Alabama?

An Alabama beatdown. Those are words I never thought would go together. Alabama does the beating down not receives it. At least that is how it has been going the past decade. But the football game last night, the National Championship between Alabama and Clemson was a nightmare. And social media, of course, made it worse.

People have the right to pull for whomever they chose for whatever reason they chose. I have been accused by family members of being an Alabama fan. That is not exactly true. I am a Mississippi State fan and an SEC chauvinist. That is the truth. Let me tell you why.

My dad raised me to be "a State fan" as we call ourselves here in Mississippi. That is ingrained so deeply within me that there is no breaking the bond. Believe me, I tried but failed to divorce myself from the program at the end of the Sherrill era. So to accuse me of being a bandwagon fan is to risk bodily injury from me. I am old enough to remember when we, not Vanderbilt, were the whipping boys of the SEC. I have pulled for more losers than winners. Faithfulness is the hallmark of a Mississippi State fan.

Dad also raised me to pull for those closest to you. Alabama is a neighboring state. In fact before Alabama was a state, it was part of the Mississippi Territory, the present state being created in 1817. Get in a automobile at my house and drive at a reasonable speed for two and a half hours on Highway 82 and you are in Alabama. Not only are they a state we share several hundred miles of border with, but my grandparents, Dad's mom and dad, both came to Mississippi from Alabama, Andalusia to be exact. And that is everything I know about Dad's side of the family. How long Hayward Hodge and Elsie Rogers were in Alabama, I have not a clue. Why they moved to Mississippi, I have not a clue. I only know they did. So we share a border, a conference, and family history with Alabama. We have no such connection with South Carolina. 

Dad also taught me to pull for your own. He told me over and over, "If a man won't pull for his own, there ain't much to him." That is why it was so distressing for me to see family members crowing on Facebook about Alabama's defeat. Why pull for another conference and another state farther away from us? Dad didn't go for that kind of thing, and it would have disturbed him greatly as it does me.

I understand Alabama fatigue. I get it. I don't understand conference disloyalty. I don't get it. I've seen it in my students. Whenever I try to talk football with most of my students, I find out they are Notre Dame fans, or they pull for Michigan or Ohio State or USC or Oregon. They hate the SEC. Where does this come from? I think I know, but I refuse to say publicly what I am sure is going on in their hearts. 

Anyway, crow away. I hope it gives you a good day. But I also hope your children, and family can count on you. And when I look at the society I am planted in, that is exactly what I see the opposite of. I see kids who can't count on parents, husbands and wives who can't count on each other, employers who can't count on their workers and vica versa. That is why it matters. That is why Dad told me over and over, "If a man won't pull for his own, there ain't much too him." I see it now. He was right.