Yikes, well I have to say I respect rich tradition and history and that's why I respect Tenn., b/c it's 2nd only to Alabama in history and tradition in the SEC and in 2nd to Bama in SEC titles.
I already know about Tenn's tradition from how the color was chosen to the mascot and the volunteer nickname.
Some seem confused about Bama's though.
The names weren't arbitrarily chosen by the student body...they were given to the University of Alabama by the media due to their success.
First, Crimson Tide is the Nickname...The Elephant is the mascot.
Crimson Tide:
Early newspaper accounts of the University's football squad simply referred to them as the "varsity" or the "Crimson White." The first nickname popular with the media was the "Thin Red Line," from the Rudyard Kipling poem about a British soldier in World War I, which was used until 1906. Hugh Roberts, former sports editor of the Birmingham Age-Herald, is credited with coining the phrase "Crimson Tide" in an article describing the 1907 Iron Bowl played in Birmingham. The game was played in a sea of red mud with Auburn, a heavy favorite to win. Alabama held Auburn to a 6-6 tie, thus graduating to their newfound nickname.
The Elephant:
There are two stories, perhaps both true, about how Alabama's football squad became associated with the elephant, both dating to the coaching tenure of Wallace Wade (1923–1930).
The earliest account attributes the Rosenberger's Birmingham Trunk Company for the elephant association. Owner J. D. Rosenberger, whose son was a student at the University, outfitted the undefeated 1926 team with "good luck" luggage tags for the trip to the 1927 Rose Bowl. The company's trademark, displayed on the tags, was a red elephant standing on a trunk. When the football team arrived in Pasadena, the reporters greeting them, including syndicated columnist Grantland Rice, associated their large size with the elephants on their luggage. When the 1930 team returned to the Rose Bowl, the company furnished leather suitcases, paid for by the Alumni Association, to each team member.
Another story dates to 1930. Following the October 4 game against Ole Miss, Atlanta Journal sports writer Everett Strupper wrote:
"At the end of the quarter, the earth started to tremble, there was a distant rumble that continued to grow. Some excited fan in the stands bellowed, 'Hold your horses, the elephants are coming,' and out stamped this Alabama varsity. It was the first time that I had seen it and the size of the entire eleven nearly knocked me cold, men that I had seen play last year looking like they had nearly doubled in size."
Sports writers continued to refer to Alabama as the "Red Elephants" afterwards, referring to their crimson jerseys.
Also, in reference to the tornadoes.
Having gone to school at the Capstone for the last 4 years, I have experienced UT at Bama home games in '07 and '09. Some Tenn. fans invited some of us UA students to tailgate and we really had fun talking and watching the other days' games on tv before and after the Bama/UT game...and Tenn. fans were probably the best experiences of opposing fans I had.
Those UT fans were classy...I guess I would find that here, but perhaps I shouldn't have been looking for class on a website called volnation...I guess that's my fault.
I gotta say though, I was appalled...actually got a little sick to my stomach when I saw some people in this thread were making light of the tornadoes. I live off of Hargrove Rd., so my place nearly missed the destruction path in Tuscaloosa...but a lot of my friends' places were blown away, also after the tornado we were literally digging screaming people out of their buildings or "debris" as someone earlier in this thread put it. One girl in one of my work groups in one of my classes this past semester I later found out died. Back in the county where my hometown is, they were literally having funerals everyday last week. Three days after the storms I also found out about some of the people I went to church with back home, a young family with his wife, 3 year-old son, newborn boy and his mother-in-law went to their storm shelter where I assume they survived the tornado, but a car got flipped on the door of the storm shelter and they got trapped...and somehow water was able to get in (I guess a puncture from the car hitting it) and it poured in and filled the small shelter to the top...they didn't survive.
So yeah, I guess the past two weeks we've been cleaning "debris" out of our yards. As far as trailors, I don't know...these tornadoes didn't discriminate on socioeconomic status...the area where I live in Tuscaloosa it hit student housing (apartments and condos), low-income housing, and also 5-bedroom 2-car garage houses that were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars as well as damage to million-dollar condos that the alumni usually buy for gamedays...so young and old, rich and poor...all were in the same boat...but all were helping each other...clean up the "tornado debris out of our yards."
There was a church from Tennessee that helped us...Our church helped in Louisiana after Katrina when we went down to Slidell,LA. I know several Alabama churches that helped after the Nashville floods.
Football is football...real-life is real-life.
Don't confuse the two.