Last week on Facebook, I used a four-letter word that in some circles may be construed as inappropriate. But I can't help it. It's such a great word.
Have I disappointed you? Let me be clear. "Hate" is a very precious word, one of the few that can have varying degrees of meaning. It should definitely have a color-coded warning level for its different uses. There are the ones that are the most disturbing — hate speech and hate crimes (although let's not get into that second one right now or I might disappoint some you further) — but some have a little more playfulness to them. Without hate, how would Garfield feel about Mondays? What would happen to former XFL player Rod Smart, whose jersey was immortalized with the moniker "He Hate Me." You can be "drinkin' the Haterade" while singing "Skaters gonna skate while haters gonna hate." It's just a lot of fun.
It extends to the professional sporting ranks as well. I was born in Dallas and will bleed Cowboy blue until the day I die no matter what whack job owns the team. So will my brother and my mother and sister and uncle. So when Joe Theisman — he, the star quarterback of the hated Washington Redskins — actually passed my brother in the foyer of a church in Memphis a few years ago, my brother's wife looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Isn't that Joe Theisman?"
"Yeah."
"Well, don't you want to say hi?"
My brother just shook his head and chuckled.
"Honey ... he's a Redskin. What are you thinking?"
Hate is a such delicate word. Although it may not have as much weight as "fate," It's usually used as bait, which can open the gate of even more hate (Dr. Seuss is one of my heroes).
So in a current Facebook status, I may have mentioned how much I hate the Aggies. Of course it was under my breath, but you can't really do that in a Facebook status. It's good old fashioned sports hate, and those of us immersed in sports can appreciate it as such. Many Aggies should look at it as respect. I certainly don't hate Rice University or even Texas Tech. I hate A&M because they usually beat the stuffing out of us. Our most devastating losses have come to those wretched maroon-colored creatures, and to see any of them succeed fills me with bile. Of course, place a Baylor jersey on the same person, and I completely change my tune. I admit it. I basically root for laundry. So what?
I guess what makes rivalries and sports hate so great is that it usually bonds people together more if they have a common enemy. Why is the feeling so much more satisfying to yell "YOU SUCK!" rather than "WE'RE GREAT!" Is it the schadenfreude effect? Is it the feeling that even if we cannot achieve ultimate success in our own lives, we can be part of a group that can dominate someone else? I'm not sure, but I do know it feels good.
And our battles don't come close to the rivalry that A&M has with Texas. And that rivalry doesn't come close to the one Texas has with Oklahoma. And even those pale in comparison with the three biggest ones: Duke/North Carolina, Ohio State/Michigan and Auburn/Alabama.
Which brings me to Toomer's Corner. This is the type of thing that people who have no need or use for sports point to and act is if they are above those of us wallowing in the depths of depravity. For those of you reading this who have more of an interest in the fashions at the Grammys than in drunk frat boys yelling at a scoreboard, let me catch you up.
The two major schools in the state of Alabama are the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Allegiance is shown to one of these schools ... period. This is not a choice like Elvis vs. The Beatles. If you choose one side, you will never ever show anything but disdain for the other. I assume that job applicants who graduate from Auburn have to check to see if their boss is an Alabama alum if they have a chance at getting hired.
The hallowed ground at Auburn University is Toomer's Corner, which marks the transition from downtown Auburn to the campus of the university. On the corner sit two enormous oak trees, as revered a spot as anything on campus. Whenever anything good happens at the university, the tradition of "rolling the corner" occurs, and dozens of rolls of toilet paper hang from the massive limbs of the stately living trees.
As anyone who follows sports knows, Auburn won the national championship in college football this year. Those also know that last year, the national championship was won by Auburn's hated rivals from Tuscaloosa, the Alabama Crimson Tide. One would think that having the top football team in the entire nation two years in a row from the same state would be something akin to pride. But I can guarantee you that not one person from Auburn rooted for Alabama in 2010, and not one Tide fan pulled for the Tigers this year. That's what makes sports hate so great.
Auburn defeated Alabama 28-27 en route to winning a national champiosnhip, and Toomer's Corner was bathed in quilted cotton. All was right in the world ... at least in Auburn.
But here's where drinkin' the Haterade can get a little tricky. In late January, a man who called himself Al from Dadeville called into a sports talk show claiming to have poisoned the Toomer's Corner trees. He said he spiked the soil around the trees with a deadly herbicide following Alabama's loss to the Tigers. Two weeks later, Auburn officials confirmed that the 130-year old oak trees had definitely been poisoned with a lethal dose, commenting that the active and persistent chemical could likely be in the soil for the next 3-5 years.
Al said that he poisoned the trees not just for the recent loss but because of photographic evidence he possessed that showed Auburn fans rolling Toomer's Corner following the death of the legendary Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant in 1983. He also threw in the fact that Auburn fans placed an Auburn jersey of quarterback Cam Newton on the statue of Bryant earlier this year. He ended his call by yelling. "Roll Damn Tide!"
Of course, an exhaustive search of newspaper clippings found no such evidence that Auburn fans reveled in the death of a rival coach 28 years prior. Quite the opposite. The local Auburn newspaper as well as the Auburn University paper had nothing but glowing admiration and respect for who many consider the greatest football coach of all time, no matter where he coached.
The jersey is another matter. That, in the great tradition of sports hate, is a classic prank. Does it try to knock down the legend of Bear Bryant a peg or two? Of course. But what any good Bama fan does is to rip the jersey off and burn it in front of your peers while working yourself into an emotional lather.An arrest was made of Harvey Almorn Updyke, Jr., who lived about 40 miles from Auburn. Not only was this guy a certified tree killer ... allegedly ... but he was also pretty stupid, placing the call to the radio show from his house. And for a short time, he will be the face of Alabama fans. That's a bit sad since they are so passionate about their football team in the most wonderful ways. To have a redneck destroy something that is actually living is criminal and sickening. And it gives those of us who love to maintain our rivalries a bad name.
No matter how heinous this is, it will add to the lore of the greatest of all sports rivalries. Hopefully it won't push it further down into vengeance and retribution. The best revenge is living well, and for the next year at least, Auburn fans can live quite well.
There is a story about a prank pulled by some A&M students against Baylor back in the 1960s. In the classic tradition of stealing the opponents' mascot, some unruly Aggies nabbed the Baylor bear cub before the annual football meeting between the two schools. As was usually the case, the mascot is stolen and returned after the game, but this cub was stored in the car of one of the Aggie faithful. When they went to retrieve the bear, the back seat was ripped to shreds.
All I can say is ... That'll do, bear. That'll do.
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