The Tidazation of Southern Middle Tennessee

#1
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rockydoc

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#1
Saw a man yesterday who lives near Loretta, along the Ala-Tenn border. He was distrought because, though he and his children have been lifelong UT fans, two of his grandchildren have jumped on the Bama bandwagon and become Tide fans.

It reminds me of when I was a child during the great Bear Bryant run, many youngsters living in Southern Tennesssee became Tide fans, since the media, Huntsville in particular, is nonstop Bama propaganda (sp). Hopefully, we can turn our program around and the Criminal Tide will get hammered again by the NCAA.
 
#2
#2
I would only give my grandkids Tennessee gear for Christmas until they changed and beat up my grown son for letting his kids become Bama fans.
 
#3
#3
Most of the people around Huntsville are bandwagon fans. When Auburn was in it's 6 year hayday, you were lucky to see any Alabama crap on anyone's car.
 
#5
#5
North Alabama has been a hotbed for UT over the years...See Wes Brown, Aaron Sears, Jason Allen, Jayson Swaim...et al...so you are wrong! I remember listening to Vol Calls on the local Hunstville Al. station in the 80's. Something about the Tennessee River and TVA power that brings North Alabama into our yard more than Alabama's yard.
 
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#9
#9
rockydoc said:
Saw a man yesterday who lives near Loretta, along the Ala-Tenn border. He was distrought because, though he and his children have been lifelong UT fans, two of his grandchildren have jumped on the Bama bandwagon and become Tide fans.


he told me it was the new coach,kids were getting made fun of at school :p
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#10
#10
Sports Authority in Nashville is stocked with Bama gear and will have Bama NAtional Championship gear available less than an hour after the game ends.
 
#11
#11
The majority of the 'fans' of any successful football program have never attended one day of class at that university. They tie their wagons to a winning program and unhitch them the minute the ride gets a little rough. That applies to Southern Middle Tennessee and to North Alabama and most likely to any other part of the country. As negative as that sounds, their money is just as good and rounds out the alumni's money very well. They also influence the recruits. The longer UT goes without beating Alabama, the tougher the recruiting in these areas will become. However, as legendary as Bear was, I can remember him being hung in effigy during his 6-5 1969-70 seasons so they'll turn on Saban just as quickly.
 
#12
#12
What pisses me off is the fact that people can get license plates issued in TN the have the stupid elephant on them.
 
#13
#13
I have noticed a lot of fresh new stickers, flags, etc.. on cars around town, bandwagoneers everywhere, the bad thing is you see most of em cruising around the same time bammer is playing.
 
#15
#15
tnbloodnguts said:
The majority of the 'fans' of any successful football program have never attended one day of class at that university. They tie their wagons to a winning program and unhitch them the minute the ride gets a little rough. That applies to Southern Middle Tennessee and to North Alabama and most likely to any other part of the country. As negative as that sounds, their money is just as good and rounds out the alumni's money very well. They also influence the recruits. The longer UT goes without beating Alabama, the tougher the recruiting in these areas will become. However, as legendary as Bear was, I can remember him being hung in effigy during his 6-5 1969-70 seasons so they'll turn on Saban just as quickly.
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Bingo.
Just people with low self esteem that want to be associated with a team that is winning.
 
#16
#16
tnbloodnguts said:
The majority of the 'fans' of any successful football program have never attended one day of class at that university. They tie their wagons to a winning program and unhitch them the minute the ride gets a little rough. That applies to Southern Middle Tennessee and to North Alabama and most likely to any other part of the country. As negative as that sounds, their money is just as good and rounds out the alumni's money very well. They also influence the recruits. The longer UT goes without beating Alabama, the tougher the recruiting in these areas will become. However, as legendary as Bear was, I can remember him being hung in effigy during his 6-5 1969-70 seasons so they'll turn on Saban just as quickly.
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I would say your right about the majority of UT fans having not attended the University. That does not make them less of a fan though. TN fans are very loyal to TN football (at least in this area of TN). To the regular folk in southeast TN this is their state and their team period. As far as Alabama is concerned, any National Championship caliber team is going to attract bandwagon fans. Those are the ones that are not true fans. They just blow with the wind, changing colors like the leaves in fall.
 
#17
#17
imavolsfan4ever said:
dont think you can get ut on an alabama tag...wifes is personalized " volsgal"...we live in bama...lol....go vols
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Nope, cannot do it. Only our lovely state government in Tennessee would prostitute its license plates to make more money. I think we are the only state in the south where they sell more than just the state school tags. Here, you can get Bama, Auburn, Florida, MSU, Georgia and I think Ole Miss. :furious3:
 
#18
#18
Being a Northern Alabama import to the midstate, I can tell you that UT is really big, especially in the Shoals and Huntsville. I used to listen to WSHF in Sheffield for my John Ward fix during my childhood. Middle Tennessee is full of North Alabama transplants who came here to find jobs after the economic collapse of the region in the 1970s and 1980s. They come by it honest. (The Shoals alone lost a Ford Plant, Union Carbide plant, most of Reynolds Aluminum, Lee Jeans, a Kroger distribution center, and several other employers. Most of the Ford employees ended up in Nashville, the aluminum workers in Alcoa and Knoxville, the chemical workers in Nashville and S. Mid Tenn, and many others. It was a freakin diaspora between 1979 and 1989.)
 
#19
#19
I still make the trip from Collinwood TN to Muscle Shoals Al every day. A trip that I've been making since 1985 when I became a Tool and Diemaker and I can tell you that I've long since became very thick skinned to have put up with the Bama fans over the years. I have good friends that I've known for years that when it comes to our two teams we both know what the other is thinking. They hate my team and I hate theirs. I have raised my children to hate the "Tide" and they have done likewise. There are a few exceptions. I work with a younger guy that played high school ball with Jason Allen @ Muscle Shoals and a really close friend of mine whose daughter went to school with and is still good friends with Aaron Sears from Russelville. But these two friends are still "tide" fans, they just don't give me as hard of a time as others. Anyway there will always be that "border war", it's just something i've grown used to....Go Vols...............
 
#20
#20
It's not only southern middle TN it's all of middle TN. Being a transplant from SW VA where most people in the 70s and 80s were UT fans because that is about all you could get for college football on TV or the radio.

I have never been able to understand why anyone born and raised east of the TN river would be anything but a UT fan. I do know one thing that hurts, the local press and talk radio around Mid TN is unbearable and highly biased against UT.
 
#21
#21
I work at a restaurant in Brentwood. In the three years I've been there, you start noticing the same people coming in and out. Over the course of those three years, I have seen, no less, than 20 people stop wearing one team's logo to the bar and change to Alabama stuff. It's infuriating, because you can clearly tell they have no allegiance to them besides the won-loss record. I was talking to a family of Alabama fans at a table the other day when I tried to friendly banter them, working a tip. I told them I was a Tennessee fan and that I thought Richardson is and will be a better RB for them than Ingram, their blank expressions said it all. Hell, I got family members who " support " Alabama who wear Houndstooth hats, who can't tell you anyone else who plays for them besides Mark Ingram and that " red head quarterback boy " .

I'm sure there are some die hard Alabama fans in the Nashville/Brentwood area, but I'd say 90 percent of them all are bandwagon fans. It used to be big to see people wearing LSU stuff in my store a few years ago, but their head coaching Einstein has seen fit to reduce the amount of band wagoners over the last few years. It's the new internet mentality - jump on what's hot and roll with it until the new piece of hotness comes along.
 
#22
#22
SWTNVOLFAN said:
What pisses me off is the fact that people can get license plates issued in TN the have the stupid elephant on them.
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If it makes you feel any better you can get plates in Alabamastan that have Power T's on 'em..... That's true for almost any state.... I live in Georgia and have seen Southern Cal plates on a guy's car....
 
#23
#23
FulmersSidelineGrimace said:
I work at a restaurant in Brentwood. In the three years I've been there, you start noticing the same people coming in and out. Over the course of those three years, I have seen, no less, than 20 people stop wearing one team's logo to the bar and change to Alabama stuff. It's infuriating, because you can clearly tell they have no allegiance to them besides the won-loss record. I was talking to a family of Alabama fans at a table the other day when I tried to friendly banter them, working a tip. I told them I was a Tennessee fan and that I thought Richardson is and will be a better RB for them than Ingram, their blank expressions said it all. Hell, I got family members who " support " Alabama who wear Houndstooth hats, who can't tell you anyone else who plays for them besides Mark Ingram and that " red head quarterback boy " .

I'm sure there are some die hard Alabama fans in the Nashville/Brentwood area, but I'd say 90 percent of them all are bandwagon fans. It used to be big to see people wearing LSU stuff in my store a few years ago, but their head coaching Einstein has seen fit to reduce the amount of band wagoners over the last few years. It's the new internet mentality - jump on what's hot and roll with it until the new piece of hotness comes along.
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Same deal (up until last night anyway...) with Georgia Tech folks..... They need to change their mascot from the Yellow Jacket to a Termite, as the fans that crawled into the woodwork about 18 years ago after George Leary left are crawling back out....
 
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#24
#24
FulmersSidelineGrimace said:
I work at a restaurant in Brentwood. In the three years I've been there, you start noticing the same people coming in and out. Over the course of those three years, I have seen, no less, than 20 people stop wearing one team's logo to the bar and change to Alabama stuff. It's infuriating, because you can clearly tell they have no allegiance to them besides the won-loss record. I was talking to a family of Alabama fans at a table the other day when I tried to friendly banter them, working a tip. I told them I was a Tennessee fan and that I thought Richardson is and will be a better RB for them than Ingram, their blank expressions said it all. Hell, I got family members who " support " Alabama who wear Houndstooth hats, who can't tell you anyone else who plays for them besides Mark Ingram and that " red head quarterback boy " .

I'm sure there are some die hard Alabama fans in the Nashville/Brentwood area, but I'd say 90 percent of them all are bandwagon fans. It used to be big to see people wearing LSU stuff in my store a few years ago, but their head coaching Einstein has seen fit to reduce the amount of band wagoners over the last few years. It's the new internet mentality - jump on what's hot and roll with it until the new piece of hotness comes along.
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A restaurant "in Brentwood" with a bar, with waitstaff, more than three years old, where people would feel comfortable dressed in team sports gear...O'Charleys (not really Brentwood but close enough), Cross Corner or Ruby Tuesday's.

As for that southern middle TN Bama thing, I used to rail on it incessantly just to poke at Fulmer's hometown. People down there would deny it a few years ago, but Tullahoma and Winchester were crawling with Bammers in the 80s.
 
#25
#25
VolunteerHillbilly said:
A restaurant "in Brentwood" with a bar, with waitstaff, more than three years old, where people would feel comfortable dressed in team sports gear...O'Charleys (not really Brentwood but close enough), Cross Corner or Ruby Tuesday's.

As for that southern middle TN Bama thing, I used to rail on it incessantly just to poke at Fulmer's hometown. People down there would deny it a few years ago, but Tullahoma and Winchester were crawling with Bammers in the 80s.
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Lawrenceburg, Pulaski, Fayetteville, and Waynesboro also crawled with Bammers during that time. In Lawrenceburg tomorrow night, there will be at least 3 restaurants hosting game parties. Saw it with my own eyes last night. Face it, folks, our fanbase is E. Tennessee, and the eastern part of Middle Tennessee (Cookeville, Crossville, Monterrey, Algood, Gainesboro, Smithville, Gordonsville, Lebanon, Woodbury, McMinnville, Spencer, Tracy City, and Altamont). S. Mid has too many Bama transplants, the Nashville area is full of Bama transplants and Vandy fans that wear Bama during football season, West Tn. tends toward Arkansas, Ole Miss, MSU, and Tiger High, and UGA and Bama have a foothold in Chattanooga and points southeast. Funny how they all seem to want to live here, however.:thumbsup:
 
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