Wow you have to read this about the gumps fan base.

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worth the read

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Again???

Funny read I don't think it was posted here, just on the SECr... I may be wrong..

I have just read this link, and in all honesty I cannot disagree with it "point blank."

The writer wants to say that 15% of the Alabama fan base is considered "elitist" by the other 85%. I can't say that I agree that those figures are correct, for the simple reason that I don't see how any such a "survey" could be scientifically accurate. In other words, I don't see that some professional sociologist is going to write such an article.

The writer apparently has lived in Alabama, just as I lived in Louisiana for 28 years -- I've also lived in Alabama, Mississippi, and north Florida. I say "north Florida" because that section of Florida retains its Southern character, whereas the rest of the state has become "Yankee-ized" (for lack of a better term) as the population has greatly increased since World War II.

Of course, Atlanta has changed the state of Georgia to a great extent, and even the rest of the South to a lesser extent, but Georgia nevertheless retains a lot of
its Southern character.

As I say, I think that the writer in the link is onto something. But I think that all reasonable persons on this thread will agree that it is dangerous to wade off into generalizations when it comes to a subject like this. All I can do is to say my piece.

I think that Paul Finebaum has tapped into the very situation this link author is talking about. No, I don't like Finebaum. I don't like the fact that as a Jew he has come into Alabama as a "missionary" trying to spread a Gospel of Good Will. The effect of what he's doing, it seems to me personally, is to point out that Protestantism has failed in Alabama. I am educated and experienced enough to have known some very fine Jewish people. But I resent the fact that MY religious persuasion has done such a poor job in my home state that it has resulted in someone of another persuasion coming in and doing what "we" should have done -- deal with this state's brand of backwardness and the violent tendencies of a portion of its people.

The historians have struggled to explain the violent nature of some Alabamians. I think that it has to do with what some psychologists have come to see as a matter of family make-up. It is too evident to deny, in my opinion, that in Alabama you are going to see, more than in, say, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina -- or north Florida -- the pickup truck with the rebel flag on the bumper and the rifle or shotgun in the back window of the cab.

To me, that picture I just described is the basis of violence in the South, historically, to this day. It is a family thing, in my opinion. This extends into families of higher stations of life within this state, and probably elsewhere. A family may no longer own a pickup truck but nevertheless retain a violent strain in its nature. (Don't get me wrong -- a pickup truck is certainly in no way at all evil in and of itself, and many many, MANY fine, peaceful people drive pickup trucks.)

In fact, I think that way too much has been said in the way of hyperbole and exaggeration as to what I'm trying to describe here. Yes, I have lived in a Southern community where just about everybody is related to one another. But in other Southern towns I have known, that is simply not the case -- at all.

Another thing -- this type of violent family that I am speaking of tends towards sprawling to the four winds, in that their kinfolk can't stand one another. Such a family wants to dominate a neighborhood or community. Therefore, each part of the family seeks out a separate neighborhood as its "turf."

Now, obviously we are into generalizations when we get to discussing this subject. But I repeat, the best explanation I have found regarding THIS subject is the psychological one I have just gone to -- as it involves Family Systems.

I'm not going to get into Louisiana here and what I consider to be the dominant family system in THAT state. Suffice to say that it is not the Family System that I have just described as living in and influencing the state of Alabama.

It occurred to me about thirty years ago that the difference between Alabama and Louisiana explains the difference between college football in Louisiana and college football in Alabama. This amounted to, I guess, a theory on my part that the violent nature of football was attracted to the state where violence is part, as it were, of its "DNA."

In other words, I think that there is an element surrounding the sport of football that involves more than "Saturday Down South," when the bands are playing and the pom-poms are waving.

I also think this -- that the coarser our society has become over the past thirty or thirty-five years, the more popular the sport of football has become, so that the "milder" states such as Louisiana have become more involved in that sport, more into taking it seriously.

Dude is pretty spot on. There is a big nasty slob of a dispatcher at a dock in port sulphur. When he is there he puts a bama flag outside the office and has pics of saban and other bama stuff hanging

When he is off its all gone til he gets back.

That WAS pretty damn funny, but the Arkansas (#4) one was better - made me belly-laugh several times.

It's a miracle LSU didn't make the list

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Now, obviously we are into generalizations when we get to discussing this subject. But I repeat, the best explanation I have found regarding THIS subject is the psychological one I have just gone to -- as it involves Family Systems.

I'm not going to get into Louisiana here and what I consider to be the dominant family system in THAT state. Suffice to say that it is not the Family System that I have just described as living in and influencing the state of Alabama.

It occurred to me about thirty years ago that the difference between Alabama and Louisiana explains the difference between college football in Louisiana and college football in Alabama. This amounted to, I guess, a theory on my part that the violent nature of football was attracted to the state where violence is part, as it were, of its "DNA."

In other words, I think that there is an element surrounding the sport of football that involves more than "Saturday Down South," when the bands are playing and the pom-poms are waving.

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I don't know what part of Louisiana you're talking about, but I'm 7th generation New Orleans from a family that tracks third and fourth cousins...

LSU folks don't do pom-poms....

and you need to read up on the history of the LSU-Tulane games to learn why the "Rag" came into being...

I'd say that Louisiana has a different kind of violent tendenancy (hell, I have an ancestor who fought duels in City Park...the joke about him was that he killed so many people that he had to own his own cemetary)

and the fact that Louisiana has a large (if not majority) Roman Catholic population and still has a decent sized Jewish community as well breaks the sterotype of the bible thumping fundamentalist Protestant

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That WAS pretty damn funny, but the Arkansas (#4) one was better - made me belly-laugh several times.

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Yea arky is funny also.