Ah, game day. A day when thousands of football teams in the nation play against an opponent. Now that I'm in college, I love game days, but as a child? I couldn't have cared less.
Growing up in an Alabama family, I was taught that Alabama was the only team that mattered and no one else. I was forced to walk miles in the Alabama heat as a seven-year-old and sit in almost freezing temps as an eight-year-old. My family even had a room dedicated to the Alabama Crimson Tide. License plates, framed pictures, anything that was Alabama related went in there. We even had red and gray couch covers.
I remember sitting with my dad at home games and being legitimately fearful for his health because he was screaming so loud and his face was so red. I remember even fellow Alabama fans looking at him like he was a madman and feeling so embarrassed. I remember having my first encounter with drunk college students at eight years old. I remember having to wake up at eight in the morning almost every Saturday there was a home game and having to sit for two and a half hours in the car on the way to Tuscaloosa and only stopping once. As an eight-year-old, that's a long time.
Now that I'm a sophomore at Troy University, I realized that I am less important than a football team. My parents only came to Troy once for homecoming and didn't even stay for the game because they couldn't sit with me when I so clearly remember sitting without my siblings when they were students. I recently went to a family function and asked my parents if they could at least come to homecoming, not even our big game against South Alabama. I remember being told from my sister "not if there's an Alabama game that day." It didn't even matter who they were playing, it just HAD to be more important than their child's school.
My cousin and little brother, who are a sophomore and freshman at Auburn respectively, have it even worse. The nonstop teasing and bashing Auburn as a school is tiring for me, and I don't even go there. My family seems to think that since Alabama is the best team ever, then they HAVE to be the best school when Auburn sits at #115 and Alabama is FOURTEEN spots lower at #129.
I know I gave a lot of familial anecdotes, but I have personally seen how crazed Alabama fans are. The way they completely trash the quad after game-day tailgates and the cussing that would make a sailor blush. They have no respect for anyone but their own team and don't even get me started on the way they act in Bryant-Denny stadium. And let's not forget Harvey Updyke and Brian Downing, the crazed Alabama fans who POISONED two trees at Toomer's corner and EXPOSED HIMSELF on an unconscious LSU fan respectively.
I know that these are isolated incidents but make no mistake. Alabama fans can be some of the worst when it comes to behavior on game days. And being forced to go to games I didn't want to go to was no walk in the park either. I have come to learn that while Alabama may have a great football team even though they lost to Clemson (and rightfully so, as Clemson played a good game), their fans could use a behavior adjustment.
