tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32726260877385429932024-02-18T23:01:46.786-08:00College footballPete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-64909147122196905942011-09-02T11:10:00.000-07:002011-09-02T11:10:04.331-07:00Vanderbilt Commodores<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">VANDERBILT COMMODORES, The Official Homecoming School of the SEC</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Based in Nashville to prove even college-educated people can enjoy country music. Johnny Cash wore black because the Commodores saddened him so.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Commodores are the only team named after Lionel Ritchie’s backup band and a robber baron.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRJkvuzJvy9tvgvwmxOMiVc9gQGPYGAgNUeWK0vU0dnrXwiAXYPbboJLPlsh3w-KyjP2TTr5dNkdnbP_iTrnyUy4wLDnurkXhSqStI3NpYv-HkIhF4eaRbsKvWThVUtn4MDQ6TsSnxVI/s1600/Cornelius+Vanderbilt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsRJkvuzJvy9tvgvwmxOMiVc9gQGPYGAgNUeWK0vU0dnrXwiAXYPbboJLPlsh3w-KyjP2TTr5dNkdnbP_iTrnyUy4wLDnurkXhSqStI3NpYv-HkIhF4eaRbsKvWThVUtn4MDQ6TsSnxVI/s320/Cornelius+Vanderbilt.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cornelius Vanderbilt. A multi-millionaire too cheap to buy a comb.</td></tr>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Vanderbilt is to the Southeastern Conference what that skinny white kid sitting on the end of the bench is to Auburn basketball, there to raise the grade point average.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Vandy is the crème rising to the top of the SEC’s steaming pile of academia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also there to provide a handy punching bag to the rest of the conference, raising both GPA and morale.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">A good thing about Vanderbilt athletes are they are the only players who can treat their own injuries.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The Commodores used to field a pretty good team at the beginning of the 1900s, but then again so did the Kaiser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That time period was when students went to college to actually study and earn a degree to get a real job, not to play football for money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before the advent of agents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before Cam Newton’s father was even born.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">But nowadays Vandy has such disdain for football and athletics in general they got rid of their athletic department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The team is made up of fitness nuts rounded up around campus on game day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are told they are going to star in a reality show about college football.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Despite this impediment to success they do manage to pull off the odd upset here and there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is usually chalked up to pharmaceuticals placed in the opposing teams’ water buckets by the Vandy medical students.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">They began play in 1890 with a 40-0 thrashing of city rival University of Nashville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the first football game played in Tennessee, so suck it Vols.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">In 1896 they met again and the game was interrupted a few times by both players and fans fighting on the field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It got so bad the game was halted by the referees who first called the game a draw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much later the Commodores were given the victory.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The Nashville American newspaper had this to say about the melees:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">“If a moment’s thought had been given to the deplorable results which must inevitably flow it would have never occurred, but the cool heads in the minority and were liberally punched when they attempted to advise a suspension of hostilities.”</div> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12pt;">In other words, the </span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Vanderbilt and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-60605212013724326602011-09-02T08:51:00.000-07:002011-09-02T08:51:19.391-07:00Clemson Tigers<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">CLEMSON TIGERS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Clemson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where the ‘n’ stands for knowledge.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This school is basically Auburn with a lake, hence the better hygiene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There used to be a bar in Snellville, Georgia where you could find a poster of a cow standing in a muddy field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 10 feet behind the bovine was a man in a bathing suit standing on a pair of water skis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was attached by ropes to the cow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Underneath the photo was the caption “Ski Clemson.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cow-tipping here is not just a fraternity haze, it’s a major.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Clemson revolutionized the funding of athletics in the 1930s with an organization called ‘IPTAY’. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It stands for “I Pay Ten AYear,” meaning members pay at least ten dollars annually to fund scholarships and buildings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ten bucks a year may not seem much but around Clemson it’s the difference between a new screen door for the back porch or having those damn skeeters eat us alive this summer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They raised $1600 in the first year in the heart of the Great Depression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people couldn’t even come up with the ten bucks so they sent barter items such as turnip greens, milk, and sweet potatoes to feed the players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over 200 million has been raised since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a lot of green, turnip or otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This new way of accounting and raising money was copied by the Mafia.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Clemson Memorial Stadium is situated in a hollow so it has become known as Death Valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The location of a cemetery on top of the hill overlooking the edifice may also be a clue to its nomenclature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That last word, nomenclature, like any other four-syllable word has never before been uttered in or about Clemson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The coach at Presbyterian coined the phrase Death Valley because his team always got killed there, but it really became popular when legendary coach Frank Howard started using it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Keeping with the cemetery theme they have a ‘graveyard’ set up near their practice field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On it they put actual marble gravestones marking wins over ranked teams on the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been lean times for the Grim Scorekeeper lately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They haven’t ‘buried’ a team there since 2006.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tradition includes the touching of Howard’s Rock, which surprisingly does not break any of South Carolina’s tough sodomy laws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’ve heard.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The geophysical lump is named after former coach Howard who received the rock from a friend who had picked it up in Death Valley, California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He thought it would be fitting to have the rock come to an eastern Death Valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Howard was so touched by this gesture he used it as a doorstop for many years in his office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day he was cleaning and tossed the rock to the head of IPTAY and requested it either be thrown over a fence or in a ditch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, the man super-glued it to a pedestal and placed it at the top of the east end zone hill entering the stadium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such are what epiphanies are made of at Clemson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was in 1966.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One found oneself with a lot of time on one’s hands back then and there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And extra glue and pedestals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The players touched and rubbed it, the rock I mean, on the way down to the field, which led Howard to use it as a motivational tool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He told players “Give me 110% or keep your filthy hands off of my rock.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They now run by and ‘rub their rock’ before every home game, making this the largest euphemism in college sports.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Actually, the players’ locker room is on the other side of the stadium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They come out, board busses, get carted to the other side of the stadium where they’re let out to run to touch the rock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A quick check finds no Transportation Planning major at the school, but you can get a bachelor of science degree in Turfgrass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look it up.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiChJASAv7OFqLyoRQzvECD9inxGZxjv42tSk4zR0khZd7xyIza9C7bjQ_0v4Lp7w46v9btLOKVrfdzC2iclWxnFI_9Z1XPVLluhVpNTXKOcYQjLhZorPder7iG41_TfhYIwsjoRANH20E/s1600/Clemson+1899.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiChJASAv7OFqLyoRQzvECD9inxGZxjv42tSk4zR0khZd7xyIza9C7bjQ_0v4Lp7w46v9btLOKVrfdzC2iclWxnFI_9Z1XPVLluhVpNTXKOcYQjLhZorPder7iG41_TfhYIwsjoRANH20E/s320/Clemson+1899.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1899 Clemson football team and Confederate re-enactors.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Clemson and all the SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-21560416528478304762011-09-02T08:26:00.000-07:002011-09-02T08:26:36.938-07:00Florida State Seminoles<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>FLORIDA STATE SEMINOLES, or, WIDE RIGHT U.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Tallahassee, which is Seminole for “What have you done for me lately?”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">This school had the second-winningest coach in the history of Division-I college football in Bobby Bowden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He put FSU on the football map by playing anyone anywhere anytime and winning. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But when they decided it was time for him to leave they escorted him to the door faster than Lee Corso can say “Not so fast my friend.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">They acted like Bowden was a radioactive Darrell Mudra.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Before Bobby arrived in 1976 the college was known for two things:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a former girl’s school and Burt Reynolds playing there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mainly because he heard there were girls there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ironically, Burt the Seminole would later make a movie in which he starred as the main character ‘Gator’.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bowden won two national titles in 1993 and ’99 and was a calm and collected kicker away from two or three others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have 15 conference titles.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For 14 straight seasons he led them to a Top Five finish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least he was able to go out a winner by beating his former team the Mountaineers in the 2010 Gator Bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He won 302 games for the Seminoles. Bobby spawned two other head coaches, sons Tommy and Terry, who coached at Clemburn and Aubson respectively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jimbo Fisher is the coach now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was the coach-in-pushing behind Bowden.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The program began in 1947.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the second time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They played football from 1902 to ’04 as Florida State College before forgetting about it for 43 years while they were an all-girls school where they cared only for cheerleading, like Kentucky.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And before that they were West Florida Seminary in 1899 and played with each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wait, that didn’t come out right.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_g5zfBt50Hj2KV_9XzgxUOcK_qLqrfxcCYyF_NamNlZEm3DW1e7DJpwBpSMSR8OlzlQzUiAfNiX1XnGeuf4uciCYL1u8mt2MxPqMrsOyP5X3TBSSC-d4Wm4DUdlLvwmBYUiS7kF51AAg/s1600/West+Florida+Seminary+1899+later+FSU.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_g5zfBt50Hj2KV_9XzgxUOcK_qLqrfxcCYyF_NamNlZEm3DW1e7DJpwBpSMSR8OlzlQzUiAfNiX1XnGeuf4uciCYL1u8mt2MxPqMrsOyP5X3TBSSC-d4Wm4DUdlLvwmBYUiS7kF51AAg/s320/West+Florida+Seminary+1899+later+FSU.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1899 West Florida Seminary Team. The most feared team in FSU history.</td></tr>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> In 1902 school president Al Murphree wanted the boys to stop playing with themselves and formed the Florida State College Eleven so they could play with other boys from other schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wait, that doesn’t sound right either.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Latin professor W.W. Hughes became the first coach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His favorite phrase which he uttered repeatedly to the team was “Ithay osethay owersshay oysbay.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The boys felt this must be sage advice that the coach deemed so important that he said it over and over again in Latin.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It wasn’t until decades later at a reunion of the team that someone figured out it was just Pig Latin for “Hit those showers boys.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Florida State and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-75810538202776616182011-09-02T01:12:00.000-07:002011-09-02T01:12:32.768-07:00South Carolina Gamecocks<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS, or USC East</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Based in Columbia, Suicide Capital of Central South Carolina. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A gamecock is a fighting cock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A badass rooster if you will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>College football’s most phallic mascot this side of a Toledo Rocket. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cockfighting is a sport found in Caribbean islands, third world backwaters, or Oklahoma, but I repeat myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>USC East is the only major college team to use the moniker ‘Fighting Gamecocks.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone else has moved out of the Middles Ages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They first started using the name around 1900, about the time they finally surrendered Fort Sumter to the Union Navy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Other nicknames considered were: the Harassing Hens, the Charging Chickens, the Dynastic Drumsticks, the Battling Bantams, the Rampaging Roasters, and the Pugilistic-Minded Poultry.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>General Sumter himself, the famous fighter for the American side during the Revolutionary War, was known as the Fighting Gamecock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How proud his mother must have been.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As explained on the school’s official website, a cockfight ends when one of the cocks dies, an unpleasant thought altogether.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cocky is the name of their giant red, yellow, and black mascot, which looks like something Walt Disney threw up or Jim Henson aborted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Try and imagine Big Bird mating with Ronald McDonald. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The costume has become a stepping stone to fame as two former wearers moved on to higher callings as Sir Purr in Carolina and Billy the Marlin in Miami.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This represents the highest a South Carolina grad has ever climbed on the corporate ladder.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fans chant “Go Cocks!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Insert your own joke here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only Austin Peay’s “Go Peay!” comes close to this holler.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They proudly exclaim “I’m a Cock!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a declaration never challenged.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cocky can be accused of being cocky since he’s won three national mascot championships in 1986, ’94 and 2004, the closest the football team will ever get to holding a title.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Cocky is carrying on a family tradition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1980 he took the place of his father, known as Big Spur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big Spur was retired and they held a banquet in which he was the guest of honor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the main course.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Be sure to catch Cocky’s entrance at every home game when he pops out of his Magic Fryer, I mean Box.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their live mascot, no offense Cocky, is Sir Big Spur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has also been called Cockadoodle Lou.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is no coincidence that Sir Big Spur has never come within paw distance of LSU”s Mike the Tiger.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They began play in 1892 and were originally known as the College Boys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took them until their third season to actually win a game, four seasons before they got a coach in Dixie Whaley, and five years before anyone in South Carolina knew what the world ‘college’ meant.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The College Boys did manage to win the first game against arch-rival Clem and his son, 12-6 in 1896.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s now known as the Palmetto Bowl, named after the huge, disgusting bug constantly underfoot that is the official animal of the state of South Carolina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clemson has dominated this rivalry and therefore has the most bugs.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipvmGRTwBlCfdrBavR1IQhnjTlBTXS1F0HT2xhPdLUkALxFLvnU0lwVdzNmDEvzJiW94s24VbEiIhsE53rpAklZ-PI4844O8ovodi7IVaSKp-ASRECgeuyK3tweAmcnD5CZ-Bbwxsj-tk/s1600/Usual+outcome+of+Clemson-Gamecocks+game.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipvmGRTwBlCfdrBavR1IQhnjTlBTXS1F0HT2xhPdLUkALxFLvnU0lwVdzNmDEvzJiW94s24VbEiIhsE53rpAklZ-PI4844O8ovodi7IVaSKp-ASRECgeuyK3tweAmcnD5CZ-Bbwxsj-tk/s320/Usual+outcome+of+Clemson-Gamecocks+game.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The annual game with Clemson is usually a one-sided affair.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about South Carolina and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-43837590484628594172011-09-02T01:06:00.000-07:002011-09-02T01:06:29.462-07:00Alabama Crimson Tide<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Tuscaloosa, Gateway to Hades.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This part of the book is brought to you by Spike 80DF Tebuthiuron, the Official Pesticide of the Alabama Crimson Tide. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Tuscaloosa is a town made famous by two men:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bear Bryant and Groucho Marx.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Alabama has the distinction of being the only college and state named after a country/western band.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their nickname is The Crimson Tide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they weren’t so good most of the time this would be the worst nickname since Flounder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before you start to make fun of this moniker, take a look at what they were called before they came up with that nugget of joy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>At first the team was simply called the Varsity, but Georgia Tech fans kept asking them for chili dogs, so they changed to the Crimson White after the school colors, but even Alabama fans found that too simple so sportswriters came up with The Thin Red Line. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not exactly the stuff cheers are made of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">In 1907 during a rainy game against highly-favored Auburn in Birmingham, Bama played them to a 6-6 tie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hugh Roberts was the sports editor for the Birmingham Age-Herald and described the team as a “crimson tide” in the red mud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The worst story on how a team got a nickname EVER.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">So how does a team named the Crimson Tide end up with an elephant as a mascot?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amazingly it has nothing to do with Groucho.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, that would be INTERESTING.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Actually, this story has some interesting bits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1930 the Tide, under Coach Wallace Wade, won the national title by shutting out Washington State in the Rose Bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the season they played Mississippi and the game was reported on by Atlanta Journal sportswriter Everett Strupper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote that the smaller Rebels line held their ground against the bigger Bama players, but after the first quarter a rumbling was heard and the ground started to shake and the varsity Alabama line came running out to play and they were even larger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A fan hollered “Hold your horses, the elephants are coming!” Strupper described them as “Red Elephants” because of their red jerseys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s funny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could have sworn there was something interesting in there somewhere.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer Cheer is used once the Tide has put the game away and was once banned by the school because of its taunting lyrics and use of the word hell, but the students voted to bring it back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Rammer-Jammer was a student newspaper and the Yellowhammer the state bird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some say the cadence for the cheer was lifted from the Hotty Toddy cheer from Ole Miss and the drum major still moves his arm in a big O to signal the band to start the cheer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this is true then Bama needs to write the Rebels a check for their mascot and their main cheer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The mascot is an elephant named Big Al and the fight song is ‘Yea Alabama.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They do not have an actual live elephant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually Miss Alabama fills the role.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Paul W. “Bear” Bryant is the most famous coach/god associated with the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He matriculated there before leaving to coach other teams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when the school contacted him in 1957 to return home, he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When asked why, he replied “Mama called.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She told him to bring some Golden Flake tater chips and some Coke-Cola.</div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; 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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">The 1953 season ended with another SEC title, but it’s most remembered for what happened in the Cotton Bowl against Rice.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Owls’ Dicky Moegle broke free on what looked like a 95-yard run down the sidelines for a sure touchdown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But just after he crossed the 50 yard line, Alabama player Tommy Lewis, who had been standing on the sidelines and not even in the game, suddenly rushed out and tackled Moegle in front of a stunned crowd in Dallas.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Rice coach ran all the way across the field to yell at Bama coach Red Drew “What did yo boy think he was doin’?!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All Lewis could think of to say was “Coach, I’m<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>just too full of Bama.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The referees gave the touchdown to Moegle and the Owls went on to win, but Lewis and Moegle got a trip to the Ed Sullivan show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moegle later complained that Lewis was made to be the hero in the whole affair and he himself was made to feel like a heel.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDnbEoPl91Wb5YlFUqW8IoGTtxQc6Z_Lh8vsnKORF_m3dQgNoAwIRQEAIgVeK2Y_9Vk8X8q_6tr-z_gP14cYuN3HvcJnU2pTi_uoJqwGaVx3dQd3_hGE1SRvDxZ0fgj_k0rn40WkjnHIM/s1600/Tommy+Lewis+tackle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDnbEoPl91Wb5YlFUqW8IoGTtxQc6Z_Lh8vsnKORF_m3dQgNoAwIRQEAIgVeK2Y_9Vk8X8q_6tr-z_gP14cYuN3HvcJnU2pTi_uoJqwGaVx3dQd3_hGE1SRvDxZ0fgj_k0rn40WkjnHIM/s1600/Tommy+Lewis+tackle.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finally, an example of Alabama cheating caught on film.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Alabama and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-8896314347346990392011-09-02T00:58:00.000-07:002011-09-02T00:58:34.893-07:00Arkansas Razorbacks<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">ARKANSAS RAZORBACKS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Fayetteville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gateway to Dogpatch.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Fayetteville is located in the Ozark Mountains in the extreme northwest corner of the state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Legendary Georgia announcer Larry Munson used to bemoan the long trip there saying it took two weeks by plane, train and horse buggy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The razorback is the ugliest mascot this side of Stanford’s buck-toothed tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a giant, ferocious, red pig with tusks. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arkansas is the only fan base that enjoys wearing swine on their heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More on this pervasive pig later.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They may have the best chant/yell in college football.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the 1920s every time Arkansas kicks off the entire crowd screams “Wooo, Pig, Sooie!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s known as the Hog Call and it’s enough to make you swear off ham. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fans are very good at it and they should be since for half of them it’s their vocation the rest of the week.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The entire call is a finely-tuned and coordinated act between vocal cord and body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You slowly raise your arms from the knees to above the head during the Woo part, no less than 8 seconds for each Woo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, the fingers must wiggle and the Woo should build in volume and pitch as the arms rise.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When the Woo is finished, the arms are quickly brought down with fists clenched as if performing a chin-up as you yell “Pig!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then, in a move only Generalissimo Francisco Franco could love, the right arm is extended up and out away from the body as you scream “Sooie!”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And if the team wins, you do all of this three times then yell “Razorbacks!” whilst pumping your right arm like a prisoner watching the Playboy channel.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But if the team loses you must do these chants and genuflections backwards while at the same time bowing to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library and Cathouse in Little Rock.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their colors are cardinal and white, the same as bacon.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Razorbacks are known for their bad temper and worse hygiene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the pig is no prize either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Introduced into America in the 1500s by Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto, they took to their new freedom like, well, pigs to slop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe Slop is located between Forrest City and Stuttgart.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Arkansas has a live mascot named Tusk, but he is not a real razorback since they were hunted to death locally for their meat, the ivory in their tusks, and the dilithium crystals in their hooves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tusk is a Russian boar, not to be confused with Vlad Putin, who is merely a Russian bore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Razorbacks are mainly found today in the Australian Outback feasting on dingoes and bloomin’ onions.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Not all of Tusk’s predecessors had sterling careers as mascot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following paragraph is a direct quotation from Arkansasrazorbacks.com:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">“Big Red III escaped from an exhibit near Eureka Springs in the summer of 1977 and ravaged the countryside before being gunned down by an irate farmer. Another live mascot, Ragnar, was a wild hog captured in south Arkansas by Leola farmer Bill <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Robinson. Before Ragnar’s spree was done, the mighty animal had killed a coyote, a 450-pound domestic pig and seven rattlesnakes. Ragnar died in 1978 of unknown causes.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Unknown causes?!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you think Ragnar’s untimely passing might have had something to do with indigestion brought on by an over-indulgence of rattlensnake?</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSqFCjumevGvUSfsXKWKo0vrJh0JIuFCJPlEhcq1OkYm6WT-KR5xkt9enLWNmLFOyPO6PFNYgUdj7uBZthvp5rwitLPiwEEsmzQuZe5jy2w0Px9K99ayhMDXntE4-W6xoezV5OurSvgY/s1600/Boar+hunt+by+Rubens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMSqFCjumevGvUSfsXKWKo0vrJh0JIuFCJPlEhcq1OkYm6WT-KR5xkt9enLWNmLFOyPO6PFNYgUdj7uBZthvp5rwitLPiwEEsmzQuZe5jy2w0Px9K99ayhMDXntE4-W6xoezV5OurSvgY/s320/Boar+hunt+by+Rubens.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is a Rubens painting of Saint Tebow taming a razorback.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Ole Miss and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-88904431994484310922011-09-02T00:43:00.000-07:002011-09-02T00:43:34.441-07:00Ole Miss Rebels<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1 </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">OLE MISS REBELS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Oxford, where Miss Americas are redshirted.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">This is the university the bluebloods of Mississippi attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those are the folks who can afford the white paint to color the half-buried tires in their front yards.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Oxford is also the home of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you visit his home, Rowan Oak, you can still see the whiskey bottle he was drinking when he died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time the Rebels won a national title he would drink from it and when he passed in 1962 his family planned on finishing the bottle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1982 they amended their pact to settle for a conference title.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s still sitting in the kitchen. Waiting. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After getting rid of their Colonel Reb mascot it took years to find another one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They even thought about Admiral Akbar, a fictional character in the ‘Star Wars’ movies who led the Rebel Alliance and was famous for his line “It’s a trap!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But George Lucas said the Admiral was in a galaxy far, far away fighting the Empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Finally in October of 2010 they chose Rebel Black Bear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the unwise, this would seem strange, but Mississippi is actually home to two subspecies of bears and one of those runs a successful line of Thai restaurants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘The Bear’ is also a famous short story by native son Faulkner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Teddy Bear doll was inspired by a black bear President Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot during a hunt in Mississippi in 1902.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Bear Bryant lived next door.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It’s so obvious a mascot you wonder why it took them 162 years to think of it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">It beat out the Rebel Land Shark which is a shame since it would have become the first mascot named after a beer and a Saturday Night Live skit from the 70s.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some people say the Rebel name should be dropped because of its ties to the War Between the States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then LSU would need to drop their Tigers moniker since their team was named after an actual Confederate rifle squad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those who throw stones will soon hit a Cajun.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 1935 they played in their first bowl game losing to Catholic University 20 to 19 in the Orange Bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They blame the embarrassing loss on the shock of seeing Catholics for the first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Actually their first bowl game was in 1921 at the Bacardi Bowl in Havana, Cuba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were shutout 14-0 by the University of Havana Habaneros.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When wire reports on the telegraph came back to Mississippi most fans thought it was a typo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they asked what a telegraph was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A habanero is a very spicy chili pepper that gave the Rebels many an upset stomach that day and still does since you can search high and low and not find an official record at the school of that bowl ever being played.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That information is sleeping with Colonel Reb at the bottom of Sardis Lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bowl was also called the Cigar Bowl and Rhumba Bowl at various times, changing its name to avoid the communist insurgents.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their best coach was Johnny Vaught, who won six SEC titles and three national championships, 1959, ’60 and ’62. Vaught refused to recruit dumb players (a boon to Auburn recruiting) or married players (a boon to BYU), saying they were too much of a distraction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He refused to leave despite getting job offers at other colleges for more money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1960 he was making less than 20,000 dollars a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bear Bryant was pulling in around 80,000, but a dollar goes a long way when there’s little to buy. Vaught coached for 24 years and had just one losing campaign.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In the 1950s they were second only to Oklahoma in wins, and were fourth-best in victories during the 1960s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vaught lost only six times in Oxford. At one point they played in 15 straight bowl games, a record at that time.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDnhJ_vTCfY7bDtv8zMzyrm-VUO8OQ4yruOUzKXFMvVbsqj0cKXkOl1bjbocNbAE3pJI1P9QdCSBqvBsV58OpPCSlAuA4D4kf4ufrz1__STTg-xQVdHiE_aU-0iGPk1GzGIRj_zZtnOs/s1600/Charlie+Conerly+and+John+Vaught+crouching.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDnhJ_vTCfY7bDtv8zMzyrm-VUO8OQ4yruOUzKXFMvVbsqj0cKXkOl1bjbocNbAE3pJI1P9QdCSBqvBsV58OpPCSlAuA4D4kf4ufrz1__STTg-xQVdHiE_aU-0iGPk1GzGIRj_zZtnOs/s320/Charlie+Conerly+and+John+Vaught+crouching.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">QB Charlie Conerly and Head Coach John Vaught attracting redbugs in 1947.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Ole Miss and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-47208455491661610492011-09-02T00:38:00.000-07:002011-09-02T00:38:23.990-07:00Auburn Tigers<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1 </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">AUBURN TIGERS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in the plainest little city on the plains.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">A quick internet search shows that Auburn really had won a national championship before 2011, although you may be surprised to find out ‘Field and Stream’ magazine actually handed out such an award.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After their win over the Ducks in the national title game they now have just as many championships in football as Vanderbilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they did it with less than half the IQ. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Tigers pride themselves on finding the best coach available with no stone left unturned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their searches take them to every campus and airport tarmac in America.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The time spent searching for coaches is made up by their rather unique and quick way of choosing a school president.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The title is merely given to the booster who gave the most money that season.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There is much confusion around the rest of the country about what exactly the mascot is, a Tiger or a War Eagle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is at least one subject that Auburn fans are not confused about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mascot is a tiger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>War Eagle is their salute, their holler, their shout-out, their battle cry for help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as anyone who has ever driven the back roads to Auburn knows, and they’re ALL back roads, the real mascot is a roadkill opossum.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Legend has it a War of Northern Aggression soldier found an injured eagle on an old battlefield and somehow managed to sneak it into the first football game in 1892 with Georgia at Piedmont Park in Atlanta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some point the eagle escaped his owner and flew around the field as the Tigers went on to score and win 10-0.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of the game the eagle crashed into the turf and died, possibly out of sheer boredom, or it being downtown Atlanta, might have been caught in the crossfire of a horse and buggy drive-by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some reason the fans have taken this as a good omen and continue the tradition of shouting “War Eagle” at games, gatherings, church, christenings and honeymoon beds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also began the tradition of bringing an animal as a date to Auburn games.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Eagle VII, or Nova, flies around the field before every home game, frightening the local livestock both in and out of the stadium.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The games with Georgia are called the “Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry,” and “A Damn Good Reason to Drink PBR On Saturday.”</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1heyM0KYKXXXeCRuVGsIgPY9KaN5YzT1PmzHazSghhZGWa0FB1kj9q0AbZ-6k66jwOMDwJLoxu6lOAXIdAaPurZpxBIQx2K7CrjFnVLxePg0AZYWbG-I8goMfPicMdKKvJ40zCO4FLDs/s1600/cows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1heyM0KYKXXXeCRuVGsIgPY9KaN5YzT1PmzHazSghhZGWa0FB1kj9q0AbZ-6k66jwOMDwJLoxu6lOAXIdAaPurZpxBIQx2K7CrjFnVLxePg0AZYWbG-I8goMfPicMdKKvJ40zCO4FLDs/s320/cows.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A meeting of the Auburn Booster Club.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In 1896 before a game with Georgia Tech, Auburn students greased or soaped the railroad tracks so the train bringing the Yellowjackets slid past the depot and the players had to walk the five miles back to town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That used up a lot of soap, but it wasn’t like it was seeing any use anyway at Auburn. This may have caused the 45-0 whupping put on the Jackets that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Georgia Tech got its revenge by having the Auburn grads call them “boss” at work every day since.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nowadays students put on pajamas and ride floats in honor of the Wreck Tech Parade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The PJs are a nice break from their overalls.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Auburn and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-53689773417257930772011-09-02T00:33:00.000-07:002011-09-02T00:33:36.695-07:00Tennessee Volunteers<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1 </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Knoxville, Gateway to Pigeon Forge.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Knoxville once held a World’s Fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never heard about that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t worry nobody else did either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was in 1982 and its greatest legacy to the region is paved roads.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">The only people who actually attended were folks from Nashville and Atlanta who thought another Six Flags had opened up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The biggest attraction was Deliverance World, in which unsuspecting sausage-fed Germans were led to their doom.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Nearby Pigeon Forge actually does have an amusement park and is home to a national monument, Dolly Parton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The area is known for its mountains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is also the most popular ride.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After crying babies on transatlantic flights and Celine Dion singing the theme from ‘Titanic’the University of Tennessee’s band is infamous for making the third-most annoying sound in Western Civilization---the incessant playing of ‘Rocky Top’ after every big play, score, sneeze, and breath taken on the field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the groundskeeper chalks the lines the band strikes up the tune.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is the only song they can remember and despite playing it over and over ad nauseam it never seems to grow old with UT fans, much like incest and moonshine stills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s one of 7000 official state songs.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For some inexplicable reason several artists have covered the tune, including Ms. Parton, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Phish. Columbia Records pressured Frank Sinatra to sing it but he chose to die instead.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Felice and Boudleaux Bryant took only ten minutes to write the damn thing in the Gatlinburg Inn in 1967.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess they got bored playing Tic-Tac-Toe with the live chicken in a box that town is famous for. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ten minutes to create a lifetime of musical misery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a recent survey folks were asked what they would do with a time machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The top answer was to go back in time and meet Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second was to stop the JFK assassination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The third was to go back in time and kill Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Proving the FBI has a sense of humor, the crime-fighting group used the title as a code name for an operation in the 1980s in which they caught several Tennessee politicians with their hands in the cookie jar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The NCAA should take a cue from this action.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The official fight song is ‘Down the Field’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one ever remembers hearing that one because it is a fine tune with a lovely medley, thus making it sound harsh to the average Vols fan.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The nickname Volunteers comes from the fact Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the War of 1812 they gained that reputation, especially during the Battle of New Orleans, which was actually fought after the peace treaty had been signed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the first example of Vols piling on after a play was over.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their colors are orange and white.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not the vibrant, alive orange of Clemson, but a sickly, pale cousin, much like their own ‘human’ cousins.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Take some Push-up ice cream, leave it out in the sun until it melts, and you’ll get a color akin to Volunteer orange.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7q8Yvh3UPcTI5EsGNQ5AfYMgM9IHfp3-D8fN5-ScyV8WVt8sGOB4RR-pgWmgdUelZC_WbXWfz-oG0-jXvGVVdaQPODc3UrtQxt3GtmBEebkkb-nkJjoRhKqRUw4kTM1A-Rz9h0ZNLIOY/s1600/pushups.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7q8Yvh3UPcTI5EsGNQ5AfYMgM9IHfp3-D8fN5-ScyV8WVt8sGOB4RR-pgWmgdUelZC_WbXWfz-oG0-jXvGVVdaQPODc3UrtQxt3GtmBEebkkb-nkJjoRhKqRUw4kTM1A-Rz9h0ZNLIOY/s1600/pushups.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The color scheme came from daisies growing near the classrooms in 1891. If that idea was followed today the school colors might be the green of a marijuana leaf.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Tennessee and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-69994013261654559592011-09-01T07:09:00.000-07:002011-09-01T07:09:19.305-07:00Kentucky Wildcats. Blue grass, blue fans.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1 </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">KENTUCKY WILDCATS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Lexington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, Frankfurt. Or Frankfort. No, that’s not right, it’s Louisville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nope, uh, Lexington! Yes, Lexington.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was right the first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who cares until basketball season anyway?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Wherever it is the University of Kentucky is the forgotten member of the Southeastern Conference mainly because it should be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First of all it’s not in the Southeast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it sided with the Yankees in that border dispute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it ought to be glad it’s even allowed to play with the big boys of the SEC when it comes to football.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re lucky the rest of us even talk to them.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The two main reasons they’re allowed in the SEC is to use them as punching bags in football and make the conference look good in basketball against those stuck-up snobs from Duke.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their greatest football coach was Adolph Rupp and he was their basketball coach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here was a man so mean it’s mystifying why he didn’t coach a man’s sport instead of wasting his genius on that round ball fad.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their second best football coach was Bear Bryant and he only stayed there eight weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a state and college that prefers basketball and horse racing to football.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll let you digest that a second or two. But what do you expect from a state that thinks their grass is blue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yeah, maybe if you’re smoking it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve driven through Kentucky twice and the damn grass is green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Green I say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quit looking at the lawn through the prism of a mint julep glass and sober up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only thing blue is the mood there after every Wildcat football game.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpxC9tbOSs6brIeCuOhItrx6lVgiZQcOnrifqHEMUaGT2zl4tiMHYNc4n5184oOkpryxvDxsQjr9uVv8hUDcPi8HYmMMWPPjqjPlC-Uf_Q8x21aH8wRxPDlC3SMUAG3VwNLNQVFrDamH8/s1600/Fonso+ky+derby+winner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpxC9tbOSs6brIeCuOhItrx6lVgiZQcOnrifqHEMUaGT2zl4tiMHYNc4n5184oOkpryxvDxsQjr9uVv8hUDcPi8HYmMMWPPjqjPlC-Uf_Q8x21aH8wRxPDlC3SMUAG3VwNLNQVFrDamH8/s1600/Fonso+ky+derby+winner.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top of 2011 recruiting class.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Football season in Lexington brings more suicides than a three-month-long winter solar eclipse in Finland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These folk haven’t seen a national title since Harry Truman was President.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For you Auburn grads that was in 1950.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harry. Truman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prez-e-dent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh I give up.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Their school colors are blue and white, luckily already giving them half of what you need for a flag of surrender.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They chose this color scheme in 1892, but for the 1891 season they had another color too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yellow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not just any Yella.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like their collective backbone or lack of it, light yella.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blue and light yella.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now there’s a combo that’s guaranteed to put fear into the hearts of your opponents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The colors of depression and cowardice.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even Kentuckians could see where this was a mistake so they dropped the yella for the white, preferring a sad surrender without the running-away-screaming part.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When it came time to decide what shade of blue to use the school president Richard Stoll pulled off his tie and held it up for a vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The students voted to get him a valet to choose his ties for him.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about Kentucky and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-6087291219789212232011-09-01T06:50:00.000-07:002011-09-01T06:50:41.228-07:00Mississippi State Bulldogs. Why?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">MISSISSIPPI STATE BULLDOGS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Starkville.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise known as Starkvegas, Starkpatch, or just plain stark.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The natives here would like you to believe the town is named after some dude named Stark, maybe someone cool like Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. The reality is the name comes from the one-word description given the place by the first settler.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He quickly became an ex-settler and kept moving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Starkville is the place mullets went to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s original name, and this is the gospel truth, was Boardtown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boredtown is more apt.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">This is the place that arrested American icon Johnny Cash for picking flowers, which he immortalized in his song ‘Starkville City Jail’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Johnny failed to mention he was three sheets to the wind at the time he was plucking the posies.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Cash is not the most infamous felon to walk these streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That ‘honor’ goes to George Kelly Barnes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may know him by his nickname Machine Gun Kelly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Machine Gun matriculated at Mississippi State for two years while studying agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was asked to leave when his unique and bullet-based method for eradicating the boll weevil destroyed the entire cotton crop in 1919.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUM8CWvbp4Ubo6UO1sQfraxOSCHbILxHvWJ1AFTFajPZ1VWfyX3_boYL642Bk36g2pSQQiXflNoV_l_-lVsXKVaXrbRtIS_Ak_DKNQy35CInOVWBWdrTXihMN9Aw1em9YoupK17eVUiD4/s1600/Machine+Gun+Kelly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUM8CWvbp4Ubo6UO1sQfraxOSCHbILxHvWJ1AFTFajPZ1VWfyX3_boYL642Bk36g2pSQQiXflNoV_l_-lVsXKVaXrbRtIS_Ak_DKNQy35CInOVWBWdrTXihMN9Aw1em9YoupK17eVUiD4/s1600/Machine+Gun+Kelly.jpg" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"> MSU’s most famous and successful student, Machine Gun Kelly.</div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Charles Lindbergh landed here once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Supposedly the sport of tee ball was invented here when local youths were slow to pick up the nuances of baseball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Complicated maneuvers like throwing the ball and hitting the ball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a source of endless shame to Starkville native Cool Papa Bell, one of the greatest baseball players of all time.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They play at Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is it Scott Wade Stadium at Davis Field?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or Scott Davis Stadium at Wade Field?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It was built in 1914, the same year Mississippi rejoined the Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Holly plant lines the sideline fence forming a prickly barrier, but it’s not a problem since Bulldog fans never have a reason to storm the field.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Holly produces berries that are toxic to humans but not to the larva of the Double-striped Pug moth, which is a big booster of the program.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Starkville is where Christopher Walken goes for more cowbell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every fan brings one and rings it incessantly despite an SEC ban on the damn things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re only supposed to ring them in between plays, but the average State fan can’t even read the rule much less follow it so they ring them all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The use of so many cowbells has led to a massive problem of lost cattle roaming the state during football games.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">It is the second-most annoying tradition in the Southeastern Conference, surpassed only by the Volunteers’ obsession with the song ‘Rocky Top’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The song is more annoying because more people care about Tennessee football so more people have to hear it.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The origin of the cowbell tradition is nebulous, but most agree it started in the 1930s when a cow wandered onto the field during a game against Mississippi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why this one instance among many of cow-wandering at the cow college would garner attention in Starkville is a mystery, but since State won the game the students took a Hindu-like reverence to the cow as a good luck charm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But unlike the Hindus these fans continued to eat their lucky charms.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">For awhile students would bring cows to the games, but they kept confusing them with their dates, so they brought only the cowbells.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">It took decades before two professors in the 1960s got the idea to weld handles onto the bells, making them louder and easier to use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Students make them on campus and sell them through the bookstore, which has plenty of room since it’s not cluttered up with any books.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The noise got so bad that in 1974 the conference passed a rule against artificial noisemakers at football and basketball games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a 9 to 1 vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ironically, State got confused and voted to ban the cowbell while Auburn mistakenly voted to keep it, believing at the time the vote they were casting was for more cows.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div> Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-70457041594128944942011-09-01T06:41:00.000-07:002011-09-01T06:41:59.227-07:00Georgia Tech Yellowjackets get stung.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">GEORGIA TECH YELLOWJACKETS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Atlanta for the sole purpose of giving Thursday night ESPN games a nice skyline shot.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQsA3LRULgO5gYs8JMW_-u6UINUeDITNmxMFvKm_shZIYA_OovLsilknQJ8FkaLLWoWAXajDp4eNzdnNZMyMEh2THQIr2Q646tCRuOHJdiLS2EBIcOcougmYrjOjWrjpvFyD4TytK6eU/s1600/Georgia+tech+1893+team+first+one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIQsA3LRULgO5gYs8JMW_-u6UINUeDITNmxMFvKm_shZIYA_OovLsilknQJ8FkaLLWoWAXajDp4eNzdnNZMyMEh2THQIr2Q646tCRuOHJdiLS2EBIcOcougmYrjOjWrjpvFyD4TytK6eU/s320/Georgia+tech+1893+team+first+one.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal">The 1893 Georgia Tech team pictured here in the beautiful heart of the main campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I swear the first man lying down on the right is the late Graham Chapman from Monty Python.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The late Herve’ Villechaize, better known as Tattoo, is third from the right top row.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stand up, Herve’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, sorry. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Tech has the best fight song in college football, ‘I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech', despite the fact its melody was stolen from a Lithuanian vomiting ballad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the only fight song ever used to bridge a diplomatic gap in international relations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">During the famous 1958 Kitchen Debate in Moscow, then-Vice President Richard Nixon got into an argument with Soviet head Nikita Khrushchev.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to find common ground the two world leaders sang the only song they both knew, ‘I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck'. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nikita had heard the song sung by the Tech Glee Club on the Ed Sullivan Show, although the prudish Sullivan made them sing “heck” instead of “hell.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The incident solidified belief on the Georgia campus that the Atlanta school was full of pinkos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here are the lyrics:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">“I’m a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">A helluva, helluva, helluva, helluva, hell of an engineer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Like all the jolly good fellows, I drink my whiskey clear,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I’m Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Oh, if I had a daughter, sir, I’d dress her in White and Gold.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And put her on the campus to cheer the brave and bold.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And if I had a son, sir, I’ll tell you what he’d do,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">He would yell “TO HELL WITH GEORGIA’ like his daddy used to do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three thousand pounds, </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">A college bell to put it in, and a clapper to stir it round.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .5in;">I’d drink to all the good fellows who come from far and near,<br />
I’m a ramblin, gamblin’ hell of an engineer. Hey!”<span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">It’s based on an old tune called ‘The Son of a Gambolier.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gambolier is Gaelic for “one who gambols.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is it gambles?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is the original song:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">“I’m a rambling rake of poverty</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">From Tiprery town I came.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">‘Twas poverty compelled me first,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">To go out in the rain;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">In all sorts of weather,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Be it wet or be it dry,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I’m bound to get my livelihood</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Or lay me down and die.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Then combine your humble ditties</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">As from inn to tavern we steer,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Like every honest fellow</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I takes my whiskey clear,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">For I’m a rambling rake of poverty</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And the son of a gambolier.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I once was tall and handsome,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And was so very neat,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">They though I was too good to live,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Most good enough to eat;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">But now I’m old, my coat is torn,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And poverty holds me fast,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And every girl turns up her nose,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">As I go wandering past.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I’m a rambling rake of poverty,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">From Tippery town I came,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">My coat I bought from an old Jew shop,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Way down in Maiden Lane;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">My hat I got from a sailor lad</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Just eighteen years ago,</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And my shoes I picked from an old dust heap</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Which everyone shunned but me.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Not exactly a ditty you’ll hear being hummed down at the Anti-Defamation League office.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The song has actually been used by many colleges with different lyrics, but it’s the Tech version that holds sway. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Name another college fight song sung by the likes of John Wayne in the movie ‘The High and the Mighty’, which was the movie spoofed by ‘Airplane’, and Gregory Peck in ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’, and Daffy Duck in a cartoon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s even been sung in space and on boats crossing the English Channel on D-Day.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Former Beatle Paul McCartney bought up the copyrights for one version of the song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some idiots on a Diversity Task Force at Tech tried to screw with the lyrics in the 1990s to make the song more politically correct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were told to suck it by the students and the song remains the same with apologies to Led Zeppelin for that last line.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their other fight song is ‘Up with the White and Gold’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kind of pales in comparison although it does have one memorable line:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We’ll drop our battle axe on Georgia’s head.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The official Ramblin’ Wreck car was unveiled in 1961.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a 1930 Model A Ford Sport Coupe restored in grand fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There had been several cars around campus over the years that had been called the Wreck and the first one anyone can remember was actually traded in for another jalopy.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Some claim the name comes from Tech grads that plied their living in South America around 1900 and engineered machines to traverse the jungles of that wild continent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The contrivances were called rambling wrecks by the natives.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">There used to be a race between Atlanta and Athens every year beginning in 1929 called the Flying Flivver, but the cows on the road got thicker the closer they came to UGA, which made it too dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Ramblin’ Wreck Parade took its place every Homecoming Week in which students design and build wrecks to drive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or they just find a GM product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of these devices have exploded and burned on the parade route.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Dean of Students James Dull decided sometime before ’61 that the school needed an official wreck so he began a statewide search.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The search ended when he walked out of his apartment and found the 1930 Model A Ford Sport Coupe sitting in front of the building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little pleading with the owner and the car was theirs.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The Wreck has seen its share of trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been borrowed unexpectedly and without permission twice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, UGA fans purloined it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was painted orange by Volunteer fans in that sickly color they’re fond of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s even been shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An Auburn fan was suspected of the gunplay, but residing in downtown Atlanta it’s amazing it hasn’t been shot more than once.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-42443078833555112112011-08-29T18:26:00.000-07:002011-08-29T18:26:17.124-07:00The Angola State Prison Tigers, or LSU<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now on Amazon.com's Kindle for just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">ANGOLA STATE PRISON TIGERS, or LOUISIANA STATE</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in Baton Rouge, which is French for “I did not tell him to spike the ball.”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I would like to tell you LSU was the first college team to play a bowl game outside the United States in the 1907 Bacardi Bowl in Havana, Cuba.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But since anyone who has ever traveled to Louisiana knows it is not really a part of America we don’t want to start off with a lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those will come soon enough.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The ‘people’ down there speak a version of English that is so akin to gibberish that they might as well still be speaking French.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you saw the Adam Sandler movie ‘The Waterboy’ you might remember an actor portraying an overall-wearing assistant coach who seemed to be making fun of the way Creoles speak with an over-the-top dialect of mush-mouthed utterances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In reality he is Dean of the English Department at LSU and a much sought after speaker on the local lecture circuit. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The fact that all of the middle of the country’s detritus is flushed down the Mississippi River to back up in Louisiana may explain the debauchery and depravity of the denizens of America’s Drainhole.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their current head coach is Les Miles, who landed the job after failing to replace Curley in the Three Stooges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite having won a national title in ’07 he is always on the hot seat because of his questionable decisions on the sidelines, such as showing up.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">He was once caught on camera eating grass and it wasn’t even part of a brownie.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>LSU once hired Vanderbilt coach Gerry DiNardo but he was summarily dismissed because he could never bridge the gap with his players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not the language gap, the intelligence gap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what do you expect from a ‘people’ who find biting the heads off mud-dwelling insects a culinary delight.</div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Current Bama coach Nick “Lucifer” Saban once coached LSU but left to seek greener pastures in the NFL in Miami, where in one day he met more people who spoke English than in his entire stay in Baton Rouge.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their colors are purple and gold, the same color as the bruises they wake up with after a game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is just the fans.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their mascot is Mike VI, or Mike the Tiger, a Bengal/Siberian mix who lives in his own tiger habitat across from the stadium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His diet consists of feral pigs, bulldogs (English and regular), elephants, other tigers, yellowjackets, gators, and yankees.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Before each home game an agitated Mike is enticed to enter a cage on wheels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is then carted into the stadium with six cheerleaders riding on top of his cage…OH MY GOD SOMEBODY GET A GUN….Make that five cheerleaders.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Opposing players must pass by Mike to enter their locker room…OH MY GOD HE’S GOT THE QUARTERBACK….Tradition had it that every time Mike growled the Tigers would score a touchdown that game so fans took to pounding on his cage to rile him up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Civilization and PETA complained so that tradition has gone the way of other LSU favorites, like bear-baiting and inbreeding.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Mike used to travel with the team, but that stopped in 1970 when his cage overturned on a highway and he escaped long enough to run for governor.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Mike also appeared at the 1984 Mardi Gras parade…OH MY GOD HE’S GOT THE MAYOR…where he blended right in with the drunken carnage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pranksters once cut the locks on his cage before the LSU-Tulane game, allowing Mike to roam freely across the campus long enough to become enrolled in the masters program.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">LSUsports.net reported Mike “playfully knocking down several small pine trees” before he was cornered in the track stadium and tranquilized and returned to his cage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ironically, this also happened to Huey Long.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The first live tiger mascot, Mike I, was purchased in 1936 from that world famous tiger haven the Little Rock Zoo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He reigned for 20 years before dying of pneumonia in the midst of a six-game losing streak in 1957.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So great was the love for Mike that school authorities were afraid fans would give up hope, so they were not alerted to his death until after the losing streak came to an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they gave up hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When LSU fans yell “Tiger bait” at you, take them at their word and run.</div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> In 1958, Coach Paul Dietzel decided to motivate a group of players who didn’t get on the field much by giving them a cool name to rally around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He chose the term ‘Chinese Bandits’ because according to the comic strip ‘Terry and the Pirates’ they were the most vicious people on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The players lived up to their name and the team went on to win their first national championship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The group even got their photo in ‘Life’ magazine: <br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghg3brs7ViaoViL6VBfzMKnL8cZewf_XchZuBkQhRntu0kZWxXDVbcto0pM_admhu6k3RCozoGbZ6tni2G9E3r1cbEQ17ZGWCap07nbJLzUbzmhzhcaSm8YfsfEwD9Ea5E06i4VtQyxEY/s1600/Chinese+bandits.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghg3brs7ViaoViL6VBfzMKnL8cZewf_XchZuBkQhRntu0kZWxXDVbcto0pM_admhu6k3RCozoGbZ6tni2G9E3r1cbEQ17ZGWCap07nbJLzUbzmhzhcaSm8YfsfEwD9Ea5E06i4VtQyxEY/s1600/Chinese+bandits.jpg" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"> This photo led directly to our entanglement in Vietnam.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest about LSU and all the other SEC schools, as well as Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State and Miami. It's all in 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis and available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">And you can follow me on twitter: @petedavis1</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
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Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-67272497046962577192011-08-19T07:46:00.000-07:002011-08-19T07:46:11.346-07:00THE MIAMI HURRICANES---KEEPING THE NCAA INFRACTIONS COMMITTEE IN BUSINESS SINCE 1952<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> This is a chapter from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for under a buck on Kindle at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> If you like what you see here, wait until you see the chapters on FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M, and all the SEC teams.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">MIAMI HURRICANES</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Definitely NOT based in Ohio.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Reborn under coach Howard Schnellenberger in the early 1980s the Canes became the team of the decade under first his and then Jimmy Johnson’s hair.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The mascot is an ibis, a gawky, white bird representing northern transplants found on local beaches. Recruiting is easy at Miami. Young men are taken to South Beach, handed a one hundred dollar bill then told to meet their chaperone back at the mojito stand in 24 hours. The ones who show up the next day are immediately sent back home. The rest are rounded up at local jails and made to mark their X on letters of intent.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> I don’t want to say this program attracts trouble like a cow attracts flies, but they first went on NCAA probation in the 1950s. I don’t think the NCAA even existed at the time. But when they did finally convene their first order of business was to deny the Hurricanes any bowl games for two years just on general principles. The NCAA Infractions Committee has a branch office in South Dade County.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Sports Illustrated printed a story in 1955 about Miami in which it was pointed out the school got caught giving transportation to prospective recruits because Coach Andy Gustafson was too “…aboveboard in his methods. He knows better now and will let the alumni do the inviting. This method has worked for years, even in the Ivy group…”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Wink wink, nudge nudge.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Many illustrious coaches have come through Miami, including Dennis Erickson, Butch Davis, and Lou Saban, whose short-lived reign ended when some of his players tossed a Jewish man into a lake. Fortunately this is one fad originating in Florida that failed to catch on with the general public, although I am to understand that in Australia dwarfs have been substituted. Butch Davis left for the bright light of Cleveland and the NFL. That bright light is the Cuyahoga River burning. (Yes, I know, old joke. But too easy to pass up.) Butch was fired there, so he ended up at with the Tarheels. He immediately instituted a plan to make UNC as successful as Miami. Which explains why they are now on probation and Butch is at loose ends.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The campus is set in a high crime area of the city, which may explain the mobster-like names of their two Heisman Trophy winners, Gino Torretta and Vinny Testaverde. You usually find names like those in the credits of movies where Joe Pesci’s character has murdered and stuffed their bodies in a trunk. Oklahoma legendary coach Barry Switzer called Testaverde the best quarterback he ever saw. Switzer was famous for being color blind when it came to race relations with his players. Testaverde became famous for just being color blind, which he revealed after becoming famous for throwing lots of interceptions with Tampa Bay.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Illustrious players include Jim Kelly and Ray Lewis. Lewis has been called the most badass player in the NFL despite crying like a baby when questioned by Atlanta police after a killing involving his posse during a Super Bowl party. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Florida is a big rival. The two schools vie for the War Canoe Trophy. If you go to the official website of the Miami Hurricanes football team, Hurricanesports.cstv.com, and look up this trophy in the Traditions site you’ll see this nugget of joy:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">“An authentic Seminole war canoe, hand carved and painted by Seminole Indians from a 200-year-old Everglades cypress tree felled by lighting...”</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Felled by ‘lighting’? Are even the trees in South Beach so fashion-sensitive they swoon when lit by bad lighting?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The canoe is now on display in Miami’s Sports Hall of Shame when it’s not being used to run contraband by hospitality majors. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Back to that bird mascot the ibis.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">On the official website it’s described as a bird of strength, of speed, of knowledge, and of courage. A leader of its species. It’s a wonder it doesn’t come with its own cape and alter ego. All this hype for a fowl that looks like a pelican that lost its pouch in a jai alai bet.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> This ibis is wise because it’s the last member of the animal kingdom to take cover before a hurricane hits. The last? How wise is that? After the alligators have amscrayed upstate, after the manatees have migrated to safer coves, after all the panthers and bears have booked flights out, the procrastinating ibis is found loitering in building supply stores in Homestead buying what’s left of the plundered plywood and nails.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The ibis is also believed to be the first animal to reappear after the storm passes. Sounds like looter mentality.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The ibis was announced as the school’s official mascot in 1926 on Larry King’s local radio show. His name is Sebastian after the butler from the 1960s TV show ‘Family Affair’ played so brilliantly by Sebastian Cabot.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> But before Sebastian the Ibis there was Hurricane I…the dog.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">A friend of the school had moved from New Haven, Connecticut to Miami. He provided a boxer with a fine pedigree to be the mascot of Miami. His name was Hurricane I. The dog that is, not the owner.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The prize-winning brown and white canine’s real name was ‘Beaubo of Box Haven,’ so he readily accepted his new name and the other dogs stopped making fun of him.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Well, that is until they saw him in his mascot costume. It consisted of an orange and green blanket with his name in huge letters on it. He also had a helmet to wear. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKHGBnLFXm1eyMU0IxjxtZTXxBIeoBzfRXIZf-acYneha_D9F_m2xPXfcRZyWmScCHv98CqGGYyG-qJTKe7x9mY74JSQAyrcCBwdAgEgQ2rmImgTTxBysH12TGIaxA09zvHJ7mqsqntE0/s1600/Hurricane+I.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKHGBnLFXm1eyMU0IxjxtZTXxBIeoBzfRXIZf-acYneha_D9F_m2xPXfcRZyWmScCHv98CqGGYyG-qJTKe7x9mY74JSQAyrcCBwdAgEgQ2rmImgTTxBysH12TGIaxA09zvHJ7mqsqntE0/s320/Hurricane+I.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Hurricane I right before his final flight. Since he left no note it’s not sure why he pawed open the escape hatch and leaped out of the moving plane. Maybe the cape made him believe he was Superman’s dog Krypto. Maybe he was distraught after leaving Handsome Dan VI. Maybe it was the sheer embarrassment. Either way he was last seen sailing over the Everglades. Local folklore tells of a pack of feral boxer/panther mixes roaming the swamp, biting unsuspecting Florida and Florida State fans.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> No word on why the school stopped using dogs as mascots but there was a nasty rumor floating around in the 50s that Hurricane I had lived with the Yale mascot Handsome Dan VI for two years up in Connecticut. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> This was decades before the movie ‘The Birdcage’ made it okay for this sort of relationship to be had in Miami.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Orange, green, and white are the school colors. They represent the orange tree with the orange for the fruit, the green for the leaves, and the white for the pasty tourists on South Beach. The orange is known as ‘pylon orange.’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> If you like what you've read please check out all the other teams in the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Kindle at:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-1385935326762047742011-08-17T08:37:00.000-07:002011-08-17T08:37:58.885-07:00Texas A&M Report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">This is an excerpt from the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for just 99 cents on Amazon.com's Kindle at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> TEXAS A&M AGGIES</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Based in College Station, Gateway to Boot Camp.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">In 1957 Texas A&M Coach Bear Bryant had five of his own players executed for sneaking a swig of water during practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even he realized that was a tad over the line and resigned to take the Alabama job, where such practices are not only still accepted but<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>encouraged.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxA1AoSB7Hog0siEmTURIGS6ltgDp3lXAy5__eMekk0NJ_6rVV5hhYXA6eFPu8EamRXXfO4vUnhtt5CZMk59mP52GXxr2bTNcxY_zgGEMoFDVTplw7FQZQFXPG-R0hH7mm-SJEb-QfxJA/s1600/John+David+Crow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxA1AoSB7Hog0siEmTURIGS6ltgDp3lXAy5__eMekk0NJ_6rVV5hhYXA6eFPu8EamRXXfO4vUnhtt5CZMk59mP52GXxr2bTNcxY_zgGEMoFDVTplw7FQZQFXPG-R0hH7mm-SJEb-QfxJA/s320/John+David+Crow.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">John David Crow cracking up the Heisman Trophy voters with his "Two-Face" routine.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Aggies are known for their colorful and politically correct chants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they play Rice they have one they use against the Owls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It goes something like this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What comes out of a Chinaman’s ass?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rice! Rice!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">No wussy pep rallies here, they have yell practices at midnight before home games in the stadium and thousands attend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a lot of humping going on during this time, but not because it’s at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humping at A&M is when you lean forward and put your hands above your knees and yell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is reason number two why the pregnancy rate at this school is below the national average.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> When yell practice is over they turn the lights out and two cannons go off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then all Aggies kiss their dates and several thousand small cannons go off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you don’t have a date then you flick your lighter, so to speak, to look for a willing partner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A school where mating rituals copy the lightning bug may have trouble breeding.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The school started admitting women in 1973.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They still haven’t received the memo that good-looking girls can attend now too.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In fact, the best-looking girl on campus is Reveille the collie mascot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is reason number one why the pregnancy rate is so low in College Station.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reveille is a five-star general and even attends classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If she barks during a class it has to be cut short.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>During games all Aggies kiss their dates after every score.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reveille hides after every score.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A&M was a member of the now defunct Southwest Conference, joining in 1915.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have one national title and play at Kyle Field, which used to be known as Kyle Maclachlan Field in honor of the fine talents of the actor in such works as ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘Blue Velvet.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But late one Friday night some students happened to catch his stumbling debut in the horrific ‘Dune’ movie from the 1980s and voted to remove most of his name forthwith.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A&M has one Big 12 title in 1998 and 17 championships of the old Southwest Conference beginning in 1917 when some opponents supplemented their meager rosters with roadrunners and rattlesnakes.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The stadium seats over 80-thousand and the student body stands for the entire game due to constipation problems brought on by their corn-fed diet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aggies are known as the ‘12<sup>th</sup> Man,’ even the women, which a closer glimpse soon shows why.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This tradition began in 1922 when a tough game brought the Aggies close to running out of healthy players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Student E. King Gill was called down to the field by Coach D.X. Bible and told to don football gear and get a second initial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did and waited on the sidelines, never playing, but ever ready.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Afterwards the coach and all the ‘real’ players got a good laugh about punking Gill.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A walk-on student gets to wear number 12 and participate in kickoff coverage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coach Jackie “Probation” Sherrill used to let all the players on his kickoff cover team be walk-ons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then again, he let players do a lot of things other coaches cringe at.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Within the Corps of Cadets, seniors can wear knee-high brown leather boots known as ‘Senior boots,’ a style made popular in the 1930s by New Jersey State Patrol Motorcycle Units and Italian fascists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These cost about a thousand dollars, roughly the annual income of an Aggie alumnus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When needing help removing their boots seniors yell “I need a fish!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On most campuses this would bring:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A) Startled looks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>B) A fish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>C) A visit from the local N.O.W. chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in College Station it brings freshmen, and in the same over-exuberant and naïve tradition of E. King Gill many of them come running and fighting amongst each other for the privilege to help the senior out of his boots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What comes off after that is a case for the authorities.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> If you like what you've read so far then read the rest of it in 'The Totally Biased Guide To Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now for the price of a Whopper Jr. on Amazon.com's Kindle at: </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><!--[if !mso]> <style>
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</style> <![endif]-->Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-62991202696686798812011-08-15T14:11:00.000-07:002011-08-15T14:11:19.146-07:00Time for Texas A & M to have some fun.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; " class="BLOGGER-object-element tr_noresize tr_placeholder" id="ieooui" data-original-id="ieooui" /> <style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">This is an excerpt from 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for e-readers for the cost of a Whopper Jr. at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">TEXAS LONGHORNS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Based in Austin, where the A stands for A-holes.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">He stands on the sidelines slowly chewing his cud and gathering in all he sees with an air of detachment as he watches the players practice.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">But enough about Coach Mack Brown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> T</span>he same could be said of Bevo the longhorn steer mascot.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The University of Texas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the only name that’s both a college title and an oxymoron.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">They like to brag about their 49 bowl games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s the big deal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alabama has more than that and look how small a state they are compared to Tejas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Starting in 1943 Texas has been to 22 Cotton Bowls, 3 Sugar Bowls, 2 Orange Bowls, 2 Rose Bowls and 2 Fiesta Bowls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The constant bowling got so tiring they decided to take 2010 off.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The bowl games do allow Longhorns fans to travel to other countries, like California.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">And the Longhorns don’t just show up, eat well, and lounge around the hotel swimming pool like beached belugas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also like to shop for items they can’t usually get in Austin, like toilet paper and PhDs.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Let’s face it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Austin is a great place if your idea of fun is melting some velveeta and dipping your....finger in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But football?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It stops at the high school level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kind of like most Longhorns.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s something about just the mention of the Texas Longhorns that can make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up like a saguaro cactus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it has to do with all the pricks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the cactus.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">This is a team that before 2005 for all its bragging hadn’t won a national title since Nixon was making mixed tapes in the Oval Office.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their rivalry with the Sooners is so big it’s called the Red River Shootout, held annually since 1900 when Oklahoma was still just a territory founded by the, and I’m not making this up, Indian Intercourse Act of 1834.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Indians have been getting intercoursed ever since.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their annual Torchlight Parade is held the week of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has been the source of much joy and pain since the cheap plywood that makes up most of the town is ready tinder for flame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A recent fire that burned half of the buildings on campus caused hundreds of dollars in damage.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The event has become so huge that Jay Leno of NBC’s ‘The Tonight Show’ sent his entertainment reporter/monkey Ross the Intern to cover the game and the Texas State Fair which is held next to the Cotton Bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was extremely impressed by two things on his visit:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting to play drums with the Pride of Oklahoma Marching Band, and the sheer monstrous obesity of the average Longhorn fan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can still find these reports on youtube.com. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Enough corn dogs are consumed during this fair to circumnavigate the earth five times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For you UT grads, just look up ‘circumnavigate’ in the dictionary, you can borrow one from your neighbor flying the OU flag.</div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><img src="http://img2.blogblog.com/img/video_object.png" style="background-color: #b2b2b2; 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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Their fight song is ‘Texas Fight’ which is actually a faster version of ‘Taps’, which is played at military funerals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you thought ‘Rocky Top’ was depressing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was written in response to Texas A&M’s fight song which is similar, except the Longhorns now incorporate part of the song ‘The Eyes of Texas’. their alma mater, in their version.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This blatant lifting of both lyrics and musical riffs to blend into other songs led directly to hip hop.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Fans love to use a hand signal called ‘Hook ‘em Horns’, first used in 1955.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The index finger and pinky are extended while the two middle fingers are held by the thumb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once again, this was a response to a Texas A&M tradition called ‘Gig ‘em’, which makes one wonder if folks in Austin call College Station for permission to pee as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;">If you like what you've read so far you'll love the rest of the book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis. Read more about Texas, all the SEC schools, Georgia Tech, Clemson, Florida State and Miami. And Texas A&M. Just 99 cents at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-83307454127453672122011-08-13T10:41:00.000-07:002011-08-13T10:41:07.526-07:00College football: New Blood in the SEC<a href="http://collegefootballpete.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-blood-in-sec.html?spref=bl">College football: New Blood in the SEC</a>: "Based on 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now for under a dollar at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRF..."Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-89675321342480362152011-08-13T09:38:00.000-07:002011-08-13T09:38:49.308-07:00New Blood in the SECBased on 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available now for under a dollar at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW <br />
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Or should I say 'blood in the water'. Rumor has it that Texas A&M will announce shortly it is joining the Southeastern Conference. That's fine, good school, good rep, the next president of the U.S. might hail from there. Makes sense until you realize that would make the conference uneven. That is until you add 3 more teams! <br />
The Seminoles, Clemson, and.......Missouri? Why not Georgia Tech? Why not the Yellowjackets before Clemson? Did they not want to join? Were they out studying when the phone rang? Or do some teams still hold a grudge against GT for leaving the SEC back in the Sixties?<br />
Clemson is the bigger school but GT the bigger market. Tech has a better tradition. The Tigers have a more rabid fan base. It'll be very interesting to hear all the behind the scenes gossip as to how this goes down, when and if it does, and it probably will.<br />
A 16-team Super Conference, the first but not the last. If this is true and these are the four teams to join, just think of the confusion. The SEC already has two teams called 'Tigers' and two teams called 'Bulldogs'. Now there will be FOUR teams known as the Tigers.<br />
Here's my solution to this name numbness: <br />
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">LSU becomes the Bayou Bengals, which they’re known for anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Auburn ends the confusion and adopts War Eagle as their cry and their team moniker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clemson will have to keep the name Tigers because their fan base is too 'challenged' to learn another word at this point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Which leaves us with Missouri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I give them two choices, let it never be said that I am not a fair arbiter in these matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either they become their other nickname, Mizzou, or the James Gang, for the state’s greatest citizens, Jesse and Frank James.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe a third option is possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since they’re famous up there for the James boys and Josey Wales maybe the Outlaws would be apropos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then when the NCAA hits them up for their biannual probation they truly can say they are indeed an outlaw program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Problem sol-ved as Inspector Clouseau would say.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Or is it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s face it, Missouri being in the Southeastern Conference makes about as much sense as Auburn being part of the National COLLEGIATE Athletic Association.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Is it even really a state? What inhabits the area between St. Louis and Kansas City? You leave the Arch, set the cruise control, settle in for a nap and wake up a few hours later in K.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing in between but billboards and bovine.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is known for its school o’ journalism, but given the state of the media today that may not be something they want to crow about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like Texas A&M bragging about their coeds, some things are better left tied up in the stockyard.</div> Check out more on the SEC schools, including the newbies Florida State, Clemson, and Texas A&M in the new book 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for under a buck at: Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW<br />
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Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-80515258082704692622011-08-12T08:51:00.000-07:002011-08-12T08:51:24.364-07:00The Georgia Bulldogs Story<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> From 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for under a buck at amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">THE GEORGIA BULLDOGS</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Based in Athens, Home of the Clarke County Sheriffs Memorial Bulldog Holding Pen.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The school boasts the best looking bulldog in the SEC, or at least the most inbred.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">With coaches like Vince Dooley, a legend, Ray Goff, not so much, and Mark Richt, the school is getting the reputation as Nice Guy U. But as former big league manager Leo Durocher used say, nice guys finish last. Or at least second to Florida. That niceness doesn’t extend to the players, who keep the local constabulary busier than a priest at Boys Town.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Georgia has the distinction of having the most fans who never actually attended the school, or any school over junior high level for that matter.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">If you inform them of this nugget of joy you are likely to receive a beating, so I suggest these words to quickly cool off their anger.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; text-indent: -.25in;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>How ‘bout them Dawgs. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: .75in; text-indent: -.25in;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span>Herschel Walker.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Those two utterances will hopefully distract the average Bulldog fan long enough for you to make good your escape. If not, any shiny object will do.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Georgia is known for some great running backs that went on to fame and glory in the NFL. All you running backs step forward. Not so fast Herschel.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Possibly the greatest back in college history, his NFL career was stunted by bad teams, bad trades, and getting talked into leaving school early to join the upstart USFL, a move that ranks right up there with female interns at the White House and a meal of warm Welch’s grape juice and greasy pork chops. Even so, he did go to two Pro Bowls in Hawaii and that’s worth its weight in poi.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The Bulldog Nation can boast the most entertaining play by play man ever, the recently retired Larry Munson, whose calls of “Sugar falling from the sky” and “Run, Lindsay!” rang out of radios across the state for many decades. My good friend and media raconteur Miller Pope informs me that it is a misconception by Dawg fans that Munson said the word “run” more than once in his famous call of the pass from Buck Belue to Lindsay. But he did say “Lindsay Scott!” several times in a row, and that he had broken his chair in all the excitement. Only Munson could work the phrase “hobnail boot” into a football game. He is missed on the broadcasts. Another Bulldog that is missed is former athletic director/designated driver Damon Evans.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Evans resigned his post after a DUI arrest in Atlanta in which the arresting officer found a woman’s wadded-up panties between his legs. Evans was obviously just trying to keep them warm in case the lady riding with him wanted to put them on again. As every Playboy centerfold can attest to, cold underwear is a major turnoff. But so is the cold, harsh light of a state patrolman’s flashlight.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Evans was caught just minutes before a huge salary increase would have kicked in, proving that timing isn’t just for screen plays.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The school mascot is named UGA, pronounced “Uh-gah,” with Roman numbers following to designate each generation. In 1996 UGA V became even more famous when he tried to stop the breeding program at Auburn by trying to circumcise and castrate a Tigers player who wandered too close to his jaws on the sidelines.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> An UGA has graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and even was invited to the Downtown Athletic Club when Herschel received his Heisman. Herschel left with great memories, UGA left a steaming pile.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> When they die UGAs are interred in a mausoleum at Sanford Stadium. Even in death most UGAs have a higher standard of living than their fans.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> In 1939 Coach Wally Butts had the players wear silver britches. This proved too heavy and cumbersome and even dangerous, so they quickly changed to wearing just silver-colored britches.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The school fight song is ‘Glory, Glory,’ which inexplicably is sung to the tune of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic,’ a yankee song.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> In 1901 freshmen were compelled to ring the chapel bell on campus until midnight to celebrate a victory. This started after a 0-0 tie with Auburn. Someone needs to explain the word victory to these people. This annoying tradition has bit the dust, but the bell is still rung a little and after a win over Florida the bell was rung so hard the yoke holding it broke and sent it tumbling down. Fortunately no Rhodes Scholars were injured. It would have to have been one damn big bell to even have come near to scratching one.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The yell “How ‘bout them Dawgs!” started in the 1970s and is an annoying tradition only superseded by the playing of ‘Rocky Top’ by the Volunteers. It’s the official mating call of the state of Georgia.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> They play in Sanford Stadium, supposedly the 15<sup>th</sup> largest stadium in the world, which has been host to Olympic soccer games. That is fitting since fans there had long since become accustomed to watching players who don’t know how to use their hands.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The Chinese privet hedges were only a foot high when the stadium was dedicated in 1929, but have grown in height and stature and now the team is said to play “Between the Hedges.” Some say the legendary writer Grantland Rice began the phrase. Some say the ancient Greek bard Homer coined the phrase, but no one listens to them. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">An enterprising cigarette company could make some hay with this by handing out cigs to the players between quarters. Then they could say the team plays “Between the Benson and Hedges.” Just think of the advertising revenue. But nobody listens to them either.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The first game in Sanford was against Yale and a sophomore by the name of Catfish Smith single-handedly beat the northern Bulldogs 15 to nothing. It wasn’t because he was slippery as his namesake that made him so hard to stop. It was the fact he smelled so much like one.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> In 1894 they hired their first real, paid football coach, Robert Winston, who happened to be an Englishman. His record that first season was 5 and 1 despite his not allowing his players to use their hands, thus beginning the aforementioned tradition.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHp7gZxDo5QoTswTgyyXYs5B07OlJsQUdnrKBA9yhkmEWE-LkhsXqTU3eM9aHr33AKrVgo5D911yNiTy0WxYSoHSM2lW4O2Ms5xL2DCrvEh_NWXN2v68jWE31EUWI1UNr1lSdXynkbnXQ/s1600/Georgia+bulldogs+1890s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHp7gZxDo5QoTswTgyyXYs5B07OlJsQUdnrKBA9yhkmEWE-LkhsXqTU3eM9aHr33AKrVgo5D911yNiTy0WxYSoHSM2lW4O2Ms5xL2DCrvEh_NWXN2v68jWE31EUWI1UNr1lSdXynkbnXQ/s1600/Georgia+bulldogs+1890s.jpg" /></a></div>A Georgia team in the 1890s resting on Main Street in downtown Athens.<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> If you like what you've read so far and would like to read the rest about UGA and all the other SEC teams, and also, Texas, Texas A&M, Clemson, Georgia Tech, FSU, and Miami, check out 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available for under a dollar at: amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">That's the price of a Whopper Jr.!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </div>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-22806316083780352412011-08-10T08:56:00.000-07:002011-08-10T08:56:05.040-07:00Texas A&M joining SEC? Reports on the Wes Durham-Tony Barnhart Show on 790 the Zone in Atlanta have the Aggies voting August 22nd on whether to leave the Big 12 and join the SEC. They're mad at Texas and ESPN wanting to broadcast high school games on the Longhorns tv network.<br />
If this happens, SEC needs another team for balance. Oklahoma? FSU? Clemson? Wofford? (Okay, that last one is a longshot. The Terriers may not want to join the Southeastern Conference).<br />
For more fun history of Texas A&M, and Texas, (no Wofford), check out 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis, available on Amazon.com Kindle for under a buck!<br />
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Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-80536459904933074482011-08-09T23:29:00.000-07:002011-08-10T15:39:29.585-07:00Florida Gators News<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhCwIKDPxXHRa0DVcIhqlEGKcm_hv1f7Bb7YMMQNlwctHZJin8Jz59JY6Vqic6fYkBuZtkTpdw2VM4z6BJZohBtAmOtQTg22MefGiI5rd9-53ohwXELibl_5yHr3x0s6accSwwsG3hHtY/s1600/Alligator_Heads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhCwIKDPxXHRa0DVcIhqlEGKcm_hv1f7Bb7YMMQNlwctHZJin8Jz59JY6Vqic6fYkBuZtkTpdw2VM4z6BJZohBtAmOtQTg22MefGiI5rd9-53ohwXELibl_5yHr3x0s6accSwwsG3hHtY/s320/Alligator_Heads.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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The Florida Gator in its natural form: A laughing stock.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Based in Gainesville, Gateway to Panama City Beach. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Gainesville is most famous for being the breeding ground of 98 percent of the world’s mosquitoes. The downside is that UF is the only major university in the western hemisphere in which you can major in malaria.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">They play in a stadium affectionately known as ‘The Swamp,’ named by Coach Steve Spurrier in 1991. He said a swamp is where gators live and is “hot and sticky and can be dangerous,” which is why he originally planned to call it ‘The Beehive’ before changing his mind.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"> The Swamp is perpetually wet and before each game is drained of excess water and IQ points. Built in 1930 it is also known by the tongue-twister of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium at Florida Field and since 1990 it’s the hardest stadium for a visiting team to say three times fast and get a win in. Ben Hill Griffin Jr. was a Gator fan known for his big heart, which he kept in his wallet.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The first game in the stadium was against Bama and was called by soon-to-be- legendary baseball broadcaster Red Barber, who was a UF student. Barber would return 61 years later for the dedication of the north end zone addition. They wanted to save him for something really special, but he came to this event anyway.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">The first night game was played in 1950 against the Citadel. After several students were attacked by night-feeding alligators, lights were installed.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">An artificial surface was put down in 1971 and immediately melted.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Florida fans are easy to spot in any crowd. They’re the ones wearing a bright blue and orange t-shirt and jean shorts, otherwise known as ‘jorts.’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Jorts are known throughout the South, but have been raised to a new level of haute debauchery in Gatorland. Most Gator fans wear blue jeans that their Momma actually cut off with her good sewing scissors, giving them that white, stringy, lived-in look. The barbecue and beer leakage stains help with that look. But recently you’ve been able to tell those Gators who come from money. They actually buy their freshly-pressed jorts right off the rack at Marshall’s, giving them that “Wranglers for Poor Midgets” look.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> For the 89 percent of Gator fans who really do live in a swamp, actual alligators are used. New jeans are mixed with deer hinds and thrown in the reptiles’ midst. The ensuing melee renders up this fashion statement. Students from the animal husbandry program are used to retrieve the jorts. Like most programs at Florida it’s easy to get in, but a bitch to get out of…alive.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> The official gear of the Florida fan is jorts and a tube top. For the women as well.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Florida has dominated the Southeastern Conference in the last two decades, which has led to drastic measures being taken by other rivals. The SEC’s two most prominent agricultural schools, Georgia and Auburn, have colluded to try and bring about an end to all real gators by introducing the Burmese python into the waters of the Everglades, although the jury is still out whether this bold move will bring about any change on the gridiron. A move to throw the deadly snakes into the Florida huddle itself was vetoed by school presidents on a vote of 7 to 4, with Vanderbilt abstaining, just like they do every Saturday.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> As I said, the Gators have done a lot of winning these past two decades, outside of a curious allergic reaction to Ole Miss.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Florida did not know about football until Steve Spurrier arrived in the 1960’s and won a Heisman all by himself as quarterback. After he left school they forgot about football until his return in 1990 as coach. After finally getting the hang of it they’ve decided to keep playing the game even after he left to tilt at windmills in the NFL.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Coach Spurrier was known for throwing his visor onto the ground whenever he was angry with his quarterback. Subsequently, there are no known photos of Steve wearing a visor.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> They have three national titles, 1996, 2006 and 2008, with eight SEC championships. Their colors are blue and orange, simple colors for simple fans. Keeping with the simple theme, their fight song is ‘Orange and Blue.’</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> Their annual tilt with Georgia is held around Halloween and usually in the ‘neutral’ site of Jacksonville, even though the town is in the state of Florida, which should be a clue even to Bulldog fans that it ain’t so neutral. For years real Americans called the game ‘The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,’ a huge orgy known for its hardcore drinking and public nudity on the banks of the St. John’s River. Half the population of south Georgia and north Florida can likely trace its conception to this party. Then political correctness swept the nation like a virus and the name was dropped by both schools, but not the fans. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> If you like what you've read so far just wait until you see the rest of what I have to say about Florida. And all the other SEC schools, as well as FSU, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Texas and Texas A&M!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> For just 99 cents, that's the price of a Whopper Jr., you can get 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis on amazon.com's Kindle. You can also read it on your PC, Mac, iphone, ipad or smartphone. Just go to amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW or go to amazon.com and look up 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football' by Pete Davis. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> You'll finally have all the ammo you'll need to shutup those obnoxious Gators and all the other fans too.<a href="http://amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW">amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW</a></div><br />
Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-60777250002684338942011-08-09T23:10:00.000-07:002011-08-09T23:10:34.408-07:00College football: The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football<a href="http://collegefootballpete.blogspot.com/2011/08/totally-biased-guide-to-southern.html">Amazon.com/dp/B005FRFMYW</a>
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<br />Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-52374033252804817182011-08-09T05:03:00.000-07:002011-08-09T05:03:37.923-07:00College football: The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football<a href="http://collegefootballpete.blogspot.com/2011/08/totally-biased-guide-to-southern.html">College football: The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football</a>Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3272626087738542993.post-7135719548592439002011-08-06T07:26:00.000-07:002011-08-06T07:26:32.313-07:00The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football Hello! Ready to talk some college football? Kickoff is less than a month away. My name is Pete Davis and this blog is about two things: Talking college football and getting the word out about my new book about college football called 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football'.<br />
Please check it out on amazon.com's Kindle, it's only 99 cents and where else can you get a very funny rundown of all the SEC teams, Florida State, Miami, Texas, Texas A&M, and Clemson. All the ammo you'll need to shut up that annoying brother-in-law, neighbor, or co-worker who just won't quit bragging about how great their team is and why they're better than your team when you know that can't possibly be true.<br />
For the price of a Whopper Jr. you'll know the sordid history of these teams and their best-kept-hidden secrets. For instance, did you know that being the head football coach at Texas was once considered a death curse?<br />
Or that the live mascots of LSU, Arkansas, and Georgia Tech have all escaped and wreaked havoc on campus? More than once! I'm talking live tigers, razorbacks, and even bears. The Yellowjackets brought a bear back from the Rose Bowl and let it wander around Atlanta. It even hitched rides in police squad cars.<br />
Did you know FSU once provided players for hated rival Florida?<br />
Or the Hurricanes once had a gay dog as their mascot?<br />
Or why Auburn refused to play the Crimson Tide for nearly half a century? (Hint: It had something to do with Broadway musicals).<br />
Check it out, 'The Totally Biased Guide to Southern College Football', and feel free to write me and tell me what you think or give it a review and rate it on Amazon.com. What do you have to lose for under a buck?<br />
Now, let's talk some college football.<br />
Who out there thinks Ohio State got off easy with the NCAA obergruppenfuhrers?Pete Davishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03893567267303129640noreply@blogger.com1