It is a special day as Alabama hosts Penn State. Joe Paterno, the winningest college football coach in history and the pope to Penn State fans, is one of the very few people alive who coached against Bear Bryant. He is an elder statesman of the sport and I for one am honored that he will grace the visiting sideling of our stadium.
It is also Bear Bryant’s birthday, he would’ve been 97 today.
We will also host Bobby Bowden, a life long Alabama and Bryant admirer, and the second winningest coach of all time.
By the way, all respect due to Joe and Bobby, but Bear will always be the greatest to walk a sideline. According to statements they’ve both made, Joe and Bobby agree.
To me, today is a perfect parallel of seeing something secular as a religious event. There will be countless people who wear exactly the same thing they’ve worn for 15 straight games. They will eat the same thing, drink the same beer, tailgate with the same people, sit in the same seat, and truly believe that their rituals and actions play some sort of factor in the outcome of the game.
These rituals are akin to prayer, that if they cheer a certain way, dress a certain way, do a certain pre-game ritual, that the outcome they desire will happen.
People will sing “hymns” upon entering the stadium, holy songs like “Go Bama Go”, not to be confused with “Go Bama”, “Rammer Jammer”, “Yea Alabama!” will all be sung with zeal and ardor by the faithful in the hopes of rallying the players to greatness. Just as a Church of God congregation will sing with the same zeal in seeking their holy spirit to commune with them tomorrow.
On Thursday I ran into two Penn State fans in the Supe Store, I could not help but think of followers on a pilgrimage, Bryant-Denny Stadium is, after all, generally considered a Mecca of college sports.
There is one difference between church and football which is causing me to cut short my post. In church the pot-luck dinners are after the service. In football, they’re before. And I have my own rituals to perform in the desperate hopes that I can somehow influence the team.
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