Holiday travels this week, so it might be a bit light here. But there’s a theme! This is Iron Bowl week after all. So let’s talk about football all week. Happy Thanksgiving!
Yesterday we briefly examined a youth “misspent” as an Alabama fan. Today we’ll discuss sorting out the brain washed allegiances and finding what your heart tells you is true and right and just.
This will read like my college decision was centered too much on football. That’s an important part of the culture, but only a side note for me. Education is and has always been an important consideration for me. The program I was interested in at Auburn was great and … well … you’ll see …
The first time I visited Auburn was in the summer of my eighth grade year. It was part of a school trip and the teacher, an Auburn graduate, decided to visit one of the bookstores. This was awkward for me because I was wearing an Alabama shirt at the time.
The visit was brief, though. We got to where we needed to go, participated in the contest we were there to take part in and traveled to Montgomery.
The next visit was a few years later. More school organizations led me to campus for meetings. Being involved in the FFA meant spending more time with ag kids, and that was an important contribution to the exposure. There was also game experiences like this:
I watched Nix-to-Sanders in a hotel room in Montgomery, and — this makes no sense — there was an embodiment of attitude in that team and that game that seemed admirable.
Perhaps most importantly, when I was a high school senior the girl I was dating was a freshman at Auburn. I went to visit early in her freshman year, spent a weekend with friends and had a blast. Everyone was nice and the place was beautiful. And I knew people and all of that was very important to a high school kid.
[She and I dated off and on for the next few years. But being at Auburn never seemed a bad decision. (Except for chemistry classes. Yeesh.)]
I made it home, announced I was going to Auburn and went to my room.
My mother was … less than pleased. “If you’d told me you’d robbed a bank, I would have said ‘That’s OK, son, I still love you.’ But I never, ever, thought you would tell me you were going to Auburn.”
The only thing we’d ever really disagreed about was how to pay for this. There would be a way, said the wide eyed child. The pragmatic parent wasn’t so sure.
That same fall, this happened:
I missed the great comeback because of a flat tire. A flat tire! It would be six or seven years before I actually saw the game. Why LSU was throwing the ball still boggles the mind. But I digress.
I got one scholarship, was able to qualify for good grants and tried to figure out how to live cheaply. And then, just three days after my high school graduation, I was called in for a scholarship interview. I sat in a small room with two older gentlemen and discussed college, life, ambition and study habits. After the meeting I drove to my mother’s business.
“What if I told you they offered me a one-year scholarship?”
“That would be good,” she said.
“What if I told you they offered me a two-year scholarship?”
“That would be good,” she said.
“What if I told you they gave me a three-year scholarship?”
“That would be even better.”
“What if I told you they gave me a four-year scholarship?”
“I would say ‘War Eagle!'”
And so everything was fine.
She still gave me a hard time about all things Auburn, even beyond football. So did the family. I’m the one Auburn person in the bunch in the whole family — both sides! I catch a lot of grief, but it is, usually, all in jest.
And then after a few wonderful years I graduated (in spite of chemistry).
In 2004 I started graduate school at UAB. They all took great pride in pointing out what the A stood for in that acronym.
But no matter. The boy had long since become an Auburn man.
Tomorrow, we’ll dig up some memorable games from my time as an undergrad, as we try to pad out the holiday week. May all your turkeys be delicious, and all your football teams win. Unless that team is Alabama.
Happy Thanksgiving. War Eagle forever.
