I can’t claim credit for this (and won’t), but I really miss the writings of Steven Godfrey in the Daily Mississippian:
by Steven Godfrey (the Daily Mississippian)
The Tight End
November 20, 2003
“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.”
– Sportswriter Bill Shankly, 1981
Before I start the usual column, let’s get this out of the way: I quit smoking this week, therefore my disposition ranks somewhere around a weekend in the Neverland Ranch guest bedroom. Shut up and read.
Students of Ole Miss, get your butts in gear for this game.
I mean it. A higher power came to me in a dream last night and decreed the following 10 orders.
You are to do the following as soon as you’re done reading this.
1) Leave class immediately. This is no time for higher learning.
2) Organize your Saturday schedule to where you can prance through the Grove, drink copious amounts of alcohol and still be in the stands one hour before kickoff.
3) Find one piece of furniture you’re not attached to. Drag it into the yard for Saturday night’s celebration (or wake).
4) Buy red clothing. Buy red face paint. That goes for you, too, debutantes.
5) Stock up on the essentials: toilet paper, airplane bottles of Fighting Cock and a change of underwear.
6) Do not sleep Friday night. At dawn, cover yourself in red, head to toe.
7) Notify next of kin. March to the stadium.
Stop for one second. Realize this is the biggest football game you’ll ever witness and take a moment to revel in the true beauty that is coming of age in this blessed town at this blessed university.
You could be fighting a war in some third world country right now (or living in Starkville), but instead you’re at a game you can tell your grandchildren about.
9) Enter Vaught-Hemmingway.
10) Unleash holy hell.
You want a pep talk? Bulletin board material?
I’m your man, so if you’re not fired up by the end of this column, ask for your money back.
Remember that cutesy-poo Ole Miss motto of “Open Doors”?
Well, shut ‘em. Lock and load folks, because the Cajuns are coming.
It’s come to light that in villas such as Jackson and Biloxi, LSU fans are flooding talk radio and Internet chat rooms with a barrage of heavy handed insults.
How they got computers mystifies me, but I’ve been hit with a ton of e-mails from faithful Rebels throughout the South who’ve been attacked by Tiger disciples claiming this Saturday to be a “pushover win,” a “rout,” a “cake walk,” a “lubricated rodgering in the gang showers,” if you will.
In the words of Nappy Roots, “Aw naw. Hell naw. Y’all done up and done it.”
Perhaps you faithful readers have forgotten my all-encompassing disgust with anyone or thing from Cajun country.
I might have my hands tied on the NFL front (thanks Falcons), but allow me to parlay my hatred of the Bayou onto the college front.
If you’re annoyed by these slope-headed goobers in purple and gold, do not raise a hand in anger.
Remember to be sympathetic, because if a Cajun is insulting Ole Miss, he or she is probably having to do it by reading off a cue card written in phonetics while suffering through a bout of syphilis.
Also understand that there isn’t much going on in central Louisiana (other than daily reenactments of “Deliverance”), so this is all that these gene pool bonanzas have going for them.
You try copulating with your cousin/sibling/household pet more than twice a week.
Eventually you have to move onto barnyard animals, then inanimate objects and finally just a Glamour Shots portrait of Matt Mauck.
It gets repetitive.
Really, it’s a simple mathematical formula: anytime you take the intellectual gold mine that is redneck America, multiply it by everyone’s favorite foreign culture (the French) and add on a gorgeous landscape of mud that’s slowly sinking into the Gulf Of Mexico.
You’re bound to get annoying people.
But exercise patience with Louisianites, or just jangle your car keys.
They’ll watch in awe.
The only alarming claim coming from the Kitty Kat elite is that “we’ll take over the bars and parties, just like we do in every other town we go to. We rule the rowdy!”
Uh, that might not be a good idea. Technically Mississippi is the “Hospitality State,” but a single drunken insult or aggressive move toward an Oxford bar employee or police officer will most definitely get you a down-home welcome, via a Mag-Lite to the teeth.
It’s time folks, and even though I wasn’t born red and blue, I feel like this is the game I’ve waited my whole life to watch…while sober and in dress clothes (Man, that press box rule sucks).
Seriously though, exercise a reasonable amount of safety, act like an adult and remember one simple thing: It’s just a football game.
Yeah, right.
It’s too late for the Tiger nation to apologize.
Redraw the state lines, because we’re not taking prisoners
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Me: How do you count one second? Won Mississippi!
rebelone