This post has been a VolNation tradition over the years. Every year, during Bama week, we typically try to bump or link it on the forums. The rant was originally written around 1999 by an unknown author, but I believe it’s mostly still relevant—for me at least. As I recall, I found the post on a Tennessee Vols listserv (anyone remember those?) around that time and it made quite the impression. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. WARNING: if you have a short attention span, this may not be for you.

Oh, and if you happen to be the author of this classic piece, I’d love to hear from you.

Also, you might want to check the blog post on the 1982 Tennessee Alabama game from exactly thirty years ago (has it really been that long?). Miracles do sometimes happen.

I HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE !!! – 1999

Fellow Volunteer Fans,

As many of you who have participated on this list for more than 12 months know, this is the week that I live for the whole year. It is time for me to post my annual treatise on why I HATE THE ALABAME CRIMSON TIDE. While many parts of this posting are carry overs from several years, I do add new parts to this annual posting each year so I hope y’all continue to enjoy it.

THE BAMA GAME . For me, one of my main reasons for living and breathing as a Tennessee Volunteer Fan is so that I CAN HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE! As most of you know by now, I DESPISE THEM. I really don’t give a rip about Florida. Someone asked me two years ago to write an equivalent post prior to the Florida game. I couldn’t come up with anything more than a few sentences. Once again this year, THE GAME officially dubbed the “Third Saturday in October” will be played on the fourth Saturday. This game belongs on the Third Saturday in October. You know, there was never a book written titled Fourth Saturday in October. It just “ain’t” right, and I would petition the Athletic Directors of both schools and the SEC Commissioner to put a stop to some of this nonsense. October is my favorite month of the year. It always has been, not just the last two years. It is when there is a crisp coolness in the air, and the colors Orange and Crimson splash on a field of Green. You know, I really wish that we could do away with the silly rule that states that the home team wears dark and the visitor wears white. This is only really necessary if both teams have the same color jerseys. I know that as recently as the early ’80s, UT wore orange jerseys and Bama wore their red ones. But, I digress. I hope y’all enjoy reading (or rereading) as much as I enjoy living it. All in all, this post is getting harder and harder to write every year. Mainly because we have beaten Bama each of the past four years. Also, since I no longer live there, I don’t see, read, or hear as much on a day to day basis to inflame me like it used to. However, then I start to remember 1986-1994 and it is like pouring gas on a fire.

For me, this week is HIGH HOLY WEEK and the Saturday of the Tennessee-Alabama game is the HIGHEST of my HIGH HOLY DAYS. It is bigger than my birthday, the 4th of July, or all of the Federal Holidays that I get all combined. It is the one day of the year that I literally think about every single day the other 364. Not a single solitary day goes by that I don’t somehow, some way think about the Tennessee-Alabama game. Until 1997, I lived in north Alabama, so I saw a lot of BAMA paraphernalia. Every time I see an Alabama Bumper sticker I think about THE GAME. Every time I see someone wearing an Alabama sweatshirt or T-shirt, I think about THE GAME. Every time I see the color red, I think about THE GAME. I hate the color red. Red is the one color that refuse to wear. My wife will pick out a shirt or a pair of shorts in a store that she thinks will look good on me. If it is crimson or red I will refuse to buy it. My wife bought a new car a few years ago. A red one. It is a cool car, but I hate the color. Every time I see it, I think about THE GAME. If I pull up to a traffic light and the signal is red, I think about THE GAME. What makes it worse is there is usually some “bubba” in front of me with a BAMA bumper sticker. If I’m lucky enough to be first at the light, then the idiot on the other side of the intersection will have a BAMA license plate on their front bumper. GOD, I HATE BAMA! Every single night when I used to watch the sports news in the Huntsville-Decatur area, there was going to be something said about the Crimson Tide and I would think about THE GAME. Every time I saw a Birmingham Paper and I saw Paul Finebaum or Bill Lumpkin’s columns, you could bet that somehow they were going to work in at least one sentence about the Crimson Tide. It made no difference that they might have been writing a column about equestrian or water polo. There was a restaurant up the road from where I worked where I often had lunch. They had a picture of Paul “Bear” Bryant on the wall behind the cash register. I would see that DAMN PICTURE, and I immediately thought about THE GAME.

For me, BAMA not Florida, is Tennessee’s nemesis. Tennessee and Bama already had a series record long before Florida students knew how to spell the word “football”. I HATE BAMA’s GUTS. I HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE with every word I speak, every blink of my eyes, every thought that I have, every breath I take, and every beat of my heart. I HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE!!! I literally cannot stand the sight of ’em. When I first moved to north Alabama and was single, I glued an Alabama decal to the bottom of my commode in my apartment. It was a “natural law” on Saturday afternoon that you would sit around the apartment all day watching college football and drinking beer. It was a rule that you had to yell, “PISS ON ALABAMA” every time you went to the bathroom. It was even better when I had to sit down. 😎 (no, I didn’t have a wife or son at that time. Really the only thing that I don’t like about being married is that I can’t do this anymore. 🙁 )

I also know that a majority of the players we have on our team now consider Florida to be our arch rival in the SEC. There are only a handful of players on our team who can remember the last time we lost to ALABAMA. However, I remember. From the time I was in the fifth grade at the age of 10, I was listening to Tennessee play football on a Magnavox transistor radio that my Dad had. I carried that radio around with me everywhere I went in the fall. I was never without that radio on Saturday afternoons with it tuned to WREC AM600 in Memphis with John Ward blaring out on the single speaker. Back in those days, Tennessee didn’t play 9 out of 11 games on television like they do now. In those days usually only one game per year was on TV. That was a team that I later learned to fear, then learned to HATE, then suffered against. They were a team that wore red jerseys and whose coach was called Bear Bryant. He was revered as a god. I HATED THAT TEAM. There was a kid named in my neighborhood who was a few years older than me. All I ever heard out of Matt’s mouth during football season was ALABAMA this and ALABAMA that. “Bear Bryant is the greatest coach ever.” “Alabama is the greatest team.” “Alabama won back to back National Championships, Tennessee can’t even win the SEC because Tennessee can’t beat ALABAMA.” “Tennessee can’t beat THE BEAR.” “Tennessee can’t beat the CRIMSON TIDE”. I did fully understand what kind of a mascot the Crimson Tide was, but I HATED them. For at least 5 years through the last years of elementary school and junior high school, I heard this rattletrap from that guy almost every single Saturday afternoon. Every single afternoon after school that all the kids in the neighborhood played football in the front yard, I had to hear this load from this guy. From my point of view, he was right. In my short time of loving UT and being a UT fan and “watching” all their games on the radio, I had never known us to beat BAMA. Year in and year out, we lost to BAMA. I HATED ALABAMA. I wanted to beat THE BEAR worse than anything just so I could rub it in Matt’s face that we had beaten his BELOVED ALABAMA. WE HAD BEATEN THE BEAR. I HATED THE CRIMSON TIDE. I PRAYED TO GOD FOR A DAY THAT WE WOULD BEAT ALABAMA!!! I remember an October afternoon in 1982 when Coach Johnny Majors led the Vols to a victory over Alabama. I don’t remember if I cried or not, but I know that I listened to every single down on my Dad’s Magnavox radio. I was so happy, I went right over to Matt’s house to rub his face in it. He wasn’t home. Thank you Matt, you taught me at a young age one of the GREATEST TRUTHS in my life. I HATE ALABAMA!!!

I HATE BAMA because they beat the Gators in the Swamp!!! (Okay, I don’t really hate it all that bad, but it does erk me severely….)

I HATE BAMA because most of their fans are a bunch of dumb idiot, cousin dating, illiterate, rednecks who couldn’t find Tuscalosa on a map of the State of Alabama if the Southeastern Conference Championship depended on it. Shucks, half of ’em probably can’t find the State of Alabama on a map of the United States. They are so dumb that they proudly wear flip-flops and overalls out on the town to Walmart on a Saturday night because they can’t tie their own shoes or zip up their pants. However, they proudly fly those BAMA flags from the window of their new 1999 Red Chevrolet or Dodge pick-up trucks with their BAMA bumper stickers on the rear bumper. The truck probably cost 3 times their annual income, but is worth 5 times more than the 1970’s model house trailer that they proudly park it in front of next to a brand new satellite dish so they can watch their “beloved” CRIMSON TIDE play and fail to cover the spread against the likes of Bowling Green, Southern Miss, Tulane, etc., etc. on Pay-Per-View. Every once in a while, BAMA plays a really, REALLY, BIG GAME against seasoned, SEC opponents like Kentucky or Vanderbilt. Isn’t it strange that one of BAMA’s permanent SEC Eastern Division Opponents is Vanderbilt? What is really sad is the idiot BAMA FANS who actually will engage you in a conversation about how the “Green Wave” or “Vanderbilt” could actually give BAMA a tough game. Then, after BAMA only beats one of these “bunnies” by one or two touchdowns, they get mad because BAMA didn’t climb 6 places in the A.P. Top 25 Poll. Then, I HATE BAMA because I have to listen to these same BAMA FANS explain why the reason that BAMA didn’t cover the spread against Vandy, Tulane, or Brownie Troop 247 is BECAUSE (Are y’all ready for this?), “Stallings (now Mike DuBose) didn’t want Tennessee and Auburn to really see what BAMA has for a team. They were just sandbagging until later in the season when they bring out the big guns.” UNBELIEVABLE!!! I will admit that I haven’t heard much of this stuff this season since Mr. Dubose took over as head coach, but I think those losses to “seasoned” opponents like La. Tech in 2 of the last 3 years shut most of this up. However, if they had greased those games like they normally do, instead of losing, I’m sure I’d have heard any earful by now.

I HATE BAMA because of those two fans who go to games with a roll of toilet paper stuck on a box of Tide washing powder held with plungers. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a BAMA game that those two idiots somehow don’t wind up on NATIONAL television. I went to lunch just last week with some coworkers in the Birmingham office. They took me to some place plastered with nothing but BAMA crap all over the walls. As I was walking out of the door I caught glimpse of these idiots in newspaper picture that was framed and hanging on the wall. I received an e-mail after the 1996 game. In case you think I’m kidding, here it is.

>In case y’all were at the game and didn’t tape it. Guess what two >guys were part of CBS’ intro to THE GAME. That’s right. Right there with >the footage of General Neyland, Paul “Bear” Bryant, Johnny Majors (as the >player not the coach) Reggie White, and all the other Third Saturday in >October greats of the past… > > Oh well, I guess anyone who works that hard deserves to be on >Television. At least they aren’t wearing “HOG HATS”.

Last season Roy Kramer gave me another reason to HATE BAMA that really didn’t come to light until Saturday, September 18th , 1999. I have always signed my personal email, “My two favorite teams are TENNESSEE and whoever plays Alabama.” However, thanks to Mr. Kramer’s Bowl Championship Series, the BCS ranks teams and uses your opponents records in the formula for where you are ranked. Therefore, I cannot desire for ALABAMA to go 0-11 anymore. THIS IS DRIVING ME NUTS!!!. On the Saturday that the TIDE was beaten on the last second play by Louisiana Tech, I almost jumped out of my chair laughing. I great sense of joy filled my heart. Then my brain took over. That hurts Tennessee in the BCS rankings. Gosh Dangit! Even when BAMA loses they find a way to hurt us. I HATE BAMA FOR MAKING OUR SCHEDULE LOOK WEAK IN THE BCS RANKINGS WHEN THEY LOSE TO LA. TECH AND I HATE THE BCS FOR MAKING ME WANT BAMA TO WIN WHEN THEY AREN’T PLAYING THE VOLS. IT GOES AGAINST EVERY FIBER IN MY BODY. I CAN’T DO IT! I HATE BAMA TOO MUCH!!!

I HATE BAMA because in 1992 David Palmer got not one, but TWO DUI’s and the BAMA GRAD JUDGE gave him “youthful offender status” so he could play football for the Crimson Tide when they won the ’92 national championship. If that had been you or I, we’d still be in jail. Question: What year did David Palmer GRADUATE from the University of Alabama?

I HATE BAMA because of Forrest Gump. I truly love the movie Forrest Gump. I have seen it over a dozen or so times. It is one of my favorite movies. I remember going to see Forrest Gump for the first time at the movie theater. I was thoroughly enjoying the movie when the scene where Forrest and Jenny are walking home from high school comes up. Forrest takes off running and runs across the high school football field where a young Paul Bear Bryant wearing that black and white checked cap is recruiting. I must admit that scene took me by surprise. Very quickly, I forgot all about the movie “Forrest Gump” and started thinking about TENNESSEE vs. ALABAMA! The next scene I see Forrest in an ALABAMA football uniform streaking down the field to score a touchdown. The crowd is doing an ALABAMA card trick in the stands. ( I wished we still did cards in college football.) Forrest runs all the way down the field, into the end zone, and out the tunnel. It took me several minutes to get back into the movie. I just kept thinking about ALABAMA. At the time the movie came out, Tennessee had lost to ALABAMA 8 times in a row. I COULD THINK ABOUT WAS THE GAME AND MY THIS JUST ADDED MORE FUEL FOR MY HATE OF ALABAMA!!!

I HATE BAMA because they are a bunch of ARROGANT WHINERS. Four years ago when BAMA lost to Arkansas, they got upset because of a blown call by the officials. This happens all the time in football and is simply part of the game. Sometimes the breaks go your way, and sometimes they go the other way. BUT NOT FOR BAMA, THEY GOT THE WHOLE ENTIRE SEC OFFICIATING CREW SUSPENDED FOR A WEEKEND BECAUSE THEY HAD THE AUDACITY TO BLOW A CALL THAT WOULD HAVE GONE IN BAMA’s FAVOR.

I HATE BAMA because they still talk about Paul Bear Bryant in the present tense. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the late Paul Bryant, but I am sick and tired of some redneck Bama Fan who, while pumping gas at the gas station, sees my “GO BIG ORANGE” license plate on the front of my car and starts telling me what THE BEAR would have done if he had been coaching the VOLS against Florida. I already know what the BEAR would have been doing. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN MOLDING BECAUSE HE IS DEAD. Bama Fans are almost as bad as Elvis fans when it comes to this. I say “almost” because, to my knowledge, Bama fans don’t dress up like the Bear and hold a candlelight vigil at his graveside the way fans of the King do in Memphis every year. Q: How many Bama fans does it take to change a light bulb? A: 75,001 – one to change the bulb and 83,818 to sit in Bryant-Denny Stadium and talk about how good the old bulb was. Several years ago, I was listening to the Rush Limbaugh radio show and a lady called him from somewhere in Alabama. When Rush introduced her and said the name of the town, and state she was from she started talking about being raised in Alabama, and emphasized the fact that it was the same state that Bear Bryant made his famous coaching tenure. I’m driving along and wondering, “Does this lady actually believe that there is anyone with any intelligence whatsoever who doesn’t know where THE BEAR is from?” Then I realized the point. She was honestly believed that she was supposed to be special and privileged because she happened to live in the same State as the late Bear coached. She didn’t have anything to contribute to Rush’s Show, she apparently just wanted to make that point. He rather quickly got rid of her. I was so white knuckled from gripping the steering wheel and cursing The Crimson Tide and her arrogance that I almost had to pull over. By the way, this was in 1991 only a few weeks after we had suffered our sixth straight loss to the Tide. There is a nice print available that shows different scenes of the Tide beating Miami in the Sugar Bowl to win the 1992 National Championship. These scenes in the print are contained within an area that is the shadow of Paul Bear Bryant’s head wearing his famous hat. WHAT IN THE HECK DID PAUL BEAR BRYANT HAVE TO DO WITH ALABAMA, COACHED BY GENE STALLINGS, WINNING THE 1992 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP? OH YEAH, STALLINGS WAS ONE OF THE BEAR’S BOYS……Three weeks ago I carried an ornamental garden hose hangar that belongs to my wife to a welding shop in Lilburn, GA, to be repaired. As I was waiting on the welder to finish, I suddenly got that feeling that I was being watched. I slowly turned around and could see into plate glass window of the welding shop office. Hanging on the wall was this same print of the Tide’s victory over Miami in the outline of the BEAR. The BEAR was staring at me. I felt it on my back. It was as if he were there. I HATE BAMA…..

I HATE BAMA! Because after living in Decatur, Alabama for FIVE OF THE LONGEST YEARS OF MY LIFE, I FINALLY got the opportunity to move to Atlanta, GA. I figured this would be great. Since Georgia Tech chickened out and left the SEC, Atlanta is basically an “SEC Neutral” town much like Memphis (my original hometown). My wife and I got to Atlanta and we found a house that she and I both liked. When I entered the living room, my eyes about flew out of my head. The shelves were filled with ALABAMA paraphernalia complete with the “Paul Bear Bryant” Coca-Cola bottles. From there I walked out on the back deck. Sitting in a pool was a three foot tall elephant rared up on this hind legs with trunk in the air blowing water up and back down into the pool. The Elephant was sporting a RED A on his side. I about lost it right there as my blood pressure climbed 15 places in the top 25.. My first question was, “That does go with y’all, correct?”. Of course, my wife loved the place and shortly after we moved in, I performed a full blown orange exorcism. Unfortunately, the deck underneath where that damn elephant was sitting is permanently stained. So, GUESS WHAT COMES TO MY MIND EVERY TIME I SEE THAT DAMN SPOT? YOU GUESSED IT, THAT GOD FORSAKEN ELEPHANT AND WITH IT, THE GAME. I MEAN FOR NEYLAND’S SAKE, 4 MILLION PEOPLE LIVE IN THE ATLANTA METROPOLITAN AREA, WHAT ARE ODDS? BUT HEY, IT IS A GOOD THING, IT GIVES ME ANOTHER REASON TO HATE BAMA. 🙂

I HATE BAMA because Bama leads the series 42-32-7.

I HATE BAMA because they are the only SEC school to have a winning record against the Vols in Neyland Stadium. This is totally unacceptable to me.

I HATE BAMA because I am sick and tired for the BAMA FAITHFUL spouting off about their 12 national championships. ALABAMA is an excellent program with a long football history and tradition and they have won more than several legitament national championships, BUT GIVE ME A BREAK! Some of those championships might as well rank right up there with the “Martha White Cornbread Top 25”, or the “BIRMINGHAM TIRE AND BATTERY Top 25”.

I HATE BAMA because a BAMAFAN once told me that while the team they want to beat the most is Tennessee, the team they least like to lose to is Auburn. I know if he wasn’t speaking for all their fans as a whole, and I guess playing Tennessee doesn’t rank right up there with playing an instate rival like Auburn. I TAKE THAT AS AN INSULT. I UNDERSTAND IT, BUT I STILL HATE IT.

I HATE BAMA JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE BAMA. BOTTOM LINE IS THAT I HATE BAMA BECAUSE TENNESSEE LOST TO THEM 9 TIMES IN A ROW FROM 1986 UNTIL 1995. IT LITERALLY COST ME THE BEST YEARS OF MY COLLEGE FOOTBALL VIEWING LIFE. I WILL NEVER FORGET THE 6-9 LOSS TO BAMA IN KNOXVILLE IN 1990. THAT WAS THE LONGEST DRIVE FROM KNOXVILLE BACK TO MEMPHIS OF MY LIFE. I DEMAND SATISFACTION. I WANT TO KILL ‘EM. I WANT TO BEAT THEM SO BAD THAT THEY DON’T WANT TO SUIT UP AGAIN THE REST OF THE YEAR. I WANT TUSCALOSA ERADICATED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH. I DON’T HAVE TO AVOID THE RUSH, I HATE BAMA 12 MONTHS, 52 WEEKS, 365 DAYS, 8,760 HOURS, A YEAR!!!!! I HATE THEIR GUTS. A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO THERE WAS A JOKE ABOUT A BAMA FAN’S STUPID DOG. WELL I DON’T CARE ABOUT SOME MANGY, FLEA AND TICK INFESTED BAMA FAN’S DOG, BUT MY DOG HATES BAMA TOO!

A FELLOW VOLUNTEER FAN WROTE ME LAST YEAR AND TOLD ME HE FELT EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. HE SAID, “I HATE BAMA SO MUCH THAT IF WE BEAT THEM 212-0 FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS IN A ROW IN NEYLAND STADIUM, IT WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH TO SATISFY MY HATRED OF THEM.” I THINK HE SUMMED UP IN ONE SENTENCE EXACTLY HOW I FEEL AND IT TOOK ME SEVERAL PAGES TO EXPRESS, EXECPT FOR ONE THING. I’D LIKE TO PLAY THEM ON THEIR HOME FIELD (BRYANT-DENNY, NOT LEGION FIELD) AND BEAT THEM JUST AS BAD. THIS YEAR I’M GOING TO GET MY CHANCE.

However, I do have more respect for BAMA than any other team in the SEC. Playing and beating truly means something to me. This rivalry dates all the way back to 1901. Alabama and Tennessee rank 1 and 2 respectively in all time SEC victories and winning percentage. We are the TITANS of the SEC. It is for this reason that I feel the way I do. I love poking fun at the Alabama fans as much as they love doing it to us. We have something that other schools in the SEC (such as Florida) will never have. This is why I HATE BAMA, but I RESPECT BAMA. I will never have any respect for Florida. I do long for Bama to return from these leaner years to its former glory. I long for the BAMA GAME to be the #1 game in the heart and minds of all Volunteer Fans as it is in mine. However, I ALSO LONG TO BEAT BAMA BY A SCORE OF 213-0 OR MORE EVERY TIME THAT WE PLAY THEM FROM HERE ON AND I WANT THEM TO BE UNDEFEATED AND RANKED IN THE TOP 10 EVERYTIME THAT WE DO IT!!! MY ONLY HOPE IS THAT EVERY PLAYER AND COACH IN THE TENNESSEE FOOTBALL PROGRAM FEELS EXACTLY THE SAME WAY THAT I DO! GOD BLESS THE TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS. GO BIG ORANGE!!! BEAT THE EVER LOVING ELEPHANT CRAP OUT OF BAMA!!