Team, Passion and Pride

Football for me, like most others born in the South is life. Those twelve to fourteen games from September to January carry us through the rest of the year in a state of glory or malaise, depending on how our favorite team fared. I once heard it said that, in the state of Alabama, before you enter the state (by birth or by road), you must choose between Auburn and Alabama. At some point after my birth in February of 1987, I chose the University of Alabama. Five years later, they won their first National Championship since 1979. I was just starting kindergarten.

In 1996, I was finally able to attend my first college football game. It was a family affair with my parents, brother, grandparents and uncle all clad in Alabama gear, much to the dismay of my dad, brother and grandfather, who were Auburn fans and my mom who is a Georgia fan. It was a ‘Bama-Southern Miss tilt in Birmingham. I don’t remember any of the game, but I was hooked on college football.

I’ve stated before that the first college game I remember watching on TV was actually the year before. It was the 1996 Outback Bowl with Auburn facing Penn St. I remember that was the first time I had ever cheered for Auburn, which was a huge step considering I had stormed out of the house during an Iron Bowl. (I’m not sure which one it was. The only Auburn wins over Alabama during that time were the 1993 22-14 win and the 1995 31-27 win.) Sadly, Auburn lost 43-14, but it was the first time my dad, my grandfather and I had cheered for the same team. Three years later, the three of us and my brother all went to my first Auburn game to see Tommy Tuberville notch the second win of his Auburn tenure.

As you can tell, the late 90s were my formative years in terms of football. I started cultivating a love for the game, rather than a love for the name a team had. Since 1999, the teams I’ve cheered for have won a combined six Conference Championships. Alabama’s 1999 SEC Championship was memorable for two reasons. First, Alabama became the first team to beat Florida twice in one season (please check the fact here. I could be, but don’t think I’m wrong here.) Second was how I watched the game. My family was in Atlanta with some friends of my parents’ for the race that weekend. Their friends were big Alabama fans and so we watched the SEC Championship with them. At one point, someone in the room started yelling, “Su dot!” every time Shaun Alexander appeared on-screen. After a while of pondering this, I finally realized that his name on the back of his jersey was “SU. ALEXANDER.” Hence, the foundation of their very clever nickname. By the way, he has always been Su. to me since then.

2001, that was the year football changed for me. 2001 was a big year. Dale Earnhardt’s death had already begun to sour NASCAR for me and 9/11 was right around the corner, but September 1^st was a special day. That was the day the UCLA Bruins made their return trip to Tuscaloosa after the Tide went west and lost the year before. It was also the day my dad and I would go to our first game in Tuscaloosa. Even for my dad being a life-long Auburn fan, being in Tuscaloosa is a special thing. (The least special thing about that day was seeing the first loss of the dubious Dennis Franchione era.) I didn’t understand the significance of the game until years later. My dad told me that we were seeing two traditional powers play each other. To me, tradition didn’t exist outside of Alabama-LSU, Alabama-Tennessee and Alabama-Auburn. My mind hadn’t expanded enough at that point to realize the full scale of the game. To this day, it is the only time I’ve seen a Pac-10 (12 now) team play.

As I said, football changed for me in 2001. That is because a team I had never heard of was making waves (Red Waves, if you’ll allow the pun.) The same day we were on the way to see Alabama, the Troy Trojans were playing their first game as a Division I football team against the Nebraska Cornhuskers. We listened to the game on the radio as we drove up. I had never heard of Troy before, but my dad told me this was an important game. They would get blown out by Nebraska, but in mid-October, the Trojans would pull off a shocker. On October 13^th, they beat the Mississippi Bulldogs in muddy Starkville, 21-9. It was Troy’s first win over a Division I opponent and an SEC opponent. Troy would only lose one more game that year to Maryland.

On November 17^th, my dad said he had gotten tickets to a Troy game and we were going. I was not happy, to say the least. He wanted me to see Troy play some random team at the SAME TIME Alabama was playing Auburn. How could he do this? What I didn’t know at the time was that I was seeing the end of an era, the capping of a long and storied rivalry, The Battle for the Ol’ School Bell with Jacksonville State, which dated back to 1924. Jax State led the series with a 32-29-2 record, but Troy kept the Ol’ School Bell , which still resides in the Tine Davis Fieldhouse, with a win that day. The next week we were back in Troy to see them play the North Texas Mean Green. They won that game too. Troy finished 7-4 that year. After that, I was enamored with this small school only an hour away from home. I didn’t have to make a long trek to Auburn or a day trip to Tuscaloosa to see Division I college football anymore because it was right in my backyard.

Since those two games, I have been to exactly one Auburn game (2002 loss to Arkansas and Matt Jones) and one Alabama game (2003 win vs. Kentucky and Jared Lorenzen). It is impossible for me to calculate the amount of Troy games I have attended since that first one in 2001. I can say I’ve seen every Sun Belt opponent at least five times each. I also have seen games against Missouri, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma State, Utah State, Idaho, Cal-Poly (Funny story about that one. After we beat Missouri in 2004, Iowa State was our home opener, but they decided it was better to buy our contract out than play us, so we scrambled and picked up Cal-Poly.), UAB, Alabama State, Alcorn State, and Central Michigan. I’ve seen the high points (Five straight Sun Belt Championships and five straight wins over Middle Tennessee State) and I’ve seen the low points (the entire 2005 season, my first on-campus as a student, and both LSU games).

During these times, Auburn has had two undefeated seasons (sadly, only one culminating in a National Championship) and Alabama has had one undefeated season that ending with a National Championship. As I watched, Alabama’s National Championship Game against the Texas Longhorns. I was proud for my state and my friends who were ‘Bama fans, but I felt nothing as a fan. It was hard for me, because the team I had followed was at the pinnacle of achievement in college football, but I couldn’t celebrate it. It wasn’t mine to celebrate. They were not my team anymore. (The same goes for Auburn’s 2010 Championship. I was proud for the state and for the wife, but it was not mine to celebrate.) I know Troy’s chances of winning a National Championship at the Division I level are "never gonna happen to none," but that doesn’t stop me from giving it my all for the team. For instance, during Florida’s 2009 drubbing of Troy, which ended in a 56-6 loss, I stood in the rain cheering for my team to fight for the win, even when we couldn’t move the ball in the mud. During the 2008 LSU game, I was at my friend Justin’s house watching the ‘Bama-Mississippi State game because the Troy-LSU game wasn’t televised. That game is still hard for me to talk about because I have never been more elated and disappointed in one night in my life. We carried a 31-10 lead into the fourth quarter, only to go scoreless in the fourth while giving up 30 points. I watched this collapse happen via the ESPN ticker at the bottom of the screen.

While there have been low points, there have also been good points as well. The 2009 GMAC Bowl was a cold game to attend, but it was my first (and so far only) bowl game. Even though we lost in the second overtime, I knew I had seen the best bowl game of the year. The Missouri game was another game I will remember forever. It was amazing to see Troy rally from a 14-point deficit (that was already on us by the time my family and I got there from Headland) on the heels of Junior Louissant’s fumble recovery for a 60 yard touchdown. The best part of the night was not only knocking of the #17 team in the country, it was also putting a black mark on Brad Smith’s Heisman candidacy. I don’t like wishing ill on people and I thought he was a great quarterback, but I like knowing that when Missouri people look back and wonder why Smith never won the Heisman, they’ll know it was because of Troy.

The wife and I were talking and she mentioned that our marriage probably wouldn’t have worked if I had been an Alabama fan, considering her huge distaste for all things Crimson and White. I pondered this for a little while before responding to her and told her that I had always known that my team wore red, but for years I didn’t know I was cheering for the wrong shade of red. I bleed Cardinal, Silver and Black, not Crimson and White. I was born the same year we won our last National Championship, which was also 100 years after the founding of Troy. In 2009, Troy celebrated their 100^th year of Troy Trojan football, the same year I celebrated becoming an alumnus of Troy University. Troy is my team, my passion and my pride.

My Top 10 Most Hated College Football Teams

10 – Auburn/Alabama- I actually have no reason to hate either of these schools (especially Auburn, because of the wife’s control over future happiness), but I do have a problem with their seemingly “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever” stance toward my alma mater, the Troy Trojans. Alabama, in particular, has been very George Wallace by not playing either Troy or the other –other in-state school, UAB. Alabama, after a 2012 tilt with FAU, will have played every current member of the Sun Belt, save Troy and unsurprisingly, up-and-coming South Alabama. I was surprised to learn of Alabama’s unwillingness to play Troy or even UAB, which is a part of the University of Alabama system, seeing as how Alabama has played Samford twenty times (they were able to get a tie in 1935) and Birmingham-Southern three times (BSC only scored a touchdown, IN THREE GAMES) without suffering a loss. You would think they would like to keep their unbeaten streak against Alabama teams not named Auburn alive. Granted, all twenty-three of these games happened between 1906-1944, with the Auburn series being halted from 1908-1947, so I guess they had to play someone.

Auburn, on the other hand, as played UAB once, shutting the Blazers out. Other than that, they also played Samford and BSC. Samford notched a tie while losing the other 25 games. BSC was able beat the Tigers on three occasions, all by shutouts. Still missing from the schedule are the Troy Trojans.

9 – Middle Tennessee

I just hate them. They are Troy’s in-conference rival and I hate everything about them. Well, everything except the MTSU donor who gave the money to create the Palladium Trophy. We bring it out once a year to remind them what it looks like before we take it back home.

8 – FAU/FIU

These two teams are responsible for the last two Troy home losses and costing the team two outright SBC Championships. We would have had a string of four straight SBC Championships and one tie. As the wife pointed out, I should blame Troy for these losses, but that's nonsense. The F_U schools are on the list. Also, I’d love to blame MTSU for the other championship tie, but we kind of stole it from them (Miracle in Murfreesboro, win!).

7 – USC

My hatred for the “other Trojans” has waned in recent years, though it has begun to rise again with the arrival of Lane Kiffin, who Bobby Petrino’d Tennessee (though he did have enough class to wait until season’s end). I don’t exactly know what I hate about USC, but they seem to have a Miami-like swagger, but they can’t pull it off.

6- Penn St.

Yet again, I don’t know exactly why I hate Penn St., but I think it’s because one of the earliest football games I can remember is the 1996 Outback Bowl, when Auburn played the Nittany Lions. My dad and grandfather were cheering so hard for Auburn and it was the first time I ever cheered on Auburn’s side. Now, I just feel bad for, Joe Pa.

5- Tennessee

Oh, my God at that orange. It is enough to make anybody hate you, but add Big Fat Phil to your sideline and you have the Tennessee that existed throughout most of my football lifetime. Granted, I liked Peyton Manning and Tee Martin was underrated, but they were one of the first teams I looked at and just knew they weren’t as good as they were hyped to be.

4- Notre Dame

Where to start with the Irish? I think when your only redeeming feature is Rudy, there is a problem. I think Notre Dame started my hatred of northern teams before I even knew it. Until the SEC started the National Championship winning streak, it seemed people didn’t believe that good football existed outside of the Big Ten, Pac-10 and Notre Dame. Plus, I thought the Irish gave Ty Willingham a raw deal.

3 – LSU

Hands down, this team has caused me more pain in two games that were separated by four years than any team has caused me ever. The 2004 Troy-LSU game was hard enough to lose after battling it out for four quarters. The 2008 game was a completely different beast. Because the game was not televised, I was at my buddy Justin’s house to watch the Alabama-Mississippi State game. My only Troy updates were from the ticker which, as we amassed our 31-10 lead after three quarters, caused me to jump up run around his house. Nothing hurts more than your team allowing 30 unanswered points in the fourth quarter while you can only watch via a TICKER!!!! It still hurts.

2- Oklahoma

Granted, I know they’re good, but I hate them. I hate their red. I hate their Sooner carriage. I hate the OU. I hate everything about Oklahoma.

1- Ohio State

Nothing in this world makes me feel more hatred than Ohio State. They are the premier team in the Big 10 and yet they still can’t win the big game (except for that one time, but it’s been more than a decade and I mean, what have you done for me lately?). I think my main problem stems from the Big 10 in general. They think they are above every other conference. Don’t get me started on Leaders and Legends. But Ohio State is just the epitome of it. From being called THE Ohio State University to Jim Tressel to “Little Sisters of the Poor”, I just hate, hate, hate The Ohio State University.

Of Choice and Chance

Robert Frost posited that, at any given point in our lives, we are presented with a fork in our life's path that, depending on the choice made, will affect the course our life takes. At that point, there are two choices: the path we choose and the divergent path. The impact of the choice may not be immediately known to us, whether it be positive or negative, but later in our life path. Two types of choice paths will appear in front of us along our journey down life's road: major choices and minor choices.

Minor choices can be as simple as deciding what to order in a restaurant or choosing which pant leg to put on first. They can have no deep, lasting impact or effect on the person you will become. That being said, a negative choice made sparingly will not have a huge impact, but a large amount of negative choices can and will adversely affect your life path. The minor choices you make though will generally only place you along a slightly different, though, parallel path. The changes in the new life path will be subtle, but the impact could be larger than expected.

A single minor choice in life may seem important, but it pales in comparison with the impact of a major life choice. A major choice can find someone miles away from their comfort zone or even see a person change their perception of the world around them by through the consequences of their choices. Much like minor choices, there are both positive and negative choices that affect your life path. Unlike minor choices though, a single negative choice can drastically alter your life path in ways you could never expect.

Divergent paths in life occur when there is a road not taken. It is a choice unmade and a life unlived. Divergent paths function almost the same way as "alternate universes." They are places where the world, the surroundings and even you are the same, but there is something greatly different about the path, all centered around a choice made differently. Divergent paths can also exist when there is a chance that Death was eluded. In these divergent paths, the path comes to a close, though life has continued on.

If ever you have wondered what it would be like to be different, just make the choice in life that your current self would not make, then see who you become. Which path will you take?

An Unfinished Life: A Comment on Choice and Inevitability

As each new day dawns and gives us another chance at life, we tend to forget the subtle things in life. The things that fall by the wayside tend to be the things that we cherish most in life. As I’ve grown, my priorities have changed and I’ve come to a point in my life where, through it seems far off, my mortality is becoming flesh to me. Though I’ve made this realization, my thoughts do not dwell in Death’s realm. They sit rather at the Table of Choice.

I have long believed that a life fully lived is a life full of choices made, choices declined and choices we never had a chance to choose. As we travel through life, there is but one constant: change. Change is a by-product of the choices we make in our daily lives. At any given point in a person’s daily life, they are faced with a myriad of choices. Some of those choices will open doors to more choices, while some will close the door on choices yet to be made. Emerson once said, “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” He perfectly illustrates how choice affects the outcome of not only our day-to-day decisions, but also the choices that affect our lives. Choice acts much like the switches on railroad tracks, with one turn of the switch rails affecting the path of the train.

No matter the outcome of the choices we make there are always the inevitabilities that come with life. The events in our life that would come to pass, much like death, no matter the amount of input we put in through our life choices. Hebrews 9:27 says that man is appointed once to die, thereby ensuring that we know Death is the ultimate inevitability.