white streamers, GO BAMA ! scrawled in white shoe polish on the windows.
There was a festival air to these weekends, and for most of the folks who drove overnight to get there I think it was a kind of a pilgrimage, too. Football was like a religion for so many of us, not just in the South but all over the country, and of course today sports is one thing we all still have in common—whether you’re rooting for the Dallas Cowboys, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, or the squad of local boys who scrimmage between the high school bleachers on Friday night.
The boys we were rooting for, of course, were the Crimson Tide. The Tide was a national powerhouse, and being a part of the Alabama football program in the 1970s was like having a box seat at the eye of a hurricane. I’d always loved football; I’d been a cheerleader since forever, because that was the one way I could be a part of it all. And when I got to Alabama I somehow found the courage to try out for the varsity squad, and was lucky enough to be chosen. Come on, you’re thinking, it takes courage to try out for cheerleader? In those days, at that school, yes, absolutely.
One of the reasons was coach Bear Bryant.
Throughout the South, Coach Bryant was revered in the 1970s as pretty much the second coming of Robert E. Lee. He won more games than any coach in college football history, but that wasn’t really the reason. A child of sharecroppers, Paul Bryant had won a football scholarship to the University of Alabama, and when he returned to forge his winning career he became the best kind of hero—the country boy made good, who rose to the heights of national fame while remaining down-to-earth. Coach Bryant was stoic but feeling, plain but noble. To those of us who attended Alabama in those years he seemed to dwell on Mount Olympus. Yet everyone knew he was one of our own, and we loved him for it. He was as close to a secular saint as any Southerner is ever going to see. When he died in 1983, half a million people—half a million!—lined the road between Tuscaloosa, where his funeral was held, and Birmingham, where he was laid to rest.
I’ll never forget the first time I met him. I had to go into his office all by myself to arrange a pep rally, and I was scared to death. But then he looked up at me and smiled. “If I’da known you were comin’ ovah,” he said, “I’da awduhed us up some frahd chicken.” I melted. It was as if I’d had an audience with the pope.
Another time, a fellow cheerleader and I timidly went up to him on the field, and he jokingly said, “You gulls, you only come t’see me because you wanna get yo’ picture taken.” He probably wasn’t far off. Everyone who met him really wanted to connect with him somehow. He was a living legend. In the South we’re especially romantic and history-conscious, so we’re awfully good at creating these figures. But all across America we have them—favorite teachers, sports figures, even (sometimes) politicians we look to for inspiration. Somehow they help us to understand ourselves and each other; they tell us what home is.
My college sweetheart was Bob Baumhower, one of the star defensive linemen for the Tide. He was everything you could want in a first love: tall and handsome, kind and loving, a big old bear of an Alabama boy. He’d take me out to Lake Tuscaloosa for barbecues, picnics, and band parties, and we’d have sunset cruises on his family’s boat. Now that I have a daughter of my own, I miss those innocent days, when it was okay for a girl to wait until college—when she was better able to handle herself emotionally—to lose her heart to her first real boyfriend. Today things move so fast for kids that it’s hard to imagine most girls could get to college without having their hearts broken by a string of immature bad boys. I hope my Anabella is fortunate enough to have as her first love a fellow as caring and grounded as Bob. (And as handsome!)
On game days we
There was a festival air to these weekends, and for most of the folks who drove overnight to get there I think it was a kind of a pilgrimage, too. Football was like a religion for so many of us, not just in the South but all over the country, and of course today sports is one thing we all still have in common—whether you’re rooting for the Dallas Cowboys, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, or the squad of local boys who scrimmage between the high school bleachers on Friday night.
The boys we were rooting for, of course, were the Crimson Tide. The Tide was a national powerhouse, and being a part of the Alabama football program in the 1970s was like having a box seat at the eye of a hurricane. I’d always loved football; I’d been a cheerleader since forever, because that was the one way I could be a part of it all. And when I got to Alabama I somehow found the courage to try out for the varsity squad, and was lucky enough to be chosen. Come on, you’re thinking, it takes courage to try out for cheerleader? In those days, at that school, yes, absolutely.
One of the reasons was coach Bear Bryant.
Throughout the South, Coach Bryant was revered in the 1970s as pretty much the second coming of Robert E. Lee. He won more games than any coach in college football history, but that wasn’t really the reason. A child of sharecroppers, Paul Bryant had won a football scholarship to the University of Alabama, and when he returned to forge his winning career he became the best kind of hero—the country boy made good, who rose to the heights of national fame while remaining down-to-earth. Coach Bryant was stoic but feeling, plain but noble. To those of us who attended Alabama in those years he seemed to dwell on Mount Olympus. Yet everyone knew he was one of our own, and we loved him for it. He was as close to a secular saint as any Southerner is ever going to see. When he died in 1983, half a million people—half a million!—lined the road between Tuscaloosa, where his funeral was held, and Birmingham, where he was laid to rest.
I’ll never forget the first time I met him. I had to go into his office all by myself to arrange a pep rally, and I was scared to death. But then he looked up at me and smiled. “If I’da known you were comin’ ovah,” he said, “I’da awduhed us up some frahd chicken.” I melted. It was as if I’d had an audience with the pope.
Another time, a fellow cheerleader and I timidly went up to him on the field, and he jokingly said, “You gulls, you only come t’see me because you wanna get yo’ picture taken.” He probably wasn’t far off. Everyone who met him really wanted to connect with him somehow. He was a living legend. In the South we’re especially romantic and history-conscious, so we’re awfully good at creating these figures. But all across America we have them—favorite teachers, sports figures, even (sometimes) politicians we look to for inspiration. Somehow they help us to understand ourselves and each other; they tell us what home is.
My college sweetheart was Bob Baumhower, one of the star defensive linemen for the Tide. He was everything you could want in a first love: tall and handsome, kind and loving, a big old bear of an Alabama boy. He’d take me out to Lake Tuscaloosa for barbecues, picnics, and band parties, and we’d have sunset cruises on his family’s boat. Now that I have a daughter of my own, I miss those innocent days, when it was okay for a girl to wait until college—when she was better able to handle herself emotionally—to lose her heart to her first real boyfriend. Today things move so fast for kids that it’s hard to imagine most girls could get to college without having their hearts broken by a string of immature bad boys. I hope my Anabella is fortunate enough to have as her first love a fellow as caring and grounded as Bob. (And as handsome!)
On game days we
Similar Books
