every day she walks past the oversized bronze statues of Bear Bryant and the other national championship winning coaches, arrayed like a proud Roman Pantheon outside the stadium gates.

Teri called me today as she walked past The Bear and gave him her daily greeting. She wanted to report the absurd scene on campus this morning. People were busy erecting large tents on the quad. Clothing vendors had set up shop. Satellite vans representing a host of TV stations littered the parking lots. Crowds of people (clearly not students) were everywhere.

Tomorrow is A-Day.

Football starved Alabamians have one event to look forward to between the end of the season in early January and the start of the next one in early September, and that's A-Day. A-Day is a glorified practice session held in the stadium in the spring. It's a mock game and someone keeps score, but since the players on both sides of the ball are on the same team, the results don't count and they do their best not to hurt each other.

It's been glorious here all week and the weather forecast calls for picture perfect conditions again tomorrow, so something like 90,000 rabid fans are likely to show up at Bryant-Denny Stadium for the spectacle. That is, to watch a football team engage in a meaningless practice. Teri has to vacate her faculty parking spot by 5 p.m. today in order to hand it over to some lucky A-Day attendee.

"They've lost their minds. I can't believe how worked up everyone is over this," Teri shouted into her cell phone. "It's just a practice--THEY CAN'T LOSE! Someone needs to tell all these people that NO COMPETITOR IS COMING."

Meanwhile, 160 miles away, Auburn's football team will hold their own A-Day scrimmage at Jordan-Hare Stadium tomorrow, drawing a similar and equally rabid crowd.

A-Day--just one of the many reasons I love living here.

Have a great weekend everybody.