War Eagle, Gibbsy!

Every December I like to take a moment and regret the amount of time and money I spent on Auburn football during the previous year. I usually vow to make some changes; maybe not go to as many games, or not to get so upset when Auburn loses, but when September rolls around I am once again holding season tickets, my mind immersed in all things Auburn.

As a Christian I cannot help but feel a touch of guilt when I realize that the money I spent on tickets this year could have built a well for an African village. And I probably could have built a homeless shelter by myself in the time I spent watching football. This year I even started witnessing for Auburn, which in a way is harder than telling people about Jesus, because while Jesus does promise his followers they will be persecuted, he also offers eternal life in Heaven. Following Auburn football just promises heartache and woe. My convert is none other than Jon Adams, who is Canadian, and had no idea what he was signing up for.

Of course at first Jon thought life as an Auburn fan was all roses, because the 2006 season began with promise, as the Tigers easily defeated Washington State, and then cruised past the Mississippi State Bulldogs. Next up was LSU, and in one of the hardest hitting games I have ever witnessed, Auburn prevailed 7-3. Wins over Buffalo and South Carolina had our boys undefeated, ranked second in the nation, and poised to make a run at the BCS title. Then Arkansas came to town.

The game against the Pigs took place at eleven in the morning, and before I even woke up Arkansas was winning by seven. One long Darren McFadden run and a couple of trick plays later our undefeated dreams were gone. And notice that I say our undefeated dreams. Many fans will identify with their teams only when they are winning. But down here we say, “we won” and “we lost”, because when Auburn does lose, we are convinced it was because we wore the wrong shirt or did not yell loud enough. And I know that sounds insane, but in our defense, we are crazy.

The Arkansas game was the first Auburn game Jon was able to watch on television. Because he is on the west coast, Jon woke up extra early and got a very good taste of what life as an Auburn fan can be like. “What happened?” Jon asked in an email on Monday. “Welcome to the family,” I replied.

After a week of sulking, we welcomed the undefeated Florida Gators to the Loveliest Village. ESPN’s College Gameday crew was in town, and the contest was featured “Full-Circle” on every ESPN channel. The game was a wild one, and somehow Auburn scored twenty-seven points without an offensive touchdown to defeat Urban Meyer’s boys by ten.

Once again we were awesome, and almost a lock for a BCS game. But like Britney Spears’ private parts, Auburn was exposed in November, not by the glare of paparazzi flashbulbs, but by the flea ridden Bulldogs of Georgia. Looking back the game is a bit of a blur, but I do recall that Auburn quarterback Brandon Cox completed four passes to Auburn players, and four passes to Georgia players. One day I may look back at that statistic and laugh, but not today.

On to the Alabama game, AKA the Iron Bowl, AKA the one thing besides snow flurries that completely shuts down our fine state. This year Alabama entered the game with a great deal of built up anger, mostly directed at Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville, who had beat the Tide four straight years, and had been photographed wearing a t-shirt that read, “Fear the Thumb”. Emotion kept the Tide close, but in the end, Auburn players raised their thumbs in victory.

Looking back it was a season of what ifs. Auburn defeated two of the nation’s top four teams, but were blown out twice at home. We won our fifth straight Iron Bowl, but failed to make the SEC Championship game. It is not in my nature to complain about a ten-win season— so I won’t— but oh what could have been.

Next year Auburn will face a difficult schedule, with road games at LSU, Georgia, Arkansas, and Florida. However, with senior quarterback Brandon Cox, and plethora of young playmakers at wide receiver and running back, along with a young, but more experienced defense, the Tigers are poised for another BCS run.

By Jon Adams
I can’t say that Gibby didn’t warn me. I won’t sit here and tell you that I wasn’t told about the potential heartache and frustration that can accompany being connected to a college football team. But I’m a sports junkie. I’m an addict. I can’t ever get enough and I love watching any sport at a high level, any sport with rivalries and passion and crowds so large I need an accountant to crunch the attendance numbers.

I am no stranger to team loyalty. I grew up a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and people don’t realize what that entails. Toronto is hockey’s mecca, the most passionate hockey city in the world, with a history and tradition that is rich and deep and filled with heartache. We haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967. I’ve only been alive since 1983 and that still gives me 23 years of hardship and famine. I know how it feels to bleed team colors.

My sports affiliations are as follows: NHL, NBA and MLB all leave me supporting the home team. The Leafs, Raptors and Blue Jays. A combination of Canada not having an NFL team and my unwillingness to support the Buffalo Bills means I do not currently have a NFL team that I support (I am open to conversion and to suggestions). And when it comes to college sports I have to look outside of my hometown as well, for obvious reasons.

The truth is I need a connection. That’s all I need to be loyal to a team forever, a connection. In NCAA basketball I began cheering for the Arizona Wildcats in 1994, when Damon Stoudamire was a star in the ‘Cats backcourt. I was in Arizona at the time, on vacation, during the tournament and I fell in love with the hype. I’ve been a loyal Arizona supporter ever since. I was in Arizona again for their Miles Simon and Mike Bibby induced run to the title. The energy and excitement was captivating.

Now, I have been aware of the magnitude of college football for a few years now. However, I’d not previously been taken up in it because I had no team to support, no school to bleed and die for every Saturday afternoon.

Then came Gibby. We began our interactions through a project for BWC. We were co-writing an article along with other talented contributors to the BWC and began to talk sports over e-mail. Gibby mentioned that he thinks about nothing else during the college football season, and though he mentioned it in passing, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. You see when the NHL playoffs roll around each April, I am unavailable. I mean it, don’t call me, don’t talk to me, don’t ask me to do anything for you - I’m watching hockey every night, sometimes two and three games each evening. And if the Leafs are in the post-season? The time is twice as sacred.

This is how Gibby feels about Auburn. My passion for the Leafs is his passion for the Tigers of Auburn University. I was drawn to it. I asked if I could be a member of the Tigers family. “I should warn you, it’s a life of heartache and hardship,” he said to me. “I am well prepared,” I told him. And that is the story of my conversion to NCAA football.

Like any new convert there were things I needed to know. There was doctrine, history, stories of times good and bad. I needed schooling. Gibby was a more than able professor, a mentor of sorts and through his guidance and my own research, I was growing in hope for Tigers football.

It turns out I joined the fold at a promising time. Auburn was looking sharp in their early games including a 7-3 slugfest with the LSU Tigers that left me believing we were among the toughest and most skilled teams in the country.

Before I continue I should say that I think I will fit right in with the Auburn clan. In the above article Gibby mentioned that Auburn fans own their losses, and that they are convinced their team would have won if only they’d worn the right t-shirt or screamed loud enough. I’m right there. When I was watching the Arkansas game at 8 a.m. I was convinced that I was jinxing my new family members. I was proudly wearing my Auburn t-shirt that Gibby sent up to me (what a great guy) and I was convinced before kickoff that our team (#2 in the nation) would promptly dispose of Arkansas and their freshman quarterback Mitch Mustain. Well, as it turns out Mustain would not present a problem, but eventual Heisman candidate Darren McFadden chose the Tigers game to be his ‘coming-out’ party.

I was distraught. I didn’t know what to think. Was it my fault? I was convinced it was. We dropped from 2nd to 11th in the country and my head was spinning. “Should I get out of this before it kills me? Before I ruin it for everyone?” These were the thoughts that ravaged through my head.

The following week we welcomed Florida to Jordan-Hare stadium and since I don’t get ESPN up here in Canada I had to follow the game on the internet while watching the Leafs on TV. It was a double header. It was extremely difficult to track what was happening on ESPN’s site, as they kept putting up information and then changing it, meaning my emotions were being thrown around like Lindsay Lohan’s name at an AA meeting. Auburn pulled out a victory, which is especially painful now that Florida is in the National Championship.

Things again went smoothly until the game against Georgia. I took them lightly, and apparently so did the Tigers and we were embarrassed at home, doing significant damage to my hopes of slipping into the title game or Rose Bowl. That’s not too mention what it did to my pride.

The whole college football system is played at incredibly high stakes. For instance, ten games into the Leafs schedule I am not too distraught after a loss. It stings for a few minutes, but most of the time in the NHL, your favorite team is back in action within a day or two. However, playoffs are life and death, and I clutch to every second as though my life is hanging in the balance. When the Leafs advance, the entire city of 5 million people and all of the surrounding cities are overjoyed, there is celebration; there is a common passion that unites us all.

These feelings are the heart and soul of what sports are all about, and college football fans go through this every week. Game one is critical, any loss cripples your hopes at being the best and the talent pool is too deep to allow for any mistakes.

Even though Auburn’s losses meant I would not witness a National Championship for the Tigers I realized something in my experience. I love the suffering. I love caring so much about a team that their successes and failures have a general affect on my livelihood. I know what you’re thinking. How can I love being let down time and time again, by all these teams? How can I remain hopeful if the odds of winning it all are so slim? That’s the beauty of it. Anything can happen. Hope springs eternal with each new season and no matter who’s on the roster when game one begins, anything can happen. On any given Saturday one team is going to win and one is going to lose.

The Leafs and the NHL will carry me through to June, where I’ll pick up with the Jays and they’ll carry me through to October (hopefully with Vernon Wells - more on him in the future), to when the puck drops again. And if Toronto’s Stanley Cup drought lasts through this summer, I now have another team to project all my hopes and fears onto. The Auburn Tigers. War Eagle!