Carthago Delenda Est

In today's Wall Street Journal is an article by Ben Cohen about college football rivalry games: "Do You Want Your Rival To Succeed?" It explores the question whether true fans cheer for the opposition in every game save one, and it prompted some introspection on this Iron Bowl Eve.

I think I owe it to the readers of this blog to admit that at one time in my life I actually pulled for Auburn except when the Tigers played the Tide. I know, I know. That was foolish. I was totally ignoring the lessons experience as an undergrad in the early '70's ought to have taught me. I was in the student section at Legion Field for the 1972 Iron Bowl and had to endure a year's worth of what passed for wit on the part of Auburn supporters, until the phrase "Score, Auburn, Score" supplied the antidote to "Punt, Bama,Punt." I also recall an encounter with an Auburn student who thought he was somehow impressing his date with a racist taunt about the composition of Alabama's homecoming court. 

Growing up an Army Brat, I really wasn't around a lot of Auburn Trash as a child. So, I gave API the benefit of being my second favorite team. That all changed the fall semester of my first year in law school. We had a classmate who was a Lee County Vocational grad. I was stunned to hear her actively pulling for her then-fellow students to lose to teams like Mississippi State, because she was "part of the Awburn Fambly."

The scales fell from my eyes, and I finally began to see clearly the difference between Alabama and Auburn. It is the difference between light and dark, truth and falsehood, culture and agriculture. Oh, sure, Auburn apologists like to trot out convicted tree-poisoner, Harvey Updyke, as emblematic of Alabama fans. But everyone knows that Updyke has no connection with The Capstone. By contrast, can you imagine the University of Alabama naming the football field after a coach fired for paying players?

Alabama holds the record for successive years winning the USA Today Academic All America prize. Auburn holds the record for New York Times articles detailing academic fraud. Alabama has five head coaches in the College Football Hall of Fame. Auburn has that many it paid not to coach. Alabama has won 15 national championships. Auburn once declared itself "The People's Champion." 

Today's WSJ article provokes readers to decide what sort of fan they want to be. Do you want your rival to be good, or do you want your rival to lose every game by 50? Well, I think about The Loveliest Village on the Plains the way Cato The Elder thought about ancient Carthage: Carthago delenda est. Or, for the Auburn fans who might be trolling this blog: Rammer Jammer you Barners!

The Commissioner