Fan frenzy By Rob Jordan Star Staff Writer 11-19-2004
Kim Nunnally helps put the finishing Auburn touches on a
friend's car in Anniston. Nunnally, an Alabama fan, has slipped to the other
side - only at the need of friends. Photo: Bill Wilson/The Anniston Star
It's an illness, a creeping disorder that takes hold every year around
this time, pushing otherwise rational people into the buzz saw of mania.
In a state marked by an especially rabid college football following,
the Iron Bowl inspires borderline psychosis among many. It divides families
and sets lifelong friends against each other. It's a battle of "us" versus
"them" for bragging rights and a dose of self-esteem.
In case you're from outer space or under a rock, the Iron Bowl is the
annual match-up between football powerhouses Auburn University and the
University of Alabama. It's the greatest college sports rivalry of all time,
according to Sports Illustrated, and a prime example of extreme
sports-induced madness, according to some psychologists and social
observers.
In the days leading up to the storied rivalry, fans pray at the graves
of legendary coaches and pull every prank they can dream up. One local group
of relatives, all in their 30s and all from Coldwater, wage a sophisticated
war of words, graffiti and deflated tires, centered on the game.
It started last year when Auburn fan Christy McMurtrey found her car
tag littered with Alabama stickers, courtesy of her brothers, David and Wes
List. McMurtrey joined forces with her cousin, Susan Pate, a fellow Auburn
fan, and Pate's sister, Kim Nunnally, a sympathetic Alabama fan. Nunnally
and Pate added their brother, Jonathan Roberts, to the hit list. For a
counter-strike, the women smeared "Auburn" in shoe polish on the windshields
of the Lists' pickups.
The guys named themselves ATPE, or Alabama Tide Pride Elite, and made
a video declaring war on the women. The women took to calling themselves
AWESUM, or Auburn War Eagle Seriously Underestimated Minds. The two sides
chalked team chants and pasted team streamers, stickers and balloons on each
other's cars late at night.
Things escalated when, dressed in camouflage, the guys rolled the
women's cars with toilet paper and later covered them with flour. The women
responded by rolling the interior of Roberts' house with toilet paper and
sealing the guys' pickups with industrial-sized plastic wrap.
The guys recently recruited four more Alabama fans to their cause,
while the women have signed up some of the guys' co-workers as informants.
The unique intensity surrounding the Iron Bowl may have something to
do with the lack of professional teams in Alabama. Some have suggested it's
a way to find pride in a state that struggles economically and socially. It
may just be a matter of living up to regional reputations.
None of these explanations does justice to the phenomenon of "status
anxiety," said Warren St. John, author of Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, a
diary of one season on the road with Alabama fans.
"The big thing that drives it is you have to show up at work Monday
and you're going to be across from someone who pulled for the other side,"
St. John said.
It's like comparing your salary to that of your cubicle mate, St. John
said. People look to the Iron Bowl scoreboard to determine where they stand
in relation to others.
Clinical research supports St. John's assertion, according to Mark
Klinger, a social psychology professor at the University of Alabama. Because
of the in-state rivalry, long tradition and generally strong team records
leading up to it, the Iron Bowl is a self-esteem weathervane for Auburn and
Alabama fans.
That's why fans say "we won" after a victory and "they lost," after a
defeat, Klinger said. It's a phenomenon referred to as Basking in Reflected
Glory, embracing someone else's achievements as if they were one's own.
By acting up, fans are simply acting out their emotional investment in
the game, Klinger said.
"The more your self-esteem is tied up in it, the more likely you're
going to engage in this kind of behavior," he said.
It's been that way since the first Iron Bowl in 1893. The game has
been marked by partisan sniping and disputes, one of which, over travel
costs and officials in 1907, led to a 41-year hiatus in the series. It took
a resolution of the state House of Representatives to renew the rivalry in
1948. Alabama has prevailed 38 times, Auburn, 29. The Iron Bowl ended in a
tie only once, in 1907.
In his book, St. John, an Alabama fan, describes highlights, or
lowlights, of one particular pre-Iron Bowl week at Auburn. During the course
of three days, Auburn fans attack Alabama fans' RVs with paint guns, an
Alabama fan threatens to gut an Auburn fan with a hunting knife, and a woman
at an Auburn party threatens Alabama fans with what St. John describes as
"assault by lactation."
St. John called the back-and-forth a form of acknowledgment and spoke
of one such incident with a hint of misty-eyed nostalgia.
"If you're going to go to the store and buy eggs to throw at me, I
must be pretty high on your list of priorities," he said.
Summing up his fellow combatants' mindset, Roberts said his mood is
intimately connected to his team's success. If Alabama wins, Roberts said,
he's not above gloating. It the Tide takes a loss, Roberts dreads the
ribbing he'll get from Auburn fans.
"If we win, I'll be more outgoing, more sociable. If we lose, just
leave me alone and let me sulk," he said.
========================
"You have to take it one day at a time. You know, like the drunks do" --
Hank Hill on marriage
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