It all starts with those pre-season magazines. They, to those of us who live, die, eat, sleep, breathe, and dream college football signal the beginning of the end. The annual ritual of devouring Lindy’s Preview and Athlon’s Annual signals that the long drought between January and August is almost over. Sure, we have recruiting…where everyone trumpets that they had an outstanding class. And we have spring training, and even an inter-squad game, but we know deep in our hearts that it’s just a temporary fix, that it’s only a glorified practice. But these magazines make it real—they make the season seem close enough to touch. May is warm, June gets hot, July gets hotter. July the fourth comes and goes, and soon it’s August. And through those dog hot days of August, we know that those kids are sweating and bleeding and hitting on the practice field. Maybe we’re out mowing the grass—with headphones on to listen to sports talk. Caller after caller wants to talk football…and we begin to get a trembling excited feeling that makes us even mow faster. The humid weather is at its peak, but we know it won’t last forever. Inevitably, that first cool front comes through in late August—not that it cools down much, but it lowers the humidity for the first time since April, and everything looks sharper, clearer. The air has just a hint of coolness, and in that air those of us who know it can smell the fragrances of sport; those of us who believe can feel in that breeze the fever, the primal excitement that will build and build and build until it finds its voice in that very first cheer accompanying the first kickoff. In that air those of us who listen for it can almost hear the cacophony of sound that accompanies a football game—the cheers, the pads popping, the whistles, the PA announcer’s familiar voice…
The week of the first game draws nigh. There are predictions, there is analyzing, there is discussion. Every team is undefeated, and optimism reigns supreme. Finally, in weather so hot it is almost unholy, the first preseason game kicks off. We watch and we get excited, even if our team isn’t playing. We suffer through the next week, and we can’t sleep well the night before the game…
Game day dawns, and we’re jumping out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning. We are nervous all day—our tension almost palpable. We find our seat, and get teary when the Million Dollar Band strikes up for the first time, Yea Alabama. We haven’t heard that since last fall, and it gives us chills. We stand for the National Anthem, and finally, we cheer, 85,000 as one….ROOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL, TIDE, ROLL!!! The ball tumbles end-over-end, and in that moment, we are more alive than we’ll ever be. Those days we live for, the autumn Saturdays when OUR game is contested by OUR team on fields of glory, have begun. The possibilities are unlimited, our team’s potential unknown. We’ll ride the roller coaster of emotion, rejoice in wins and possibly be dejected in defeat, and our blood will run Crimson through it all. They will be some of the best days we will live… And it all starts with those pre-season magazines. The time is almost at hand… ROLL TIDE ROLL!!!!!
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