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Alabama has had football fever ever since winning the Rose Bowl in 1926 which proved that southerners could compete with northern elites. In the last 100 years, though, football mania has gone far beyond competition to include many of the elements of the world’s most powerful seductions.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama during Coach Bear Bryant’s heyday, from the 1960s through the 1980s and graduated from the University of Alabama in 1983, the year Bryant died. My time at Alabama gave me freedom to live in sin and revelry and I regret the wickedness I pursed and the way I misused my parent’s hard-earned money. I got saved 10 years after graduating.
In the 1960s and 70s, my Dad would usher for Alabama games at Legion Field so he could get in for free. My brothers and I would occasionally sell drinks in the stands to make a little money and see the game.
I like football. Growing up in a state where football is a god, I have a pretty good view of how college football has changed in recent decades and the changes are dramatic. It’s a cradle-to-grave passion for a significant number of Alabamians and it’s growing more intense with each passing year.
I realized early on that a great number of dyed-in-the-wool Alabama fans never went to college there. Their fanaticism was very driven by pride for the state and love of the game.
Back then the players were part of a team, not superstars with their own media presence like they are today. In those days, the band played traditional fight songs and marching band music. Men wore suits and ties to the games and the ladies wore hats and gloves. That began to change in the 70s and 80s, though many still dressed up.
Bear Bryant was worshipped in his lifetime, having won 6 national championships at Alabama. Back in the day, there were pictures in gas stations and restaurants of Bryant walking on water. I wouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t a few still up here and there.
He has since been matched by Nick Saban who also won 6 championships at Alabama.
That’s a little about what Alabama football was like in my early life but there have been some major changes in recent years. It’s a lot more than just football now.
My wife and I have been to two Alabama games since we’ve been married. We went to an Alabama football game right after we got married, so that would have been 25 years ago roughly. I don’t remember anything particularly different about it from the time when I was in school down there in the early 80s. The band music was more what you would expect, as I recall. It was cold and raining so everyone was covered up.
However, we went again just a few years ago. You can get tickets cheap at the end of the first quarter so we drove down on Saturday morning on a whim to see Alabama play. After that experience we determined that would never attend another Alabama game in person.
I could hardly believe how much different the environment seemed. I’m sure some of it had to do with my salvation. But the atmosphere, music and attire were really hard to take. These are the main changes I’ve seen.
Attire
Today the dress is unbelievable. You would think you were at a club or worse. At the last game we went to, virtually all of the gals were dressed in club wear. Low cut, tatted up, shorts and skirts that barely covered anything. Think Nashville honky-tonk. You could not safely look in any direction.
Music
There is very little conventional marching band music played at games today. Even the marching bands play mostly rock. One of the main musical themes for the Alabama Million Dollar Marching Band is Kashmir, a hard rock epic from Led Zeppelin.
But it’s the music coming from the sound system that dominates the atmosphere and is the most oppressive. It’s very loud and is almost all hard rock: Led Zeppelin, Guns and Roses, AC/DC, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, the hardest rap and so forth.
This is not pop music. It is extremely intense music that is designed to pump the crowds to a fever pitch. It’s the kind of music that provides a good backdrop for the violence of football.
In the 70s, it would never have occurred to anyone to play “Sympathy for the Devil” or “Smoke on the Water” at a football game. Today they play much worse.
Hype
The mania whipped up around college football is absolutely insane. All the teams produce hype videos that are played on big screens at games and circulated through social media throughout the season and year. Other videos are made by fans at home who now have the ability to make slick productions to add to the social media frenzy. These videos are as sophisticated and as exciting as anything major TV or movie houses are turning out.
The football players in the hype videos are glamorous in their uniforms and tattoos, drenched in sweat and surrounded by fog machines like rock stars. Long hair is very common. Everything about the game is surrounded by loud and frenzied promotion, as if this game is the most significant thing on earth.
The Combination
When you combine loud rock, hype, immodesty, booze, hard-hitting football and manic crowds you create a sensory assault, a potent emotional and psychological experience that takes you way beyond a simple football game.
Even before all the modern media hype, people would devote their lives to Alabama football, eating, sleeping and breathing it year-round. Today fans are bombarded by 24-7 sports and sports talk on radio, ESPN and social media.
It’s little wonder that sports fanaticism has a religious fervor today.
I reference my own experience in growing up around Alabama football, but of course this applies to all sports and sports teams, college and professional. You can go down the list of all the major college football programs and you will find the same things.
Sports have become a madness that consumes the hard-core fans. The bright lights and excitement are amped up by all the media surrounding them.
We need to keep in mind that the glories of football are nothing to be compared to the glories of knowing the Lord. The one pales alongside the other. Football is such an empty and vain thing to waste your life on.
It accounts for many wasted lives where I live. It is not uncommon down here to see a tombstone with a big red “A” on it. A final statement of loyalty to the god of Alabama football.
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