Well let’s just say what most people think about the University of Alabama. Its football pursuits justify its identity with an uneducated backward white population and a symbolic link to the Lost Cause they hold so dear. Much in the same way as D.W. Griffith’s movie The Birth of a Nation encouraged the worst elements of southern society a hundred years ago UAT football encourages a similar backward behavior from a large segment of its fan base. The Crimson Tide football team is outlet for their lunatic fringe fans such as Jay Barker, Harvey Updyke, John Phillips, Brian Downing, the Sugar Bowl “lady” et al and gives them a venue to be recognized. The abovementioned misfits are the predictable by-product of Bama football.
Football has stalled the University of Alabama’s transformation into a modern university with intellectual, aesthetic or humanistic concerns. Bama fans overestimate the “esteem” of being the last college football factory. History has shown that Bama fans defend the indefensible, deny the undeniable and are thus driven by extreme emotion into delusions and unconscionable actions. Even Nick Saban contributes to the lunacy by comparing losing a football game to the Pearl Harbor and 911 tragedies when thousands of Americans lost their lives. The reality is that the NCAA would actually do Bama a favor by handing down the Death Penalty for its football team. Then perhaps finally its faculty, alumni and students might appreciate the scholarship and learning that mark a university with intellectual fiber and integrity.
Also the University of Alabama’s misplaced priorities of gold-plated football fluff over economic substance harms the state’s citizens with a false bravado of football instead of academic excellence. The holy crusade of Bama football also acts as an impediment to social and economic progress. For instance university officials have agreed to a policy that its all-white sororities can exclude African-American females from membership. Ironic that most of the precocious football players at Bama are African-American but their daughters and sisters can be banned from all-white sororities. It is well known that when a university simply reflects the attitudes of its football fans it is no longer a university in the true meaning of the word. And so it is that “roll tide” is the mortifying apology for those who are either naive or without individual self-respect or dignity.
Football has stalled the University of Alabama’s transformation into a modern university with intellectual, aesthetic or humanistic concerns. Bama fans overestimate the “esteem” of being the last college football factory. History has shown that Bama fans defend the indefensible, deny the undeniable and are thus driven by extreme emotion into delusions and unconscionable actions. Even Nick Saban contributes to the lunacy by comparing losing a football game to the Pearl Harbor and 911 tragedies when thousands of Americans lost their lives. The reality is that the NCAA would actually do Bama a favor by handing down the Death Penalty for its football team. Then perhaps finally its faculty, alumni and students might appreciate the scholarship and learning that mark a university with intellectual fiber and integrity.
Also the University of Alabama’s misplaced priorities of gold-plated football fluff over economic substance harms the state’s citizens with a false bravado of football instead of academic excellence. The holy crusade of Bama football also acts as an impediment to social and economic progress. For instance university officials have agreed to a policy that its all-white sororities can exclude African-American females from membership. Ironic that most of the precocious football players at Bama are African-American but their daughters and sisters can be banned from all-white sororities. It is well known that when a university simply reflects the attitudes of its football fans it is no longer a university in the true meaning of the word. And so it is that “roll tide” is the mortifying apology for those who are either naive or without individual self-respect or dignity.
