The College Football thread

“Too bad the way some Big 10 teams get their butts handed to Iowa as the season winds down. Congrats to the Hawkeyes for keeping on "keeping on." Two close lossses the other way (which would have made afore alluded-to Big 10 teams cringe and crawl away) and Iowa would be going to the high and mighty bowl games... instead of just a bowl game.

Or to really spell this out: WI and MN suck the big one.

GO HAWKS! :-)

And this was just too sweet. I posted this elsewhere, but will repeat here. I didn't get to go to the Iowa game, but was at the Metrodome...:

Trip to the Metrodome to shoot an area high school football team's state semi-final game... fun

They lose... but still... you're on the Metrodome floor... fun

Then you go up to the pressbox, partake of popcorn and pop, and watch on the pressbox TVs the Iowa Hawkeyes smoking the @sses of the Golden Gophers -- ALL WHILE SITTING ABOVE THEIR HOME FIELD!!! :-) .... priceless”

“My voice is still horse from the Iron Bowl. Probably the loudest I remember the stadium getting in the past 10 years from beginning to end. My ears actually hurt like I had just left a rock concert after the game.”

“Not only did my football team lose, but so did almost all the other teams I care about:

Stanford football: Lost
Michigan State football: Lost
Stanford men's b-ball: Huge upset loss
Michigan State men's b-ball: Huge upset loss
My old high school (first round sectional playoffs): Lost
Our city's high school closest to us (playoffs): Lost
Our city's other high school (playoffs): Lost

Only bright spots:
Stanford men's water polo: Won
Stanford women's b-ball: Won


If the Giants or A's were playing they would have lost.

The 49ers and Raiders will probably lose today.

BowlderSon's soccer team will probably lose their playoff game today.

Ugh.

I hate spectator sports.

Time to go for a run....”

“sorry,sorry game for the Vols yesterday. To go from a preseason ranking of #3 to a 4-6 record. No bowl game for the first time in 16 yrs, which was the 3rd longest.
Bad times on old Rocky Top right now”

“I'm calling U.T. #1 - looking forward to the Rose Bowl and a chance to see 'em prove it.
last edited: 11/20/05 6:36:36 PM”

“The Lady Vols look good. I think Pat Summitt has a real chance to pick up another National Championship. Thank God we have at least one competitive team on campus.”

“I'm an a$$hole. I didn't watch GA Tech play Miami 'cause I thought they'd get pummelled. DOH!!”

“Okay... a painful end to a painful season for the Michigan State Spartans... :-(

It was so promising at the beginning of the year!

Truth be told, Thinkbubelz & I didn't dare listen to the last 2 games... We didn't want to get too frustrated... :-(

The only highlight to this season is that we got to go to the MSU / Indiana game, and it was a beautiful crisp fall day-- with lots of sun and not a cloud in the sky (as well as a decisive win)...

Well... next up is Basketball... and we'll look for a better season next year!”

“Okay... a painful end to a painful season for the Michigan State Spartans... :-(

It was so promising at the beginning of the year!

Truth be told, Thinkbubelz & I didn't dare listen to the last 2 games... We didn't want to get too frustrated... :-(

The only highlight to this season is that we got to go to the MSU / Indiana game, and it was a beautiful crisp fall day-- with lots of sun and not a cloud in the sky (as well as a decisive win)...

Well... next up is Basketball... and we'll look for a better season next year!”

“Ouch - MSU basketball started with a thud. Loss to Hawaii. First opening game loss in over 20 years. My team had a similar loss in our first game. Ugh.”

“Anything new?


























Nope same old same old. SC is still #1. : p”

“Yavener: No playoff, no real champ in I-A
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
HARVEY YAVENER


NASCAR gets it. How else, on a Monday morning after a busy NFL Sunday,
could the stock-car racers get the entire first eight minutes of ESPN's
"SportsCenter" if they hadn't learned you need a late-season tournament
to build fan interest and crown a champion?

Not that it's a new concept. It goes back more than a century, to when
baseball found a World Series would command headlines.

Every pro league gets it. The NFL, the NBA, the NHL, and all the rest.
Stage a regular season to fill the coffers and set up the postseason
field, but it is that second-season tourney when the TV ratings zoom and
the big bucks roll in.

Individual sports are realizing it more and more. Suddenly Wimbledon or
the Masters aren't enough. The tennis and golf tours - men and women -
are moving rapidly to do what NASCAR did, set up a "Chase" for a
year-long title and stage the climax as a major event after things
normally were cooled.

You can't arbitrarily pick a couple of teams or a couple of athletes and
say they're going to meet for the title. It doesn't work. Ask boxing.
Once it was organized so fans could understand. Just eight weight
classes, just one governing body, just eight champions fans everywhere
knew. Now it's chaos, a million hyphenated weight divisions and as many
so-called "world" groups awarding titles. Money-grabbing promoters and
uncaring managers send out hapless proteges and wonder why no one is
fascinated any more. Poker players with gloves on.

And, oh yes, there's NCAA Division I-A football. Just as mindless as
boxing when it comes to creating a championship tournament to maximize
the sport. Rather than follow the perfect example of basketball's March
Madness, of creating a tournament that sweeps the country from Selection
Sunday through office pools to the national-championship game, football
gives us the BCS.

And now they're having the chutzpah to tell us this season proves the
BCS works, that USC and Texas are the clear-cut class and will wind up
playing for a clear-cut title. And they expect us to believe that. To
believe the whole regular season had credibility because it produced
this matchup.

Sorry. It says here those two teams were picked in advance to be 1-2 and
everyone else was meaningless. That all the other games were less than
window-dressing. That the wondrous story that should have been written
by Notre Dame's resurgence wasn't even a footnote to the
national-championship chapter. That Joe Paterno's season which should
have been one for the football ages had to settle for being one about
old age.

It's ironic that Paterno gets aced by the Trojans and Longhorns. Ironic
because he is that rare figure in college football who never has wavered
in calling for a 16-team postseason tournament as the only legitimate
way to crown a legitimate champion. They do it in every other NCAA
division in football, in every other NCAA sport. JoePa knows. The
college presidents, like the boxing promoters, have their own agenda.

It is about that time of year I annually go through the exercise I enjoy
so much even though I know how totally wasted an effort it is. No, not
Christmas shopping. It is the time to select my 16-team field for a true
college-football championship tournament and seed the bracket.

Here goes, with seeds and projected final records. In picking the field,
no conference was allowed more than three entries (Sorry, Tide, you
can't roll), and no team with more than three losses was permitted (woe,
ye Wolverines). Repeat matchups like Ohio State-Texas were avoided as
long as possible. And TCU just didn't have enough big wins.

Top Half - 1. USC (12-0) vs. 16. Texas Tech (9-2). 8. Auburn (9-2) vs.
9. Miami, Fla. (9-2). 5. Virginia Tech (11-1) vs. 12. Georgia (9-3). 4.
Penn State (10-1) vs. 13. Louisville (9-2).

Bottom Half - 3. LSU (11-1) vs. 14. West Virginia (10-1). 6. Ohio State
(9-2) vs. 11. UCLA (9-2). 7. Notre Dame (9-2) vs. 10. Oregon (10-1). 2.
Texas (12-0) vs. 15. Fresno State (10-2).

How much fun would that be? How vast would the TV audience be? How many
billions of network dollars would come to the colleges who currently are
bemoaning the increasing cost of athletic programs? How do fiscally
irresponsible people become college presidents? They really don't get it, do they?

-- There is a 16-team Division I college football tournament kicking off
this Saturday. Division I-AA, to be precise. One in which the field
includes three-loss Colgate and three-loss Lafayette.

Colgate and Lafayette? Hey, Princeton played both this year, didn't
they, beating one and narrowly losing to the other? Where are the
three-loss Tigers?

Home, of course, choosing not to enter. Only one league chooses not to
enter. The Ivy League. Actually, most of the Ivies would enter, but a
couple of holdout members say no. One holdout is Princeton. So no Ivy
team goes, though the football players in I-AA around the country get to
thrill to the experience of championship tournaments, the way field
hockey, water polo and volleyball and every other sport does everywhere
including the Ivies.

Is that hypocritical? Or do they know something everyone else doesn't
about football tournaments? You'd think that being the Ivy League, the
latter might be the case. Except, most of the Ivies like the idea.

Oh, yes. The No. 1 seed in the NCAA I-AA tournament is New Hampshire
(10-1), the school you may remember that upset Rutgers last year for
which the Scarlet Knights drew universal scorn.

Ricky Santos, who was a freshman QB last year when he cut up Rutgers,
clinched the Atlantic 10 title for New Hampshire in a win over Maine
when he passed for 354 yards and four TDs and ran for another 116 yards
and three more TDs. Rutgers fans shouldn't be surprised by that.

Contact staff columnist Harvey Yavener at hyavener@njtimes.com.
last edited: 11/23/05 4:59:28 PM”

“Man says God put him at Iron Bowl to save heart attack victim's life
Thursday, November 24, 2005
RAY MELICK
News staff writer
It seemed silly at the time, but Blake Thompson's wife suggested they pray for tickets to the Iron Bowl. A few days later a friend called with an extra pair for the life-long Alabama fan.

Thompson couldn't help but think, "God wants me at this game."

The family of Herman Culpepper is thankful God sometimes answers such trivial prayers.

Thompson, 29, who lives in unincorporated north Shelby County, was sitting with his wife, Brook, in Section 56, Row 19, seats 13 and 14 of the west upper deck at Jordan-Hare Stadium Saturday night during Auburn's 28-18 victory over Alabama. That's where he heard someone call out, "Somebody get a doctor. This man is having a heart attack!"

A former National Guard combat medic, Thompson responded immediately and found the 74-year-old Culpepper sitting in his seat, not breathing, starting to turn blue.

"As a combat medic, I'd actually seen this," Thompson said. "I thought, `He's dead.' Elderly, that color, he didn't even fall over - and his wife told me he'd had three heart attacks. I thought, `He's a dead man, but I'll do what I can.'"

As fans called for paramedics, Thompson and another fan, a nurse practitioner, ripped open Culpepper's Auburn windbreaker and Auburn shirt to begin CPR. While Thompson did chest compressions, nurse Carla Moore began doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

"I couldn't find a pulse in his wrist or neck," Thompson said. "But his wife was standing there, so we went to work."

It took only a few minutes for paramedics from the East Alabama Medical Center, contracted to provide first aid for Auburn games, to arrive. They quickly attached an automated external defibrillator (AED) to Culpepper, and when the machine could not find a heartbeat, it fired electrical charges through Culpepper's body, literally shocking Culpepper back to life.


`He's doing fine':


"My understanding is that our paramedics from the first aid station on that level responded to a call for help and found a man wearing an Alabama shirt administering CPR to another man, who you've identified as Mr. Culpepper," said Dan Goslin, director of emergency medical services at the Opelika medical center.

"Our emergency medical personnel took over and transported him to East Alabama Medical Center. He woke up en route to the hospital, and my understanding is he's doing fine and was released (Tuesday).

"We're real proud of being able to help," Goslin said, "but I give all the credit to the Alabama fan who started CPR. That was very important. If Mr. Culpepper had been anywhere else, he wouldn't be with us today."


`That's how close':


Reached at his home in Dothan, Culpepper said, "They saved my life, that Alabama fan and Carla Moore and the cardiologist at the hospital, Dr. (Michael) Williams. In fact, Dr. Williams said if it had only been a few more minutes, I'd have lost my brain and kidneys. That's how close it was."

Married for 50 years and parents of three daughters, Culpepper and his wife, Mary Jane, have been regular season ticket holders at Auburn, sitting in Section 56, Row 17, seats 3 and 4 of the west upper deck since the deck opened.

Thompson, who has three sons under age 3, was attending his first Alabama game of the season.

"We usually go to several a year, but this year, due to the birth of our third child and other issues, we hadn't been able to go," he said. "We finally decided we had to go to this one, but it was so late, I told my wife tickets would be a thousand dollars a pair.

"She said, `Let's pray about it,' and I said, `Whatever.' I was thinking I wasn't going to worry God with prayer for tickets to a football game. But Thursday, a friend called and said she had two pair, and we could use two. We paid $16 over face value.

"The two pair were actually on opposite sides of the stadium. We took the pair that put us in the west upper deck, just happy to be at the game."

Thompson is a medical administrator who works at the Lighthouse Pain Clinic in Shelby County.


Sorry about the clothes:


"I know it must have looked funny," Thompson said. "I was wearing my Alabama shirt, and here I am ripping off this Auburn fan's jacket and pumping on his chest. I felt bad about having to ruin his clothes like that.

"I'd like to buy him a new windbreaker. I can promise you it will be the first Auburn stuff I've ever bought, and it seems trivial, but I'd like to do that for him."

Culpepper laughed when told of Thompson's concern for his Auburn clothes.

"That's all gone," he said. "Two Auburn shirts were a small price to pay. Tell him not to worry about it."

Mary Jane Culpepper said her husband had his first heart attack at age 38, and was forced to take an early retirement because of his heart. He's had 11 stents put in to help restore blood flow to his heart.

"I love Auburn," Herman Culpepper said. "But I think I'll quit going to ballgames now."

As for Thompson, friends who know him to be a die-hard Alabama fan were surprised when they didn't have to console him Sunday after the game.

"People were saying to me, `Aren't you disappointed?'" Thompson said. "I had a very different experience. It was very affirming, to see the way God worked. It wasn't about me, but that God had Mr. Culpepper in mind by allowing me to be there. And that's OK."


E-mail: rmelick@bhamnews.com”

“arclite - You kept mentioning every "other sport does everywhere." How 'bout wrestling and swimming?

I'm more concerned about all the men's sports being dropped because of Government rules on distribution of money in sports between the sexes. This includes men's track, wrestling and tennis, which have been dropped by a number of schools. Football, the money winner, they will never drop.

College Presidents are picked for their fund raising abilities!
last edited: 11/24/05 3:48:27 PM”

“I heard Bama was coming out with a Brodie Croyle bobble-head doll. It comes in its very own Iron Bowl sack! (drumroll please)”

“Interesting - The BCS computer ranking (which is merged with the polls for the official BCS ranking) has GA Tech ranked 16, higher than Georgia at 21. Anyone know which official ranking system best predicts winners? Tonights game is an interesting test.

It also has UT higher than USC, although the Horns unconvincing win over the Aggies might change that.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/polls?poll=4&date=2005-11-20
last edited: 11/26/05 10:07:04 PM”

“Yippee!

The announcement is due tomorrow.

The Wounded Amoebas are bowl-bound after a convincing 44-9 victory over Cincinnati!

What’s the weather like in Phoenix at the end of December? I’m going to start packing today.”

“Nicer than New Jersey V.

Congrats to the Fightin' Tomatoes!”

“wow. irish pile up 663 yards of offense, but have to come back in the final minute to win because of 2 turnovers and poor kicking. only saw the last few minutes of the game, but wotta thriller!”

“I watched the second half of that game, too, CB. Had me on the edge of my seat. Now on to BCS.”

“Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!
MS State isn't the very worse team in the SEC!!!!!!!!!!!!
We stomped Ole Miss!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!

All is forgiven if we beat Ole Miss at the end of a season, no matter how bad we sucked the rest of the season.”

“Tennessee managed to keep Kentucky in the cellar.



Who would have ever believed that Rutgers would be bowl bound while Tennessee fans are staying at home to watch women's basketball?”

“Now you know how I've felt for most of my life chili.”

“Gee, sorta sucks, doesn't it?”

“Maybe our women's BB teams will meet in the finals (yours will lose, of course).”

“Poor chili. It has to suck if your team doesn't have a losing tradition to fall back on.

I don't feel the slightest sadness about UT.
Living in Knoxville as a MS State fan for four years will do that.”

“CB and Ruby. I was at the Stanford/ND game. ND has no business playing in one of those big BCS games, based on what I saw. Having watched one of the worst offenses in the country for the whole season, I can't believe a team that allowed the Stanford offense 3 TD's (and allowed a TD on a kickoff return) would even be ranked in the top 25, much less battling for a BCS spot! The ND fans were all strutting around afterward like their team was so awesome - didn't they notice that they had to mount a desperation rally against a middle of the conference (and a supposedly weak conference at that!) team just to barely win?!

Yes, they scored in under a minute of clock time at the end. Why did they have to do that? Because Stanford - yes, Stanford, one of the worst offenses in the country!! - had just gone 80+ yards and scored in 29 seconds to go ahead.

All of us Stanford fans expected a 49-0 thrashing based on ND's ranking and all of the hype, but instead found an opponent only about in the mid-range of what we faced all year. Hope I don't hurt any feelings, but I think ND gets a lot of credit for its history, not its ability.”

“gee, thats funny, you must have forgotten that they took the nearly unanimously number one team in the country, USC, a team with not one but two heisman front-runners in leinart and bush, down to the wire, or that a big reason the game was as close as it was was due to 2 missed field goals and an extra point by the kicker. 663 yards of offense to 336 yards is a pretty good beating, so if 80 yards of it came in the last minute, then that goes to show even more how badly your team was dominated”

“Don't worry Chili, the surgical changes to the UT's offensive staff are here and they're swift and merciless. Fulmer has never felt the kind of heat he's feeling this year and he knows that his job and legacy are in the balance. TN has a world of talent and I predict a quick recovery.

Some folks don't like the re-hiring of Cutcliffe as OC but I think it's the best thing that could've happened. There won't be any awkward growing pains that teams often see with a new OC. I'm sure you remember that UT's offense was very potent under Cutcliffe in the '90's. Play-calling is not UT's problem, it has been talent development (on offense) and subsequently, execution. Cutcliffe is known for his attention to detail and his hire is a huge step up in QB coaching.
last edited: 11/27/05 11:50:11 PM”

“BowlderMan is just upset because now he owes me 2 beers...

Actually, every good team has to tough out games against marginal opponents once in a while. Remember OSU's championship season in 2002/3? There were a lot of nail biters during their run...

I'll take the win and a chance to play a big name school in the BCS...this year, i even think we'd have a good chance at winning.”

“Yeah, LLH, Cutcliffe will be the best thing that ever happened to Crompton.

I just can't hardly remember a time when I was talking about "next" year before the first of December.

Hell, I sorta feel like a Bama fan.”

“chili - I was about to say you sound like a Bama fan, but you beat me to it.”

“Sorry guys, no way a top flight team should have to worry about missing 2 FGs and an extra point against a team that is 95th or something in the country in offense and, I almost forgot, 106th in defense. This isn't a marginal opponent, this is a horrible opponent. I doubt OSU's season of nail biters included games this close against an opponent this bad. People laugh at Stanford for losing to UC Davis - ND came within 50 seconds of a far more embarrassing loss.

And how could the supposed 2nd coming of Montana possibly throw one - no, wait, TWO! - interceptions. Did we even get any interceptions against anyone the rest of the season?

Not BCS worthy. Sorry.”

“By golly, nowslimmer, I think it’s long past time for a playoff.


I mean the two teams who will be playing for the Mythical NC come from conferences that have a total of five AP ranked teams.

Then you talk about Notre Dame getting a BCS bid? That’s just puh-thetik! The know-nothing Notre Dame fans think they had a great year after playing a grand total of TWO ranked teams (1&21). Their opponents have 58 combined wins and 62 combined losses.

That’s just sorry. It just gets those arrogant Notre Dame fans all giddy over the delusion that they’re actually a good team. They get to reap the monetary benefits, and more deserving teams like Auburn, Miami, Georgia, or Alabama get left out.




Wrestling has the NCAA championship tournament, nowslimmer. Ask Lizs, I’ll bet she’ll tell you about Iowa. I know swimming has the NCAAs. Florida has two National swimming & diving Championships that were decided by head-to-head tournament competition.

I have mixed emotions about your ideas on government interference, nowslimmer. Football, and men’s basketball, are the big money makers at Florida (and most schools). Those two programs are subsidizing the rest of the athletes. We had to cut a couple of men’s programs to make room for more women’s programs true, but these were not well attended men’s sports.

Without the revenue from football and men’s basketball, the other athletes wouldn’t have state-of-the-art facilities to train in nor any scholarship money.


Normally, I am a huge believer in government staying out of people’s lives. But if you’re going to take government money, government should have a say in how it’s used.

That’s what didn’t happen before Hurricane Katrina. FEMA disaster funds were used to buy things like bulletproof vests for some of the local police canine units.

I have a problem with private schools being told what to do. But what are you gonna do? You’ve got so many leftist/feminist/socialists in academia that’s a lot of whining. And politicians often listen to whining.

Besides, women should have equal opportunity for sports to interfere with the time management needed to study a meaningful major while in college. They should have equal opportunity to experience no hope of achieving any future marketable success in their sport once they leave college.

I believe that women should have equal opportunity to discover if they are the type of person who can play sports while getting good grades in a meaningful field of study. They should have the opportunity to impress men (or other women) with these types of skills.

That way all the type A’s in the world hopefully will find each other, burn each other out, and not drive the rest of us crazy.”

“arclite, I agree with you. ND getting a BCS bowl is a shame. They were talking about this very topic on a sports talk show this morning. They even brought up that the Oregon Ducks were more deserving of a BCS bowl than ND”

“notre dame? maybe in a few years after weis has his say in recruiting it will return to the spectacle of old. but for now its a shame OSU didnt hang on to the last minutes or texas would be singing the buckeye battle cry. and how about jo pa? good job old man! BIG TEN RULES COLLEGE FOOTBALL the toughest consistent conference in NCAA year in and year out.”

“Coach Bryant story from a message board:

At a TD Club meeting many years before his death, Coach told the following story...typical of the way he operated.

I had just been named the new head coach at Alabama and was off in my old
car down in South Alabama recruiting a prospect who was supposed to have
been a pretty good player and I was havin' trouble finding the
place. Getting hungry I spied an old cinder block building with a small
sign out front that simply said "Restaurant".

I pull up, go in and every head in the place turns to stare at me. Seems
I'm the only white fella in the place. But the food smelled good so I skip
a table and go up to a cement bar and sit. A big ole man in a tee shirt
and cap comes over and says, "What do you need?" I told him I needed lunch
and what did they have today? He says, "You probably won't like it here,
today we're having chiltlin's, collared greens and black eyed peas with
cornbread. I'll bet you don't even know what chitlin's are, do you?"

I looked him square in the eye and said, "I'm from Arkansas, I've probly
eaten a mile of them. Sounds like I'm in the right place." They all
smiled he left to serve me up a big plate. When he comes back he says, you
ain't from around here then? And I explain I'm the new football coach up
in Tuscaloosa at the University and I'm here to find what ever that boys
name was, and he says, yeah I've heard of him, he's supposed to be pretty
good. And he gives me directions to the school so I can meet him and his
coach.

As I'm paying up to leave I remember my manners and leave a tip, not too
big to be flashy, but a good one, and he told me lunch was on him, but I
told him for a lunch that good, I felt I should pay. The big man asked me
if I had a photograph of something he could hang up to show I'd been there.
I was so new that I didn't have any yet. It really wasn't that big a thing
back then to be asked for, but I took a napkin and wrote his name and
address on it and told him I'd get him one. I met the kid I was lookin'
for later that afternoon, and I don't remember his name, but do remember I
didn't think much of him when I met him. I had wasted a day, or so I thought.

When I got back to Tuscaloosa late that night, I put that napkin from my
shirt pocket and put it under my keys so I wouldn't forget it. Hell, back
then I was excited that anybody would want a picture of me. And the next
day we found a picture and I wrote on it, Thanks for the best lunch I've
ever had, Paul Bear Bryant.

Now let's go a whole buncha years down the road. Now we have black players
at Alabama and I'm back down in that part of the country scouting an
offensive lineman we sure needed. Yall remember, (and I forget the name,
but it's not important to the story), well anyway, he's got two friends
going to Auburn and he tells me he's got his heart set on Auburn too, so I
leave empty handed and go on see some others while I'm down there. Two
days later, I'm in my office in Tuscaloosa and the phone rings and it's
this kid who just turned me down, and he says, "Coach, do you still want me
at Alabama?" And I said hell yes I sure do. And he says, OK, he'll
come. And I say, well son, what changed your mind? And he said, "When my
grandpa found out that I had a chance to play for you and said no he
pitched a fit and told me I wasn't going nowhere but Alabama, and wasn't
playing for nobody but you. He thinks a lot of you and has ever since yall
met." Well I didn't know his grandad from Adam's housecat so I asked him
who his grand daddy was and he said, "You probly don't remember him, but
you ate in his restaurant when your first year at Alabama and you sent him
a picture that he's had hung in that place ever since. That picture's his
pride and joy and he still tells everybody about the day that Bear Bryant
came in and had chitlin's with him. My grandpa said that when you left
there, he never expected you to remember him or to send him that picture,
but you kept your word to him, and to Grandpa, that's everything. He said
you could teach me more than football and I had to play for a man like you,
so I guess I'm going to."

"I was floored", he said. "But I learned that the lessons my mama taught
me were always right. It don't cost nuthin' to be nice. It don't cost
nuthin' to do the right thing most of the time, and it costs a lot to lose
your good name by breakin' your word to someone. When I went back to sign
that boy, I looked up his Grandpa and he's still running that place, but it
looks a lot better now, and he didn't have chitlin's that day, but he had
some ribs that woulda made dreamland proud and I made sure I posed for a
lot of pictures, and don't think I didn't leave some new ones for him too
along with a signed football. I made it clear to all my assistants to keep
this story and these lessons in mind when they're out on the road. And if
you remember anything else from me, remember this, It really doesn't cost
anything to be nice, and the rewards can be unimaginable."”

“What's a chitlin?”

“Are you serious?”

“They're a part of a pig, right?”

“excellent piece on bryant!!!!”

“pig intestines”

“*shaking head in disbelief*”

“PS. The last paragraph mentions Dreamland. That's a rib joint in Tuscaloosa to you non-SEC football fans. It's mentioned just about everytime ESPN airs a Bama game.”

“Hey, in the old South you ate every part of a pig. You can still get pickled pigs feet in most grocery stores here. I can honestly say I've never eaten chittlins, or anything pickled for that matter.

When I was in college I worked at a steel warehouse. Steel warehouses aren't in the best part of time. The guys would get takeout from a small restaurant about like what's described above. You folks from the North would call is "Soul Food." Down here it's just food. I vividly recall the first time I went to pick up lunch. There were 3 tables, 2 in the summer because a box fan sat on that third table. The menu was a piece of loose leaf paper taped to the block wall. The first meat listed on the hand written paper was chittlins. There was a white guy in a suit waiting on his food. In the booth was an older black man in overalls. It was a true melting pot type of place. I always got fried pork chops, fried okra, potato salad, and corn bread everytime I went. Good stuff.

My wifes grandad was one of 22 kids. His depression era food stories were something to hear.”

“V - now you get the reference to "I ate a mile of 'em."

Also, they do wash them thoroughly before cleaning. You still have to wonder, who was the first person to think it would be a good idea to eat that particular part of an animal.”

“"The only part of a pig you cant use is the squeal." Blood pudding, bladder baloons, lard for soap, skin for leather, rind, chitlins, pickled feet, head cheese, the list goes on. The most efficient animal as far as cost to feed versus weight gain and use.”

“I didn't learn that lesson.

Any fool who thinks the big ten is the best conference year-in-year-out needs to bone up on his almanac and find out how much better the SEC really is.



We had a place called Mama Lo's in town for years. "Soul food" if you want to call it that. It was good ol' down home southern cookin' (meaning the vegetables were mush). It was great, very popular with the students, and as you say, dayhiker, a real melting pot.
last edited: 11/29/05 6:37:09 PM”

“I had Dreamland for dinner tonight... Yum yum.”

“Fool? Fools toss about that word freely. I have had Tennessee let me down so many times. What happened to my old Kentucky home? And why does Auburn fight so hard and so tough only to choke so often? SEC is tough but you look at almanacs like it means something. The only way to measure conference strength in the old days was a few non conference games. I agree with an inter-conference playoff system.”