Bones to Pick and Southern Ball

I have a bone to pick with Southern Living. Yeah, I’m a Southern Living freak. I read it every month, looking at the beautiful gardens and homes, imagining what they must smell like in the morning, sitting on their wonderful southern porches in a rocking chair. I read through all the food, picking recipes to try on family. I just love the magazine, but this month… I have a bone to pick.

So I’m reading through the magazine, looking at the pictures of the Mums and the ‘Secret Garden of Color’, La Dee Da, when I come to this section called, “All-South 2004, Special Football Section”. Well, hot damn! Football. Southerners love football. College ball to be exact. And we hold grudges a mile wide when it comes to our ball teams. This love of football actually includes High School, where EVERYONE who is anyone attends a high school football game every Friday night. I remember one year, we had 13,000 people turn out for our high school game. Ahhh. Good memories. Then of course when I was in high school, the heroes on campus were any senior going to play for ‘The Bear’. If you don’t know who ‘The Bear’ is, then you should just go ahead and skip the rest of this post.

I had a ton of posts to post today, but I can tell I’m so into this already; this is going to be a one post night. It’s all about Southern Ball. I knew this was coming… I could feel a post coming on when the College Ball season started, but I can refrain no longer… especially since Tammi has already had to pay up her bet to Eric and Johnny Oh as the Vols beat our Gators. I’m not in deep mourning. It’s not like it was the Dawgs! Ha!

The Great Omnipotent One is from Alabama, Birmingham to be exact. His family is rabid Bama Fans. Roll Tide! I wanted to go to Auburn and study engineering, but quiet undertones from Granddaddy indicated if I wanted to stay in his good graces, I would think nothing of it, so I didn’t. It just so happens our family burial site is in the same cemetery as ‘The Bear’s’. So, when we buried Granddaddy in the winter of 1991, we all paid homage to ‘The Bear’. This is what we do when we go to the family gravesite; we pay homage to ‘The Bear’. Now my cousin married a man whose family knew ‘The Bear’ personally and that got him in our instant good graces. We didn't even have to know him, just the fact his family was connected was good enough for us! (Turns out he’s the nicest fella you’d ever wanna meet. My cousin done good.) So I grew up knowing ‘Bama was it, but when we settled in Pensacola late in my 13th year, I started to really begin to like other ball teams. Florida ball to be exact.

My siblings attended FSU. Their homes are completely decorated with more FSU memorabilia than you can imagine. One year for Christmas, my Mom got my sister a big Santa holding a snow globe, Doak Campbell stadium smack in the middle, he’s holding a ‘Nole flag and there are motion sensors in Santa’s feet. When you walk by, the snow globe plays the FSU fight song. Her then boyfriend, who was a Yankee, was completely horrified! He asked if she was really going to put that in her home. What was he thinking?!! Hell yes! That’s what we Southerners do; we have rooms dedicated to our football teams. Some even go so far as only buying cars in their college colors!

I know, you’re wondering where this is taking going. OK, so on page 75, brought to us by Chevy, is this article. The caption on this section is ‘All South Top 10’. Now to people like me, I think SEC. (If you don’t know SEC, find another post, but you can find a list of their members HERE.) I can fudge a little, and add Miami and FSU, both ACC teams. But that’s what I’m thinking, true Southern Ball is SEC+two additional Florida teams. (And I also throw in Clemson and Ga Tech, so make that SEC+4)

So #1 on their Southern run down is Georgia. Yup, that’s good Southern ball there.
#2 is… Oklahoma? Hello? WTF were they thinking? If they’re going to talk about Oklahoma, why the hell didn’t they put Nebraska? That ain’t Southern Ball!
#7 is… West Virginia? Their big games are Maryland, Va Tech, and Pitt. Sorry, I’m not seeing any true ‘Southern Ball’ there. Next!...
#8 is… Missouri? Wha? If they’re so daggum Southern ‘ball’, then who in the hell is their big rival? At least I KNOW Oklahoma’s rival. Just damn.
#10 is… Texas Christian. OK, let’s say Texas Christian should be Southern ball, which they should NOT because they aren’t SEC+4, when the hell did they become such a big ‘Southern’ powerhouse that they deserve to make this list of the ‘All-South TOP 10’?

Let me tell you who Chevy/Southern Living did NOT put on their list. Missing are: FSU (hello?), Tennessee (yes, Johnny and Eric, they do not think you make the list of All South Top 10. I thumb my nose at them, even though the Vols beat my Gators), Alabama (Can you frickin’ believe ‘Bama isn’t on this list? ‘Bama only had THE BEST Southern Coach in the history of Southern Ball), and GA Tech (rolling my eyes), and on and on.

Who paid Chevy to write this POS article?

So I looked at the author and saw it was written by a girl, but she is obviously not a Southern Girl, because ALL Southern Girls know GOOD Southern Ball before they know how to read.

She proceeds to write about The South’s Best Grudge Matches. She mentions two. One is Bama vs. Auburn. Good on her for getting that one. The other is… Oklahoma University vs. OSU. Wha? And I have to say, “Girlfriend someone done yanked your chain when they fed you this BS.” No FL/ GA or FL/ FSU or Miami vs. anyone. None of that. Can you believe it?

AT LEAST she got the major games of the week right, although I’m still scratching my head on the Notre Dame/Tennessee game. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be watching and I’ll be screaming for my Fightin’ Irish to beat the snot out of the Vols like my Gators SHOULD HAVE, but wouldn’t put that as an All South Game of the Week. It says, “ALL SOUTH” in the title. Last I saw, Notre Dame was North of the Mason Dixon.

And BTW, if you want a full listing of the team schedules go to southernliving.com/features. Yeah, right. Like I’m going to trust that they got that right after reading all they got WRONG.

Tomorrow: Pat Conroy and Southern Living. Sally, you gotta get the Sept, 2004 issue!