Speaking
of Sports 

by
Alex Prasad

 
Dixieland Detour

January 3, 2011

There was a possibility that I didn’t survive to write this article. Jacksonville, Florida is 17.5 hours from Novi, MI, and I made the trip. And then that happened. 52-14. I nearly died of a broken heart on the first day of 2011. What a way to start a new year- with a somber 17 hour car drive home!  But luckily, a group of my friends and I decided to take a tour of bowl games, stopping in Nashville, Charlotte, Atlanta and before ending up in Jacksonville.  The trip was too interesting, and too much fun for me to be fully sucked into the vortex of negativity that currently swirls around the Michigan football team.

If you’re looking for another tireless recounting of Rich Rodriguez’s “sins” you won’t find it here. I’m just sick of the negativity that has surrounded the program for the past three years; besides, there are plenty of other places you can find such a piece. I just feel bad for the players, who were embarrassed Saturday, for Rodriguez, who will have to uproot his family once again, and for the staff that Rodriguez brought with him from West Virginia, who are collecting cardboard boxes according to their neighbors. More than anything, this situation is a tragedy for those families, and I think that big picture often gets lost in the general triviality of sports.

With that out of the way, I have some more bad news for Big Ten fans: all that stuff you hear about fans in the South - namely that they are so much more passionate than Big Ten fans - is true! This isn’t a knock on Big Ten fans, but I’ve been to nearly every Big Ten school, plus Notre Dame, for college football games, and our four game trip led me to one conclusion: Big Ten fans MUST attend a game in the South before they die. Southern fans are just at a whole other level! Our trip started with the craziest football game I have ever witnessed, on TV or in person, the Music City Bowl between Tennessee and North Carolina.  

The stadium was 90% Tennessee fans, well lubricated by their favorite beverages and ready for a good time, despite their team’s disappointing 6-6 season. Though the attendance was just below 70,000, it sounded as loud as the new Michigan stadium on a key third down… for most of the game! You can imagine the reaction when, after the game had “ended”, and the coaches had already shaken hands, the referees put one second back on the clock, allowing UNC to tie the game, and send it to overtime. When UNC pulled it out, Volunteer fans weren’t signing Rocky Top, their fight song, any longer.

While the turnout for the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte was low, Clemson fans showed up in force. But it was the Chick-fil-A Bowl that was most impressive. In Atlanta, the Georgia Dome was split evenly between South Carolina and Florida State fans, meaning that every play, the place erupted as if somebody had scored a touchdown. While domes are notorious for amplifying sound, my ears were literally ringing when we left the game- an experience usually reserved for leaving concerts with excessively loud music!

Oftentimes, people see rabid fandom from Southerners and make snide remarks, insinuating that they’re just a bunch of rednecks with nothing better to do. Certainly, witnessing Florida State fans, including middle-aged women, beating the palm of their hand on their mouth making ow-oh-ow-oh sounds, like an eight-year-old playing Cowboys and Indians takes some getting used to. But I’m convinced, that just as the ESPN commercials say, “it’s not crazy… it’s sports!”

(c) 2011 Novi Information Network
www.novi.org

This column is shared by Alex Prasad, Lance J. Lilla and Bernie Fratto on alternating weeks.