Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Hurrah for the Return of College Football

Hello from everyone down here at the Tire Store.  We hope you all had a good summer.  When I was young, and would eagerly anticipate the big upcoming events of life -- Christmas, vacations to the Redneck Riviera, the end of the school year (especially the end of the school year) -- my parents would rightly warn me about the dangers of "wishing my life away".  They were absolutely right, of course.   Older now, I still try to make sure I'm enjoying each and every day the good Lord gives me on His green earth.  But I have to admit, as the humid dog days of August pass slowly by, I find myself wishing that the clock would run just a little bit faster and bring on College Football Season.  At last, at long last, it is back.

We hope you enjoy the following words from the late great Lewis Grizzard.  This is an excerpt from a longer piece he wrote for a newspaper collection featuring individual writers' thoughts about the opening of college football season.  Especially towards the end of his career as his health deteriorated, Grizzard's writing became a little forced, it seemed.  Some of his analogies were a reach.  We read other writers, Roy Blount, Jr. had interesting things to say, Rick Bragg was better at longer form serious journalism, Dave Barry could be utterly hilarious.  But for us, Grizzard was the top of the heap in short form humorous journalism.  Usually the statement that someone "writes like they talk" is a pretty serious literary criticism.  This was not true with Grizzard; just the opposite.  He had a keen eye for a good story and a keen wit to tell it, even when he was the main character.

In particular, the work below shows what can happen when someone who has the gift of written eloquence turns that power on something that they truly and deeply care about.  His Bulldogs should be very good this year.  We regret he is not around to see them play.  Thanks for expressing what so many of us feel, Lewis.  RIP.



I was walking behind a friend and his wife as we entered the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on January 1, 1981, to watch Georgia play Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl.  If Georgia won, the Bulldogs would be the 1980 national collegiate football champions.

My friend, a fellow Georgia alumnus, was fraught with anticipation.  He was pale.  He was nervous.  He was perspiring profusely.

***

His wife, noticing his condition said, “Calm down sweetheart.  It’s just a football game.”

He stopped dead.  He turned to his wife -- who had not gone to Georgia, and went to Bulldog games with her husband because she thought of it as her wifely duty -- looked her squarely in the eyes and said: “It is not just a football game.  It’s our way of life against theirs.”

He meant that.  I knew the man well enough to know he did, in fact, mean that.

It had something to do with Southerners against Northerners.  Maybe it even had something to with his Methodist upbringing and the pope.

Whatever, it was clearly Us versus Them.  Us won that  day, tailback Herschel Walker leading Georgia to the national title….

You can go into all that stuff about the pageantry of college football, the fact the players are unspoiled kids and not a bunch of millionaires, and it’s a nice way to spend an afternoon and evening with friends.

But with me and mine, and with a lot of others, college football offers us an opportunity to circle our wagons and fight and kick and scream for our side against their side.

I supposed that’s also possible in politics and various cultural disagreements, but all that can get a little cloudy at times.

College football and allegiances are clear as an October Saturday afternoon.  We haven’t had a war in 50 years that wasn’t tangled up in dissent and questionable motives….  But when Georgia meets Florida, when Auburn plays Alabama, when Ohio State gathers against Michigan, there are no such nagging annoyances.

Our way of life against theirs; clear as a bell.

And there is the opportunity to feel proud of something. Congress can waste your money, the president can lie to you, and your kid can wear an earring and watch MTV, but if your alma mater is 8-0, who’s sweating the small stuff?

And probably more than anything else, it also offers the opportunity to share in what is believed to be a noble cause, and such breeds friendships that can endure all else….

College football season is the best time I live.  I once risked my life because of college football. 

In late August of 1985 following two weeks in the Soviet Union, I found myself in a hospital in London with a deadly infection of the artificial aortic valve in my heart.  The British doctor said it would probably be necessary for me to remain there for six weeks’ treatment.

Georgia was to open its football season on Labor Day night a week later against Alabama in Athens.  I slipped out of the hospital, caught a cab to Gatwick Airport and flew back to Atlanta. 

When asked later why I would risk my life in such a manner, I said, “I wasn’t about to stay in no foreign country during college football season.”

Us could win them all this year, or Us could lose a few.  But, right or wrong, win or lose, always Us.

And Them can go to hell.  Is there any part of that that isn’t absolutely clear?



Alabama should have a very good team this year.  Just about everything, coaching staff, players with experience, general talent level, should be better this year than last (and likely than next, but now I'm really wishing my life away).  And last year's wonderful season and its bitter unlikely ending, will be supplanted with new memories of this new version of the Crimson Tide.  

We are glad to have you to visit with about it.  Roll Tide, my friends.  Beat Duke. 



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