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Entries tagged as ‘Mississippi State Bulldogs’

2010 Football in Julypalooza

July 28, 2010 · 1 Comment

Quote of the Day:

“And we’re ready for the kickoff……the ball sails high into the air and the Bulldogs let it bounce (silence for several seconds). I can’t see who’s got it…..there may have been a whistle on the play……a Bulldog is holding the ball aloft in the Auburn End Zone area……it appears to be a touchdown…….It IS a touchdown. Touchdown, Mississippi State.” Jack Cristil (this is actually a paraphrased memory of his call of the opening kickoff returned for a touchdown by State against Auburn in the mid-90′s. Jack had lost his cool complaining that State had been penalized fifteen yards before even taking the field and was completely lost. I think Sweet was with me that day, though I doubt he remembers it).

BR’s “Freestyle” post about probable new Ole Miss quarterback Jeremiah Masoli reminded TB, and just in time, that I hadn’t posted my annual Football in Julypalooza. So here it is. This year, the Julypalooza looks at the approaching college football season through a deluxe crystal ball, one capable of seeing all, not merely the records of each team. But first things first–Mississippi State goes 7-5, Ole Miss 6-6, and USM 8-4. Alabama wins the SEC championship, but loses to Texas in the BCS Championship game.

More specifically, Mississippi State is a team on the rise. By Mississippi’s standards anyway. Here’s why–Dan Mullen is an impressive young coach. He is a future star in the SEC, ready to take over the leadership mantle from a peaking Nick Saban and the fading Urban Meyer (due to health), Les Miles (due to not having Saban’s players) and Steve Spurrier (because he’s old as hell). Don’t worry, I have only had a single cup of the Kool-Aid. He won’t do all that at MSU. But he will have two good seasons to prove to the big money folks at Florida that he’s ready to take over there. Then Meyer can retire and regain his health the way he wanted to last year. It’s in the league’s interest for the coaching transition to go down this way too. That’s why MSU will get just enough calls to go their way, and will stay off probation this year and next. I’ll even go so far as to say MSU will be relatively successful five years out since they will have the players Mullen brings in for awhile after he’s gone and because we won’t get nailed with probation until after Mullen’s golden-boy hands are completely washed of Starkville. Oh, and we’ll also have (relative) success because of improved quarterback play and a stout defense that Jackie Sherrill says will be as good as some of those he coached in the late 90′s.

Ole Miss is tougher to call. They have a strong defense and a weak schedule. They are coming off back-to-back Cotton Bowl winning seasons but they have no quarterback. The solution appears to have dropped into their soul-selling laps in the form of disgraced former Oregon quarterback Jeremiah Masoli. But will the Masoli pickup backfire? I say it depends. If the team believes in Nathan Stanley, Masoli will be an instant wedge, cleaving a deep and bitter division between factions. If Stanley sucks half as bad as he appeared to last season however, the team will rally around any chance to save them from that suckitude. I lean toward the latter probability. The Rebs will follow him to another bowl appearance, but they are destined for a stadium built back in the mid-twentieth century rather than a brand spankin’ new beauty. And they will struggle for a couple of years after this one, partly due to the fact that the SEC needs Mullen to spruce up his resume, and the league doesn’t take kindly to the two Mississippi schools stealing enough wins to make everyone in the Magnolia state happy.

Southern? Hell, I don’t know. They always win between 6 and 8 don’t they? They will be back in a bowl and….wait a minute….the clouds in my crystal ball are beginning to part…..I can see clearly now…..oh, it can’t be…..no, I’ve not lived a pure enough life to have something like this happen….but, if the crystal ball says it, it must be true. Southern will play Ole Miss in the Liberty Bowl. That’s gonna be fun.

What else? Tulane will suck. SMU will suck. Bama will win a lot, but they still suck.

More specifically, MSU will beat Auburn. Book it. Ole Miss will lose to Vandy. They are due. LSU will fire Les Miles at the end of the season. Spurrier will retire this year. Sweet will get killed in Thursday Pickin III (The Return of Thursday Pickin’). Feidt’s Follies too. Quail and Zeek will return to the TBU. Cowbells will be outlawed for good after this season, because Ole Miss is a bunch of pansies and they cry about them like clockwork every time MSU goes on the rise.

Categories: Sports
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We Wuz Robbed

March 19, 2010 · 18 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“I’ve been at this a long time, and one thing I’ve learned: At Mississippi State, you’re supposed to take it and be quiet. I had a hard time swallowing this pill because so much was at stake and my players were affected. When does the truth matter?” –MSU Basketball Coach Rick Stansbury, on being robbed

There was no special edition of Thursday Pickin’ for this year’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. I’m not even watching, save to catch the scores of SEC games in hopes all they all lose. TB just can’t enjoy it this year, not when my Bulldogs were, predictably, unfairly excluded. It is not a boycott or a protest of any sort, it’s just that with every instance of sporting injustice a little bit of the fan in me dies. I couldn’t conger up enough interest this year to even fill out a bracket. Every time I looked at one all I saw was Kentucky’s John Wall and his smirking, supremely talented mug dashing illegally through the lane to get the rebound that ultimately defeated Mississippi State in the SEC Tournament Championship and blocked them from participation in the Big Dance.

In sports, it is taboo to “blame the refs.” “One play” the logic goes, “doesn’t beat you.” You had many other opportunities to overcome a bad call and you made too many other mistakes to hang an outcome on the referee. All this is true. But its a fallacy, one we accept because sports are extremely difficult to officiate, mistakes are inevitable, and the consensus opinion is that the breaks even out in the long run. Thus, we should never blame the refs.

But one call, one play can beat you. The logic that a team should overcome a bad call or not be in a position to have a bad call beat them is faulty. I recall an instance when I was sixteen years old pitching in a baseball tournament in Pensacola, Florida, against a team of Washington all-staters. In the first inning I had a 2-2 count on their cleanup hitter with two men on and I put a fastball over the outside corner at the knees. The ump called a ball and I lost my cool. The next pitch was overthrown and sent right down the middle. That big hoss knocked the shit out of the ball, damn near gave me whiplash as I turned to see it sailing over the horizon. We were down 3-0. I got out of the inning without further damage and as I walked to the dugout I detoured toward the ump, pointing at him and yelling, “those three are on you.” He came toward me and for a second I thought I was to be ejected, but he simply leaned in and quietly said, “I blew the call.” We lost the game 4-3. We had 21 lost opportunities at the plate to score 5 but we didn’t. Or, I could’ve settled down and not served up a fat pitch. But no matter what, that first inning blown call cost us the game. And you know what, I’ve never been bitter about it. A call like that is part of the game. The ump wasn’t cheating, and the reason I’ve always remembered that game is not because “we was robbed” but because it was so classy of him to admit he missed the call in the face of a punk teenager who had just called him out in front of hundreds of adults and other kids. Still, to ignore that those three runs cost us the game is to ignore the facts.

In the same way, Wall’s lane violation led to his rebound that led to his shot that missed and bounced straight to Demarcus Cousins who tipped back in at the buzzer. The missed call cost State the game, the tournament and a spot in the Dance. I know it’s bad form to hang that on the refs, but when a championship is on the line, it ought not be so damn predictable which way the breaks are gonna go. And when it happens that a team gets robbed we ought not be afraid to call it out. And even with all that, I could live with the call if I hadn’t known beyond the shadow of a doubt that MSU would not get an at-large bid in defeat. The committee said we were the first team eliminated and it was a tough call and they took into account all sorts of factors against us, many of them opposite the factors they have used to exclude us in past bubble years. But they never mentioned the consideration of the fact that we should’ve been in except that we were robbed of the automatic bid by the refs. And ultimately, that is what burns my ass.

Categories: Philosobaen · Sports
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Loose Ends

November 30, 2009 · 7 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“It is the loose ends with which men hang themselves.” –Zelda Fitzgerald

End Zones

Five times Saturday the Mississippi State Bulldogs scored touchdowns against Ole Miss (along with a couple of field goals) in route to their Egg Bowl victory. It was the most points scored by the Bullies against Ole Miss since the invention of the forward pass. TB listened to the game in mute satisfaction so as not to antagonize my dear olemisguided family members whose football loyalties are opposite mine. As I silently celebrated I contemplated the schizophrenia that is the college football fan, particularly those of us from the Magnolia State where everybody knows everybody. On the one hand I hate Ole Miss and everything the school stands for–what they stand for as I understand it is all things that keep my school from having success on the football field. On the other hand I really like most of the people I know that went there, hell I even married one. And yes, I even spent three years there, sort of. So I guess I don’t really hate them. I just hate their football and basketball teams. And baseball and women’s hoops and track and Miss America contestants and….you get the picture. Except I pretty much like everyone I know that has ever played for any of those teams. I even like Oxford and if I had the chance I’d gladly live there. So anyway, I hate them sometimes, like when they are beating State at something. But I don’t really hate ‘em. I guess it depends on when you catch me and who’s around. It’s complicated I guess, but hate’em or not, I dang sure want that Egg at my school every year. Bigger than the Super Bowl? Yep, for me it is.

End of the Road

Two thousand five hundred seventy-four point five miles–it seems longer when you use the words. I started with my crew last Friday night. We drove to my old home place in Pascagoula. Saturday to Tallahassee, Florida, with a stopover in Mobile. Sunday we went to Tampa for that Spanish meal in Ybor City then Monday we crossed the Everglades and rested a bit in Fort Lauderdale before joining up with the extended gang for the cruise down A1A to Key West and Mile Marker 0, the End of the Road. Then back again, which is a lot less fun. After I catch my breath and catch up the stats on the Pickin game I’ve got a post coming comparing the trips of 1999 and 2009 to that den of sin and debauchery which should be amusing.

Thursday Pickin Season II, the beginning of the End

While one is flying down I-10 in bumper to bumper “get me the hell away from Disney” 85 mph traffic, I find it is a good time to contemplate one’s blog. In addition to figuring out just exactly how it is I will make this gig generate cash, something I forgot by the time I got home, I decided that what the TBU needs to end the football season with a bang instead of a whimper is a big finish. To that End, there will be a TBCS. The top two finishers after next week’s regular season finale will go head to head on the New Year’s Day bowls to determine the champion. And yes, musical taste and entertainment will play a role in that last game, so if you think you might be in the finale, start thinkin about how to get those possibly vital bonus points. (heh heh, Sweet will never win now…heh heh).

Categories: Sports · Uncategorized
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Football Season At Last

September 2, 2009 · 15 Comments

Quote of the Day:

“Time, as we age, is often damaging. But this was one of the Lord’s good days, resting for me forever in a kind of somnolent tenderness. I was thirteen and it was a golden, luminous November’s afternoon, my first Ole Miss-Mississippi State game in person.”     –Willie Morris, from the essay linked here, published several times over the years by the Clarion Ledger

As a kid, there were only two seasons to TB, football and baseball. Basketball was ok as a mid term diversion, and year round driveway sport, but each year was truly separated by a single bright line between the diamond and the gridiron. Since the cancellation of the 1995 Major League World Series, along with the way the pastime has changed due to steroids and other factors, I’ve lost interest in baseball altogether. Now, as a sports fan at least, there are still only two seasons–football and emptiness. And finally, football is back.

I don’t know why I haven’t given up on football. I am a Mississippi State fan and I can’t shake it. It’s not easy pulling for the Bulldogs. And that’s all I got to say about that, for now. Sundays are little better. The Dolphins broke my heart for years coming close to greatness, but never achieving it, then plummeted to the bottom of the League and became all but irrelevant. And the Saints……hopeless.  Yet for no rational reason, I always cling to hope for all of my teams.

My earliest memory of football is of an afternoon game between the Vikings and the Bills and snow on the field and brightly colored uniforms and OJ Simpson. The memory is only a grainy picture in my mind’s eye, one I can not even swear is true. But when I call that picture up, I feel the excitement and joy first experienced at probably two or three years of age. The memories of Super Bowls X and XI are a little more in focus. I can recall rooting for the doomed Cowboys but loving Lynn Swann and trying to recreate his famous reception from X in my front yard for days weeks years after. What I recall from XI is mainly  that the pregame show seemed interminable. It probably went on for an hour.

I loved the uniforms from those games, and all games and still do. And as a small kid I recall choosing my team each game based on the jerseys, never pulling for the white shirts. Imagine young TB’s distress in having to choose between blue jerseyed UCLA or crimson Alabama in the 1976 Liberty Bowl. Thanks to the Google, I was actually able to confirm that hazy memory was true! Though the recollection doesn’t cover it, I have little doubt I liked the UCLA blue better and true to my football fandom lifetime, the blue fell to the red that night 36 to 6.

The first real college game I ever saw live was Mississippi State at Auburn in 1977 in Auburn. I recall very little about the game itself, only that the Bulldogs won but that it didn’t matter because they would have to forfeit for using an ineligible player. But the experience left an impression. It’s funny what I do recall from that day–learning about interstate mile markers, seeing Pat Sullivan’s Heisman trophy, walking on Auburn’s basketball floor, loving the way Auburn fans intoned “Warrrrr Eagle” for kickoffs and, tragicomically, firmly deciding I was a Bulldog fan, uniforms be damned.

Before and after that Auburn-State game, my exposure to college football came mainly from the Senior Bowl, played each January in Mobile, Alabama. Again, the things that stand out from these early trips are random and inexplicable. Stopping on the side of the road to eat cold sausage and biscuits left over from breakfast, burgers with only mustard, collecting a new pennant for my bedroom wall to go with those inherited from my brother from his trips as a little kid, freezing, brutal cold all come to mind. I learned at these games that southerners used college football to re-fight the Civil War. And far too often we lost again, at least it seemed so in those early years. On my first Senior Bowl trip, I remember crying when all hope was lost. And I recall that my Dad didn’t care for that at all.

As I complete this abbreviated tour with the ghost of football seasons past, I am confronted with a bitter truth. My love of football season is unrequited. Or is it? What stands out as I look over my recollections is that the scores are mostly forgotten. The excitement remains. The experience endures. And I still have hope. And a good 40 more chances, give or take, to see the Saints in the Super Bowl and dare I say, the Bulldogs in the Sug–nah, I daren’t.

Categories: Life · Sports
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Why It’s Great to Be a Mississippi State Bulldog Fan…..today

March 16, 2009 · 13 Comments

Quote of the Day:    (click below, courtesy of Six Pack Speak)

Jack Cristil, \”Wrap it in maroon and white!\”

TB can describe in tearjerking comical detail the pain and misery that is the life of the Mississippi State Bulldog fan. A much more difficult task is explaining just why in the hell anyone would choose such a life. If there is one certainty for a Bulldog’s, its that the ‘dogs will screw it up somehow.  Even cognizant of this fact of life, if you are a Bulldog fan you believe deep down, way down below the scar tissue of eleven plays inside the ten, past the Tech and ten layer and beyond the memory of the windblown field goal deflection, in your hear of hearts, there will be good days. You see the twenty point line favoring our evil rivals and you think its about right; right up until kickoff or tipoff when suddenly you think “maybe today’s our day.” It happens every time and almost always, it ain’t our day. Worse still, our Dogs, no matter the sport, regularly play above their heads and get a game or a season close enough to success that we can hang our future hopes and continued allegiance on the fact we almost won but for cheatin refs, the hated NCAA investigators or just a few inches here and there during the course of a contest. We’re often close. We know that tomorrow we will be better; next year will be the year.

Ahhhhh, but sometimes, especially in basketball, tomorrow shows up when we least expect it. Today is that tomorrow. MY Bulldogs are basking in a four day glow of success and glory after defeating Georgia, South Carolina, LSU, and finally Tennessee over a long weekend in Tampa. WE are the Southeastern Conference Champions and have the trophy to prove it. No matter that I’ve not been able to gin up enough interest in hoops this year to even update my “Life as a Bulldog” page. No matter that I haven’t been to the Hump in over a decade. It’s US, my Bullies. A fair weathered, bandwagon fan some may call me. To these folks I simply say, there is no such thing as a fair weathered Bulldog fan. If we bleed maroon, we have all suffered enough, we’ve paid our dues many times over, we get to celebrate the “tomorrow’s” whenever they come around.

And a day like today is what keeps us going. We may limp out of the big dance before most people even get a chance to turn on the tube. We’ll hear all about how we didn’t belong and we stole an at large bid from Creighton. But forever more, that SEC trophy stays in Starkville. Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and the other Big Boys’ fans may feel blessed to have grown up pulling for a powerhouse program. Often, I’m jealous of those guys. I’m even sometimes green-eyed toward the Rebels. But those other guys get to celebrate too often and they expect to take regular victory laps. At State, we hope, but never expect. So I say with confidence, no supporters of any other school in America can appreciate success more than we do. And that’s why it’s great to be a Bulldog. Today.

SWAT

Categories: Mississippi · Sports
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Dogs Win Egg Bowl!

December 10, 2008 · 5 Comments

Since I don’t update the “My Life as a Bulldog” page every day, I know many of you may not check it regularly. So I wanted to let you know I finally got around to posting after the debacle that was the 2008 Egg Bowl. I’ve been waiting on an opportunity to declare victory, and with today’s announcement of our new coach, that opportunity is knocking.

Categories: Mississippi · Sports
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Travellinbaen’s High Wealth Spending Consulting Service

December 1, 2008 · 20 Comments

Quote of the Day     “What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.”     –Seneca, 1st century Roman philosopher

Over the course of Third Week and Thanksgiving Holidays, TB had occasion to observe the spending habits of some wealthy folks. What I saw was as perplexing as it was astonishing. The rich really don’t know have a clue about how to effectively spend their money. They need help. They need a purchasing department. They need TB’s years of experience in the fields of yearning, avarice and envy to better capitalize on their good fortunes. Here are some of the heartbreaking examples of the plight these people face at which I’ve marvelled over the last several days:

  • A southern man transplanted to New York City likes to travel and likes to return to Mississippi quite often. He flies in to Memphis on commercial airlines and rents a car to drive to his home, purchased in recent years for money that could’ve put him slopeside in Colorado. For just a small amount more, in relative terms, TB could put him in that slopeside condo, get him a nice place in Mississippi and buy him a part interest in a private airplane. The investments would have greater long term value than his current spending provides, and the time savings alone would make the airplane worthwhile. TB could get all this done in exchange for a couple of weeks usage of that Colorado real estate and a few sky rides to get me there. I even have leads on a couple of pilots he could hire at a discount rate.
  • A professional athlete, also residing in New York City, likes to go out on the town. As a well known and sometimes controversial personality, he’s aware that he could be accosted from time to time. So he buys a gun and carries it with him to the club. Yadda yadda yadda, his leg gets a hole in it and his pro career may be down the drain. While there’s not much I can do for this particular ig-no-ramus, I can help others similarly situated. I figure a pro football salary for someone in actual danger of being recognized is around three million a year, not counting endorsements. For about two hundred grand a year, TB will buy your gun for you. Then I’ll put it in the hands of someone who is not a mo-ron and pay them to follow your sorry ass valuable assets around town. As a bonus, I can probably get you a good deal on a condo rental in either Colorado or Mississippi.
  • This one may be my favorite. It happens all over the country, but I’ve been closely following the situation involving Mississippi State’s football team. The Bulldogs found themselves in the position of needing to say goodbye to their football coach. As a fan of the Bullies, I was pleased to hear that some wealthy fan, or small group of fans, decided to put up enough money (3 million dollars) to buy out the fired coach’s contract. And to get a new coach, they’ve guaranteed the athletic director another couple of million a year for the next ten years or so. But as a “high wealth spending consultant” I have to say, “are you out of you’re freakin mind?” Hey I get it. It sucks to have a bad football team. It really sucks to lose 45-0 to Ole Miss. And its gonna really suck if you have to do it all over again in five years. There has got to be a better way to spend your money. Setting aside the millions of ways to spend your millions that make more sense than being obsessed over a low level college football program (as your “high wealth spending consultant” I’m trained to indulge your eccentricities), you’re strategy is far too simplistic. There’s a better way to direct your largesse. Go ahead and sell a little more GM stock, or outsource a couple hundred more jobs to China, or do whatever the hell it is you do to raise petty cash, and give me the jack you’d normally be spending on the next buyout. With that, I’m going to buy season tickets for about 5000 people who live in places like Batesville, Meridian and Tupelo. This is going to help your team’s home field advantage, reputation, and presence in key talent rich communities and could potentially lead to a bigger stadium to go along with that 6 million dollar scoreboard you just bought (oh how I could’ve helped you with that money). All those folks will buy their own chickens-on-a-stick so the program will generate additional revenue on its own. With the rest of your buyout money, I’m gonna hire a team of gun-totin baby-sitters to follow around your team’s prima donnas scholar athletes to keep them out of trouble and on the field. This alone should ensure no more defeats to the likes of Louisiana Tech and Maine. Throw in another million or two and I’ll make Stark Vegas glitter. Have you seen all the celebs that hang out at USC games? Think recruits don’t dig that? Look, everybody loves seeing Harvey Hull and his maroon blazer wearing brethren being honored before gametime. But the kids, and you’ll have to trust me on this one, would be a little more impressed with someone a little more famous with the under 70 crowd, a lot younger, a lot prettier, and with a lot less clothes. I’ll use those bonus funds to get some starlets on the sidelines. Hell I bet Brittany Spears and her kid sister would do it on the cheap.

As anyone who’s not rich can attest, the wealthy need help. They need more imagination and innovation, apparantly having used up their allotment attaining wealth in the first place. They need Travellinbaen’s High Wealth Spending Consulting Service. Won’t you help them? TB’s always here.

Categories: Humor · Life · Sports
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Did I Mention How I Really Feel About Alabama?

November 12, 2008 · 7 Comments

Quote of the Day:     “We got em beat. We finally got the bastards beat.”     Travellinbaen, to Greekson, and the World at large, at the MSU-Alabama game in Starkville in 1992

Alabama went undefeated during the 1992 football season and won the National Championship. They came closest to losing in Starkville that November. I won’t swear to the game details because only the moment where it became apparent we were going to beat them was permanantly burned into my memory with a crimson branding iron. State fell behind about 18-0 at the half and I had already reverted to the usual routine of cursing my fate to be a Bulldog fan. I was also incredulous at the State crowd. All through halftime, the fans stayed in their seats, ignoring the bands and cheering. The collective decision had somehow been made that in the Sherill era things would be different and this team was good enough to come back and win. So the crowd cheered, exhorting our Bullies in the locker room and taunting the invincible Tide. We’d beaten them only once since 1957. Once in my lifetime. Once among generations of students that passed through Starkville for 4-6 years at a time over 4 decades. What a bunch of idiots.

But when the game resumed, the Bulldogs answered the demands of the cowbell clanging assemblage. They roared back and took the lead. A trainer for that Alabama team would later confide to me that the 42,000 bell ringing Dog fans created the loudest stadium environment he experienced all year, including Neyland Stadium and the Superdome. Past midway of the 4th quarter, Alabama took the ball across midfield. Then, on first down and second Jay Barker was sacked. It was third down and hopeless. The crowd was going berzerk. I stepped down off my seat and dragged my old roommate Greekson down with me so he could hear. He looked at me like I was crazy for taking a break and looking away from the field. Both my left and right forearms were cramping from the overexertion of ringing a cowbell for two straight hours. My ears were ringing. I’ll never forget the moment. Scott field was alive; a scene of delirious pandemonium. “Greekson”, I said, “look around. Listen. It’s f*&’n beautiful ain’t it? We’ve got to savor this moment so we’ll remember it the rest of our lives. We got ‘em beat. We finally got the bastards beat.” A few heartbeats later, I added the two words without which this brief conversation would lack context. “Ohhhhhhhhh, SHIT.”

I still have nightmares about the play that happened in those heartbeats. Barker dropped back and once again his offensive line gave way like a Gautier girl at her first Pascagoula party. Barker ran for his life and fired the ball deep downfield just as he was hit. The Alabama tailback had run a wheel route and was well covered. The ball was long, but the tailback dove and stretched and somehow cradled the pass along the far sideline. The ball was placed inches past the first down marker.

State still had the lead and the momentum. The crowd still roared. But the moment was past. There was no doubting what was to come. The Tide scored, then scored again after State’s desperation attempt to answer and once again, we Dogs tasted bitter defeat.

Oh, how I loathe them.

Categories: Mississippi · Sports · Writing
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MSU 6 Alabama 3

November 10, 2008 · 7 Comments

Quote of the Day:      Click here  to hear the Great Jack Cristal

TB was ten years old the last time Mississippi State played number one Alabama. I wasn’t in Jackson that day, unfortunately. But I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. I’d gotten bored listening on the radio and went outside to play. I had no expectation that State would win the game. By the time I was ten, I realized I’d chosen poorly in pledging allegiance to the Bullies, but at that age, I didn’t sweat it. After that day–when it was proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that anything was possible–I started sweating it.

I was out in the front yard tossing the football to myself when I heard our neighbor Mr. Lowell whoop and holler from two houses down the street. He’d probably been underneath one of the yard cars he was constantly tinkering with. I can’t remember the exact words, but I remember being startled at the outburst. It was something to the effect of “THEY DID IT. WOOOOOOOO. SIX-THREE. WOOOOOOO. <Unintelligible hollering>. WOOOOOOO. The guy was about 6-6 and he sounded bellowed like a cross between the Jolly Green Giant and Joshua’s horn. That was in normal conversation. He was excited this day. One of the many California natives transplanted to Pascagoula to work out at Ingall’s Shipyard during the roaring 70′s, he wasn’t even a State fan. But everybody loves an underdog, and that day, everybody loved my Dogs, including Mr. Lowell.

I realized what just happened must have been even more important that I originally figured. I ran inside to tell my Dad about it. He was sitting in his rocking chair watching whatever game ABC thought was more important than our game, and he’d just seen the score. He was mildly pleased as I recall, a significant emotional outburst by his standards, and I’m sure there was a warning that I shouldn’t get too excited. After all, he’d been a Bulldog for 40 years already and he knew the euphoria would be fleeting. But I had just seen proof that anything was possible. The old man was wrong. This was MY generation of Bulldogs and we could beat anybody, any time. Even Bear’s Tide, number one in the nation, back to back national champs and a twenty something game winning streak. So I didn’t leave my radio for the rest of the season or the next. By 1982 though, I was back to finding better things to do. 

There have been precious few great moments to enjoy as a Bulldog since 1980. Just enough, I suppose to keep me watching, hoping. But hope dies a little more each Fall Saturday. I don’t go to many games any more. If there is something better to do, I’ll do it now, like I did back in 1980. This Saturday, we play Alabama again and they’re back at number one. I don’t think there is anything going on, so I’ll be watching ESPN to see if we can recapture some of the magic we had on that long ago November afternoon. At least until we get far enough behind that I can no longer imagine some victory scenario. Then I’ll find something better to do, even if its just turning off the TV. I can always relive the great moments on You Tube where ole Jack is always in good voice.

Bonus Quote of the Day     “I was there when we beat the Bear.”     one of approximately 6 million identical bumper stickers in use in Mississippi from 1980-1985. God, how I wish I’d had one.

Categories: Life · Mississippi · Sports · Writing
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Saturday Football Live Bloggin

September 20, 2008 · 14 Comments

TB’s back in Oxford this weekend and getting ready for about ten games on Direct TV. Of course, with luck I’ll only be watching one for a few hours. My damn Dogs are getting ready to play Georgia Tech. I have no logical reason for saying this, except that its Saturday and kickoff is still a few minutes away. I think we will win (why not?).

Other early games are Alabama-Arkansas, East Carolina-NC State, Miami Fla-TX A&M, and some others that don’t interest me too much. If you’re sittinathome watchin, drop in with your thoughts. I’ll be adding to this post throughout the day.

First quarter of the State-Tech game. Tech’s option looks good, kind of a modernized version of what was common 25 years ago. There moving the ball down the field methodically, though their QB just got either a cramp or pulled hammie. But no matter, Tech continues to move the pill. 1st and goal from the 8. And they score. The last two plays and 30 yards were simple sweeps, after losing their center and QB. And State’s best player, Derek Pegues is now injured. Ok, maybe we won’t win after all. At least I didn’t pay for the privilege to watch this crap.

Still in the first, now 14-0 after State’s center snapped the ball over the backfield’s head and set up Tech with good field position. The sound of circus music is reverberating around my skull. Anthony Dixon tried to answer and keep State in the game with a 72 yard run, but he got caught on the 8. On third and goal from the one, you know they are going up the gut. And stuffed at the two. Great coaching Sly. Shanked the field goal. 

On third and one, State calls timeout and comes up with a unique play–up the middle dive. It barely works. A few plays later its 4th and one. Guess what–up the middle. It fails. Ga Tech takes over and scores again, ironically on a 4th and 3 option play. 21-0.

Meanwhile, Bama is blowing out Arkansas. This ain’t gonna be TB’s week. Almost before I can type that sentence, we throw a pick in our own territory. Maybe if we’re gonna lose anyway, it might as well be really ugly. Ugly enough to get the powers that be mad enough to make a change. That’s not to say I hope we’ll lose any game, just looking for a silver lining.

Just checked some scores and saw where the Big Ten Joke is struggling. Ohio State by 4 over Troy at the half, Purdue tied with Central Michigan, and Iowa trailing to Pitt. What’s wrong with midwestern football?

I’m still watching the debacle, now 28, getting ready to be 35-zip. But I’m speechless. Getting ready to go hang at the grove in a little bit. It’ll be nice to get away from the tube.

….9 hours later, the end of another long Saturday. 0-3 for the Mississippi schools, and all eyes turn toward the Saints for football fan redemption. One thing has bothered me all day. Why do they keep saying this is Georgia’s first trip west of the Mississippi since the sixties? Have they not played Arkansas on the road since the Hogs joined the SEC in the early 90′s? I swear, one person on TV says something, and every announcer repeats it all day long, with no regard for accuracy. Happens on the news all the time, but I expect more out of sports guys.

A final note, TB hits his POTW for the third straight week with the Georgia win. Tune in Thursday for the updated scoreboard, which will include a new mystery element in the scoring matrix. A couple of good topics are on tap between now and then too.  Over and out.

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