hatvol96
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- Mar 14, 2005
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Anyone who's been around this site knows I'm not prone to sentimentality. However, an email I received today got me to thinking about how really special the Tennessee-Alabama game is to me. An old friend sent me a picture of us at Nick's English Hut(arguably the best college bar in America after the closing of the Roman Room)in Bloomington before an IU-Purdue basketball game. As I was thinking back to how awesome it was to see Calbert Chaney and Glenn Robinson go to battle in one of college basketball's true holy wars, it dawned on me how fleeting those moments are. That game will be 18 years ago this winter. It seems like yesterday in my mind.
My point? Even if one lives a long and healthy life, you really don't get that many Tennessee-Alabama Saturdays. Tennessee's current dire circumstances on the field shouldn't obscure that. I've seen the best and the worst of the modern series with Alabama live. They are among the most vivid memories I have. From being a child marveling at the brightness of the orange and crimson worn by the fans to being a grown man dancing around the streets of Tuscaloosa after the Vols won there in '99 and all the mountains and valleys between and since, it's been a magnificent ride.
The reason? It's the best rivalry in the SEC. There's a reason Bear Bryant considered the Tennessee-Alabama game the ultimate test of football manhood. The games are played with nuclear intensity, but they are almost uniformly clean. That's because the decades of respect between the combatants is passed down to each new class. This isn't a rivalry built on intrastate hatreds or feelings of geographic or cultural inadequacy/superiority. It's built on dozens and dozens of sublime October Saturdays with gallant participants and passionate fans putting everything they have into the effort.
In closing, I'd like to say this to my fellow Tennessee fans: No matter how bad it gets Saturday night, it's still special. Unless you're a genetic freak, you're only getting 80 or so of these. Tops. Make the best of it. Savor it. The worst Tennessee-Alabama Saturday is still far more wonderful than the vast majority of the good days in your life.
Go Vols.
My point? Even if one lives a long and healthy life, you really don't get that many Tennessee-Alabama Saturdays. Tennessee's current dire circumstances on the field shouldn't obscure that. I've seen the best and the worst of the modern series with Alabama live. They are among the most vivid memories I have. From being a child marveling at the brightness of the orange and crimson worn by the fans to being a grown man dancing around the streets of Tuscaloosa after the Vols won there in '99 and all the mountains and valleys between and since, it's been a magnificent ride.
The reason? It's the best rivalry in the SEC. There's a reason Bear Bryant considered the Tennessee-Alabama game the ultimate test of football manhood. The games are played with nuclear intensity, but they are almost uniformly clean. That's because the decades of respect between the combatants is passed down to each new class. This isn't a rivalry built on intrastate hatreds or feelings of geographic or cultural inadequacy/superiority. It's built on dozens and dozens of sublime October Saturdays with gallant participants and passionate fans putting everything they have into the effort.
In closing, I'd like to say this to my fellow Tennessee fans: No matter how bad it gets Saturday night, it's still special. Unless you're a genetic freak, you're only getting 80 or so of these. Tops. Make the best of it. Savor it. The worst Tennessee-Alabama Saturday is still far more wonderful than the vast majority of the good days in your life.
Go Vols.
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