Auburn Football Quotes

When I was in London in 2008, I spent a couple hours hanging out at a pub with a couple of blokes who were drinking away the afternoon in preparation for going to that evening's Arsenal game/riot. Take away their Cockney accents, and these working-class guys might as well have been a couple of Bubbas gearing up for the Alabama-Auburn game. They were, in a phrase, British rednecks. And this is who soccer fans are, everywhere in the world except among the college-educated American elite. In Rio or Rome, the soccer fan is a Regular José or a Regular Giuseppe. [...] By contrast, if an American is that kind of Regular Joe, he doesn't watch soccer. He watches the NFL or bass fishing tournaments or Ultimate Fighting. In an American context, avid soccer fandom is almost exclusively located among two groups of people (a) foreigners—God bless 'em—and (b) pretentious yuppie snobs. Which is to say, conservatives don't hate soccer because we hate brown people. We hate soccer because we hate liberals.

I open the back door of my car for Ginger to buckle the baby in. She smiles and goes to it. I spin around and I'm face-to-face with Logan Kilgore. “Hey, good lookin',” he says, leaning against my door to block my path. “What do you want?” I ask, cracking a slight smile as I wait. He's wearing a dirty, Auburn Football t-shirt, worn out jeans and the same bedraggled baseball cap he always wears. His hair is sticking out just around the edges of the cap in messy twigs and the occasional curl. His curious eyes are dancing around like maybe he's in a very good mood. Despite the obvious, he's kind of beautiful, a little. “Not a thing,” he tells me before turning to walk away. “...was just passing through, wanted to say hello. See you.” I watch him amble away. Ginger shuts Chucky in and opens the door across from mine. She stops before getting in to look up at Logan too. “He's kind of charming,” she tells me, giggling a little. “No offense, but you thought Doug was charming,” I tell her, skeptically. “Good point,” she agrees, before getting into the car.

mater, the Auburn Tigers. In Alabama, college football is a few prayers shy of religion, and a family containing fans of both the Tigers and the Tide is a house divided. In Alabama, “Roll Tide!” and “War Eagle” can mean anything from “Congratulations on the birth of your first child” to “A curse upon your children’s children!” In Alabama, loving thy enemy as thyself is one thing, but loving the other side of the Iron Bowl is the business of Mother Teresa. Today

It was a beautiful, clear day, and the road was crowded with ’Bama faithful headed to the game. Every other car seemed to have a ROLL TIDE bumper sticker or Crimson Tide flag stuck to the windows. Halfway to Tuscaloosa, we stopped in one of the many gas station–grocery store combinations that sold fried chicken and barbeque. Above the counter was a large sign: AT ALABAMA, WE DON’T REBUILD, WE RELOAD! My father nudged me, nodding to the sign. Then he said to the woman behind the counter, “We’re Auburn fans.” She was punching out a complicated request for a lottery ticket and didn’t look up. “Honey, the good Lord blesses all sinners.” My father laughed. “That he does.” She

It was, of course, hypocritical nonsense. In Jackson’s four years at Auburn, football season ticket applications increased by 1,700 annually. The school was making millions off of his presence, his likeness, his replica jersey, his name on stickers and pins and hats. A year earlier Jackson was prevented from appearing at the American Heart Association’s “Walk for the Health of It” walkathon because it would violate “The Rules.” Which rules? No one was sure. But there were rules. Plenty of rules. “The SEC clings to its pompous eligibility rules,” wrote Bob Wojnowski in Florida Today, “like a bum clings to his dignity.