LARGETONY Blog

Thirty days from today will be the season opener for the Vols. For those of you who do not follow college football, “Vol” is short for Volunteer. The Volunteers is the nickname for the University of Tennessee sports teams (like USC Trojans or Iowa Hawkeyes…you know, Tennessee Volunteers). They are not called the Volunteers because they donate time from their busy lives to work with the elderly or at-risk youth. The name comes from the many Army regiments from Tennessee during the Civil War, who fought on the side of the Union, even though Tennessee is below the Mason-Dixon line (or Bemadi, as they would say in New York—I learned this from Proceed At Your Own Risk)

Any of you who have been reading this blog since last September (wow…almost a year) know that I likes me some college football. And many of you are probably groaning because you’re thinking “Oh, God..he’s gonna be writing a lot about football until January.” Well, let me be the first to tell you…you’re right! But don’t worry, I’ll throw in some other stuff, too. Besides, football was, in a round about way, at least part of the last time I got laid. Hopefully, for your reading pleasure (and my penile and gonadal pleasure) I might be able to score again this season.

Anyway, I got an e-mail from a friend the other day taunting me about how his favorite team is superior to the Vols. I got a chuckle out of it, because I know it was all good-natured ribbing. But I started thinking about all those people who take this shit seriously. People getting all riled up about who’s got the better team, who’s over-rated, and which poll really counts…the AP or the Coaches Poll?? It can get really ugly, especially if the people arguing and hurling insults and put-downs are behind teams that are rivals.

For example, Tennessee has a pretty strong rivalry with Florida (University of Florida, that is…the Gators. Not to be confused with Florida State University Seminoles or the University of Miami Hurricanes.) This rivalry mostly stems from, and was fueled by, Florida’s former head football coach, Steve Spurrier, whose teams dominated Tennessee through most of the 1990’s . He would throw more matches on the fire by running the score up and publicly insulting our team to the press. And with both states full of rednecks, you know that’s gonna lead to some pretty ugly behavior and some pretty nasty words thrown about. I’d say more than a few punches have been thrown, too.

But this sort of stuff doesn’t happen just between Tennessee and Florida. And it doesn’t just happen in the South. It’s everywhere. All over college football. All over sports, really. Remember that Pacers-Pistons game last fall??

People, people, people….it’s just a game. Yeah, I love sports. I love sports as much as anybody (and probably more than a lot of my readers….whose eyes are glazing over right now, no doubt…sorry). I watch a game and my adrenaline gets going. I get excited. I get frustrated. I get mad. I feel exhileration (sp?). I can totally get into a game, and get a thrill out of the emotional roller coaster that comes with it. But when things don’t work out my way, I’m not gonna get all up in somebody’s grill about it (O.K. I’m way too whiteto be using the word “grill” without the word” charcoal”). I can just let it go….well, mostly….ok, I admit that I still loathe Steve Spurrier and will probably carry that to my grave. But that’s about him, not about the game.

The game is just a game, not a fight…and I want to enjoy it. That’s a problem (some people would say its a problem) I’ve had for years. Going back as far a when I was playing basketball in school. I’ve always had the reputation of being too nice. Even though I had skills and was a very good player, I never had the edge that coaches wanted me to. I just didn’t have enough of the fight in me. One coach in particular was always screaming about what did he need to do to “light a fire” in me.

But, I just wanted to play. Sure, I wanted to win, too. Who doesn’t want to be a winner? The whole time I was playing, I was trying my damndest to win. And losses were a big dissapointment. But even so, deep down, the rush I could get from the chance to play a game I loved, overrode any of the letdown.

It’s like that watching games, too. I want to see the Vols win, and win BIG!. But I don’t need to put down the opponent, call their mommas names, or spit in their beer in the process. After all, don’t you want your opponent to be a worthy one?

But, win or lose, and no matter what anybody says, they are still my Vols and getting to be among that sea of 108,000 fans in the stadium (or the ranks of millions watching on TV) is what really lights my fire.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 5th, 2005 at 3:07 am and is filed under football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.