Spurrier, 68, has managed to spend 25 years of his life in the SEC in some facet, whether coach or player, and he’s racked up an impressive 122 wins at Florida and South Carolina.

Considered the best coach in SEC history, Bear Bryant still holds the record with 159 conference wins at Alabama and Kentucky. And his Alabama legacy is currently being challenged by one Nick Saban.

But the ever-quotable Spurrier maintains he’s not chasing Bryant as a means to an end, but rather, he wants to win a championship at South Carolina, via AL.

“If that was a record that I really wanted to shoot for, I would’ve stayed at Florida as long as I could have,” he told Smashmouth Radio on ESPN 97.3 The Zone.

“That’s not anything I’m trying to achieve. I’m trying to win the SEC at South Carolina. If we could do that, it would be the ultimate, I think.”

Winning an SEC Championship at Carolina would come close to the ultimate. But don’t you think deep down inside Spurrier’s competitive heart of hearts that he wants Bryant’s record? How could he not? It would be the ultimate for any SEC coach to pass the stalwart Bryant’s win record.

As Kevin Scarbinsky points out, it would take Spurrier winning an average of six SEC games per year for seven more years to get there. He reached an extension that keeps him at USC through at least 2017.

What’s so impressive about Spurrier is the way he’s evolved his coaching style.

Spurrier is partly responsible for the SEC becoming the behemoth it is today, in the midst of seven championship runs.

When Spurrier left Florida for the NFL and came back to South Carolina, he saw a different league, dominated by defense and an ever-ruling defensive mindset.

So, he changed his game.

His 44-14-type sexy wins at Florida have turned into 24-21 defensive grudge matches, with Carolina scratching and clawing for every yard, every win and every blotch of fresh ink in the record book.

Spurrier’s tweaking of his overall high-flying offense to winning games by limiting turnovers and great defense is truly magnificent.

I hope he coaches for another 100 years.

Photo Credit: Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports

The Nick Saban-Bear Bryant debate will wage on until Saban notches yet another national championship in the near future, and then maybe you will finally agree – Saban is the best coach ever at Alabama.

Amid the historic run and the dynasty currently established at Bama, Saban is not only the best coach, maybe ever, in college football, but he’s destroying rival programs, forcing teams to fire their head coaches and breaking coaches’ wills and desires, not only within the SEC, but all over college football.

But let’s set the tone: Saban has already out-Beared the Bear himself.

True, Saban will never be able to match the Bear’s win total of 323 (Saban has 154), but the six national championships are well within arm’s reach. And it’s tough to compare such legendary coaches because it’s truly apples and oranges. Bear Bryant had longevity at Alabama for 25 years, while Saban has only been at Alabama six years.

I’m not ignoring or dismissing history, knowing there is a very different world and a different college football culture between the two coaches’ eras.

But Saban can beat your best team. And once he beats your team, he could then take your team and beat his team with you coaching it. That’s how good he is. And he’s one of the few who can do that.

In an era where so much parity lives in college football, and where the SEC is at its apex, Saban is destroying teams and shattering records. No longer do top prospects have to travel across country to get media exposure. They are staying home because of continued emergence of media markets at local State U. That’s called parity; the antithesis of a monopoly on blue-chip prospects. The SEC has won eight of the 14 BCS National Championships, and the conference is much tougher and more dominant now than when Bryant coached. And Saban is doing it while being limited to 85 scholarships and with more player and coaching turnover all confined within the golden age of the SEC. Bryant never had to factor in any of the three.

With his third championship in four years, Saban joined former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne and former Notre Dame head coach Frank Leahy as the only three coaches to ever accomplish the feat. Saban’s teams have played in the BCS Championship game five of the last eight seasons that he’s actually coached in college football. Think about that. That’s over half of the time; it’s remarkable. Ironically the only team not to make to the championship in the last four years in 2010 has the most players of any of the four currently on NFL rosters. It’s called player development, and nobody does it better than Nick Saban.

While the Alabama program is achieving greatness, their rivals are crumbling. Need evidence? Just look at Auburn and Tennessee – Bama’s two biggest rivals in the SEC. Both programs are in shambles, and both fired their coach and sought out new leadership, with AU actually hiring the one offensive coordinator who was able to put points on Saban’s defense. Coincidence? Nah.

It’s not surprising, either, that Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly interviewed for the Philadelphia Eagles’ job. Kelly only saw a glimpse of what every SEC West team and Tennessee experiences every single season. Kelly would all but join a long list of Saban defects.

Saban destroyed Urban Meyer’s will to compete in the SEC in quite remarkable fashion. Meyer is a top three coach in college football right now and certainly over his stay at Florida. He retired the first time after Saban and Bama dominated the Gators 32-13 in the 2009 SEC Championship game. Meyer, of course, retired a year later due to health problems only to accept a job nowhere near SEC country, where he can ultimately run a monopoly in the Big Ten. Coincidence? Nah. I wonder how Meyer felt after watching Bama’s display of dominance from the sideline the other night? I’m sure he recognizes the chasm between his undefeated Ohio State team and Bama’s one-loss destroyer.

Much like Meyer, Saban destroyed Gene Chizik’s career, too. Chizik’s only win against Saban was with Super Cam, and I would argue the Auburn expediting Chizik’s firing had more to do with Saban and Alabama than it had to do with Auburn and Chizik. Bama outscored Auburn 91-14 in the last two years.

With no clear end in sight for Saban and Bama’s dominance over college football, coaches around the country and certainly withinin the SEC are dissecting their rosters to figure out what they have to do to beat Alabama and figuring out what exactly they have to do as a coach to be like Saban.

Success is fleeting, and just getting to the top and tasting success is not nearly as hard as the impossible task of staying there. Just ask Chizik or Meyer.

During Nick Saban’s 48-hour success window he allowed himself to ‘enjoy’ the national championship, I would bet he watched film of Johnny Manziel and Texas A&M’s offense. Because he knows there is one team that stands between him and another national championship in 2013. And that team just happens to come within his own division once again.

Photo Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

Hollywood Imports in Vestavia, Alabama, is selling this modified three-wheel motorcycle for a whopping $24,900.

Check out the photos:

What’s your reaction?

Bear Bryant Quotes

“I’m no miracle man. I guarantee nothing but hard work.”

“I know what it takes to win. If I can sell them on what it takes to win, then we are not going to lose too many football games.”

“Losing doesn’t make me want to quit. It makes me want to fight that much harder.”

“It’s not the will to win that matters – everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.”

“Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit.”

“There’s a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success.”

“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”

“I think the most important thing of all for any team is a winning attitude. The coaches must have it. The players must have it. The student body must have it. If you have dedicated players who believe in themselves, you don’t need a lot of talent.”

“If a man is a quitter, I’d rather find out in practice than in a game. I ask for all a player has so I’ll know later what I can expect.”

“The idea of molding men means a lot to me.”

“You must learn how to hold a team together. You must lift some men up, calm others down, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat. Then you’ve got yourself a team.”

“If wanting to win is a fault, as some of my critics seem to insist, then I plead guilty. I like to win. I know no other way. It’s in my blood.”

“If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride – and never quit – you’ll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.”

“Get the winners into the game.”

“Set goals – high goals for you and your organization. When your organization has a goal to shoot for, you create teamwork, people working for a common good.”

“The old lessons (work, self-discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, fighting to achieve) aren’t being taught by many people other than football coaches these days. The football coach has a captive audience and can teach these lessons because the communication lines between himself and his players are more wide open than between kids and parents. We better teach these lessons or else the country’s future population will be made up of a majority of crooks, drug addicts, or people on relief.”

“Sacrifice. Work. Self-discipline. I teach these things, and my boys don’t forget them when they leave.”

“I’ll never give up on a player regardless of his ability as long as he never gives up on himself. In time he will develop.”

“Don’t give up at halftime. Concentrate on winning the second half.”

“Don’t talk too much. Don’t pop off. Don’t talk after the game until you cool off.”

“Mama wanted me to be a preacher. I told her coachin’ and preachin’ were a lot alike.”

“It’s awfully important to win with humility. It’s also important to lose. I hate to lose worse than anyone, but if you never lose you won’t know how to act. If you lose with humility, then you can come back.”

“In life, you’ll have your back up against the wall many times. You might as well get used to it.”

“The biggest mistake coaches make is taking borderline cases and trying to save them. I’m not talking about grades now, I’m talking about character. I want to know before a boy enrolls about his home life, and what his parents want him to be.”

“There is no sin in not liking to play; it’s a mistake for a boy to be there if he doesn’t want to.”

“In a crisis, don’t hide behind anything or anybody. They’re going to find you anyway.”

“Be aware of “yes” men. Generally, they are losers. Surround yourself with winners. Never forget – people win.”

“If there is one thing that has helped me as a coach, it’s my ability to recognize winners, or good people who can become winners by paying the price.”

“You take those little rascals, talk to them good, pat them on the back, let them think they are good, and they will go out and beat the biguns.”

“If you whoop and holler all the time, the players just get used to it.”

“If you want to coach you have three rules to follow to win. One, surround yourself with people who can’t live without football. I’ve had a lot of them. Two, be able to recognize winners. They come in all forms. And, three, have a plan for everything. A plan for practice, a plan for the game. A plan for being ahead, and a plan for being behind 20-0 at half, with your quarterback hurt and the phones dead, with it raining cats and dogs and no rain gear because the equipment man left it at home.”

“My approach to the game has been the same at all the places I’ve been. Vanilla. The sure way. That means, first of all, to win physically. If you got eleven on a field, and they beat the other eleven physically, they’ll win. They will start forcing mistakes. They’ll win in the fourth quarter.”

“Little things make the difference. Everyone is well prepared in the big things, but only the winners perfect the little things.”

“The first time you quit, it’s hard. The second time, it gets easier. The third time, you don’t even have to think about it.”

“But there’s one thing about quitters you have to guard against – they are contagious. If one boy goes, the chances are he’ll take somebody with him, and you don’t want that. So when they would start acting that way, I used to pack them up and get them out, or embarrass them, or do something to turn them around.”

“Scout yourself. Have a buddy who coaches scout you.”

“People who are in it for their own good are individualists. They don’t share the same heartbeat that makes a team so great. A great unit, whether it be football or any organization, shares the same heartbeat.”

“I told them my system was based on the “ant plan,” that I’d gotten the idea watching a colony of ants in Africa during the war. A whole bunch of ants working toward a common goal.”

“We can’t have two standards, one set for the dedicated young men who want to do something ambitious and one set for those who don’t.”

“When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: 1. Admit it. 2. Learn from it, and 3. Don’t repeat it.”

“I honestly believe that if you are willing to out-condition the opponent, have confidence in your ability, be more aggressive than your opponent and have a genuine desire for team victory, you will become the national champions. If you have all the above, you will acquire confidence and poise, and you will have those intangibles that win the close ones.”

“Don’t ever give up on ability. Don’t give up on a player who has it.”

“A good, quick, small team can beat a big, slow team any time.”

“I have always tried to teach my players to be fighters. When I say that, I don’t mean put up your dukes and get in a fistfight over something. I’m talking about facing adversity in your life. There is not a person alive who isn’t going to have some awfully bad days in their lives. I tell my players that what I mean by fighting is when your house burns down, and your wife runs off with the drummer, and you’ve lost your job and all the odds are against you. What are you going to do? Most people just lay down and quit. Well, I want my people to fight back.”

“I always want my players to show class, knock’em down, pat on the back, and run back to the huddle.”

“I tell young players who want to be coaches, who think they can put up with all the headaches and heartaches, can you live without it? If you can live without it, don’t get in it.”

“If they don’t have a winning attitude, I don’t want them.”

“I have tried to teach them to show class, to have pride, and to display character. I think football, winning games, takes care of itself if you do that.”

“What are you doing here? Tell me why you are here. If you are not here to win a national championship, you’re in the wrong place. You boys are special. I don’t want my players to be like other students. I want special people. You can learn a lot on the football field that isn’t taught in the home, the church, or the classroom. There are going to be days when you think you’ve got no more to give and then you’re going to give plenty more. You are going to have pride and class. You are going to be very special. You are going to win the national championship for Alabama.”

“If you want to walk the heavenly streets of gold, you gotta know the password, “Roll, Tide, Roll!”

What’s your favorite Bear Bryant quote?

An article from columnist Roy Exum at The Chattanoogan gives you a look at what a certain player faced his going into his freshman year at Alabama, from Coach Bryant himself.

Chris is considered a scholarship player, and the letter, which Exum believes to be about 40 years old, was sent to him the summer before he enrolled at Alabama:

Dear Chris:

You will be expected to report for football practice August 17. We will expect you to arrive in the afternoon and our first meal will be served that evening at the dorm.

On the 18th, you will take your physical, including the mile run, get your room and locker assignments and participate in Photographer’s Day in the afternoon. Our first practice will be on the morning of the 19th.

I am expecting you to report in top physical condition, clean-cut, smiling, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and raring to go. Also, I am expecting you to be prepared to run, hit, pitch, kick, catch, sweat, smell and enjoy it. There are no easy ways but there are ways to enjoy the journey and we must find them.

I am also expecting you to work hard, eat well, sleep well, play well, display a winning attitude at all times, be a leader and help me sell the squad on what it takes to win and enjoy the journey.

I hope you will share your problems with me whether it be at home, at the dorm, in your school work, with teammates, with coaches, with training regulations, self-discipline or even flying a kite. If you do that, I will try to help you and, if I can’t, I’ll recommend you get a job, join the Army, or join the Foreign Legion, but, in any event, to reside in another state.

Nothing’s too good for winners. I want to love you, pat you, pet you, brag on you and see you hoot, run and shout and laugh, pray, hug, kiss, and win with humility.

If we lose, I want all of us to be unhappy, no one to have any fun, and expect only what is reserved for losers but take it with dignity while planning to come back.

Please remember us to your family and make your personal plans on how you are going to reach your goal – the NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.

Sincerely,
Paul Bryant

HT: Roll Bama Roll

It is also why the SEC needs to bring in Holograms. If Dr. Dre and Snoop can go on a tour with Tupac Hologram, there is no reason the following legends cannot come back to the SEC.

We will limit each team to 1 hologram. We don’t want this to get ridiculous.

Alabama: Bear Bryant

Joe Namath once told ESPN, “His nickname was Bear. Now imagine a guy that can carry the nickname Bear.” Bryant’s ghost is on the sidelines of every Alabama game so we might as well bring him into the light. The Bear won 323 games and said things like, “I don’t want ordinary people. I want people who are willing to sacrifice and do without a lot of those things ordinary students get to do. That’s what it takes to win.” I feel more ordinary just reading that. Saban is great but The Bear is Immortal with or without the Hologram.

Florida: Steve Spurrier

If you still hate Steve Spurrier at this point than you probably also hate Denzel Washington, BBQ Ribs, breathing and the threesome scene in Wild Things. You hate everything truly good in life. Spurrier is everything I love about the SEC. Most of us know Spurrier as the aging rooster talking the talk and walking the walk, but can you imagine how cocky a 21-year-old Spurrier must have been? Look in the background of this old picture of golfer Andy North Do you see him? I want a hologram of that Son of a Bitch!

Tennessee: Peyton Manning

The upside is you get the smartest QB to ever step up to the line of scrimmage. You get 101 career TD’s and 11,000 passing yards. You get ideal scholar-athlete. The downside is Tennessee would never beat Florida again or win a National title. Plus there would be no shaking Kenny Chesney.

Ole Miss: Archie Manning

This sets up the Archie vs. Peyton duel we’ve always dreamed of. The annual matchup could be called The Oedipus Bowl. Hell, why stop with just two Mannings? Let’s throw some money around and have a Hologram Eli Manning moping around in the background and a Hologram Cooper Manning helping with the kids and picking up a few bags of ice.

Georgia: Herschel Walker

This might be a waste of technology since the 50-year-old Herschel and 20-year-old Herschel are the same physically. We can just give him unlimited eligibility and save $100,000. If we bring back Herschel it make the all the Georgia fans who still talk about him every day seem a little less pathetic.

Auburn: Bo Jackson

The man is in the discussion of Greatest Athletes Ever, so he gets the hologram over Cam Newton. Did you know that when he was in High School Bo won two state decathlon titles? Of course he did. After having his career end with a terrible hip injury Bo Jackson needs a hologram more than everyone else on this list. It would be like the sequel to Field of Dreams.

LSU: Honey Badger

What’s this guy’s real name again? Who cares? Every team needs a guy who can make that one play every game despite the fact other teams are doing everything they can do not to let him make that one play.

Mississippi State: John Grisham?

Can we hologram a guy who writes legal thrillers? Damn, Mississippi State’s alumni list is depressing. With that said, The Firm and The Pelican Brief are the shit and much better than the movie versions.

Arkansas: Darren McFadden

A Physical specimen who turned the Wildcat offense into something that teams with terrible Quarterbacks sometimes do. He rushed for nearly 4,600 yards in only 3 years. He was the alpha dog in a backfield that included Felix Jones, Matt Jones and Peyton Hillis’ biceps.

South Carolina: Stephen Garcia

The thought of this upcoming season without Stephen Garcia makes me want go into a crazy intense depression. Connor Shaw is athletic and consistent and yaaaaaaaawnnnn. Give me the fat drunk guy who throws fantastically stupid interceptions and looks like Hurley from Lost.

Kentucky: Ashley Judd from A Time To Kill

I know she’s more of a basketball fan but the pickings are slim for Kentucky football. Call me old fashion, but I’ll take a sweaty Ashley Judd over a 420 pound Jared Lorenzen.

Vanderbilt: Jay Cutler

I Googled Jay Cutler and all I found was pictures of this guy and a few pics of the hot girl from Laguna Beach. I think Vandy would actually be better off giving this meathead a hologram. Who wouldn’t want a guy who benches 800 lbs over a gun slinging diabetic with a bad haircut?

Missouri and Texas A&M, you don’t get holograms until after hell week.

What SEC Football Personality do you want in a Hologram?

(10) – Bobby Dodd (Georgia Tech): OK, before you get all up in arms, Georgia Tech was a member of the SEC for a long period of time. During his 19 years coaching in the SEC, Georgia Tech was a major power, winning two SEC Championships and a national championship.

(9) – Pat Dye (Auburn): After Shug Jordan’s retirement, Auburn’s program hit hard times. Auburn lost nine straight games to Alabama during this period. Pat Dye was brought in to resurrect the Auburn football program, and he didn’t disappoint. In only 12 seasons at Auburn, the Tigers won 99 games, four SEC Championships, but just as importantly put the Auburn program back on equal footing with Alabama.

(8) – Johnny Majors (Tennessee): In 16 seasons at Tennessee, Majors teams won three SEC Championships, and one national championship, and appeared in eleven bowl games.

(7) – Ralph “Shug” Jordan (Auburn): Jordan was Auburn’s winningest coach, winning 176 games in his 25 seasons at Auburn. He also coached Auburn to it’s first SEC Championship, and it’s first claimed national championship. He had winning records in 22 of his 25 seasons. Four times he was named SEC Coach of the Year.

(6) – Frank Thomas (Alabama): Thomas was the first Alabama coach after the creation of the SEC. It was during his time at Alabama that they became recognized as a national power. Alabama won four SEC titles during his years at Alabama, and Alabama claims two national championships while he was a coach there. He also coached a player who would later go on to even greater coaching heights, Paul “Bear” Bryant.

(5) – Vince Dooley (Georgia): Dooley Coached Georgia to five SEC Championships and one national championship. In his 25 years at Georgia, the Bulldogs played in 20 bowl games.

(4) – Johnny Vaught (Ole Miss): During Vaught’s time at Ole Miss, he produced six SEC Championship teams, and Ole Miss claims three national championships during his tenure. During his 25 years at Ole Miss, the Rebels were a prominent national power, appearing in 18 bowls.

(3) – Steve Spurrier (Florida/South Carolina): Steve Spurrier took over the reins of a Florida squad that had never been in the national spotlight, and made a national power out of them. He won a national championship as the Florida head coach, and created a team that has been the dominant team in the SEC for a quarter century. He has gone on to take South Carolina to their first SEC Championship game ever.

(2) – Paul W. “Bear” Bryant (Kentucky/Alabama): The numbers are indisputable; Six national championships, 12 conference championships, fifth all-time in wins with 323, and 24 bowl appearances in 25 seasons!!! Bryant has a coaching trophy named after him, and had his likeness on a postage stamp.

(1) – General Robert Neyland (Tennessee): Between two tours of duty in our nation’s military, Neyland amassed 173 wins in only 213 games, giving him the greatest winning percentage in SEC history at .829. In 21 seasons, Neyland had six undefeated seasons, nine undefeated regular seasons, four national championships and seven conference championships. Neyland is recognized as the greatest defensive mind of all time. At one point in his career at Tennessee, the Vols held 17 consecutive opponents scoreless!!! In 1939, Tennessee was the last team in major college football to hold their opponents scoreless for an entire season. There may be some disagreement with my pick of Neyland as the greatest coach in SEC history, but when you look at the careers of all of the SEC coaches, taking into consideration his two disruptions of his career for military action, and Tennessee’s dominance with him on the sidelines, I don’t see anyone better than Neyland.

I love trees more than anybody.  As a child I would climb trees.  In the summer I would find comfort in the shade of trees.  My favorite book is the Giving Tree, by Shell Silversteen.  However, this story doesn’t anger me.  It would be hypocritical of me or any American to get angry about the death of a tree.  George Washington murdered a cherry tree with an Ax and we teach our children about it and put him on money.  Paul Bunyan was a serial killer of trees and we call him a Folk Hero.  Drive through any neighborhood in America a few days after Christmas and you’ll find an Evergreen bloodbath.  Remember how The Giving Tree ended?  Spoiler Alert:  It’s involves a tree stump.  We kill trees all the time so I refuse to join the outraged crowd.

What makes this story so amazing is that Al for Dadeville killed these trees because of football.  He killed trees just to piss off Auburn fans.  Mission accomplished, Al.  He might go to jail for a few years, but anyone that crazy will proudly do his time.  The question is how will Auburn respond?  Will they attempt to match crazy with crazy?

You know they won’t just stand back and take this.  They can’t respond eye for an eye style, because Toomer’s Corner was one of a kind.  The Alabama mascot, Big Al, is an elephant.   Maybe they try to kill an elephant?   Nah, that’s not likely.  While that would be cruel, I don’t think Bama fans have any real emotional ties to elephants and it lacks the punch-in-the-gut feeling needed.  Besides, I doubt there is a zoo in Alabama.  They would probably need to travel to Atlanta to kill an elephant and it could go unnoticed in a city that messed up.

The obvious move would be to dig up the corpse of Bear Bryant.  It’s a no-brainer.  How pissed would Bama fans be when they see RB Michael Dyer show up to the pep rally before the Iron Bowl dressed in the suit The Bear was buried in, wearing that famous houndstooth hat?  That’s a gut punch.  The sight of The War Eagle doing his pre-game lap with The Bear’s femur clinched in his talons would haunt the dreams of Alabama fans forever.  Like Sean Connery said in The Untouchables: “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital; you send one of his to the morgue.”  That’s Alabama!

Al from Dadeville didn’t only poison a tree; he poisoned the souls of Auburn Nation.  You mess with the the trees of Toomer’s Corner; you mess with the souls of anyone who’s ever uttered the phrase War Damn Eagle.  It’s basically the plot of Avatar.  The comparison works better when you remember both the Blue Navi people and Auburn grads are both really into Bow Hunting.  I’m getting off topic.

Will Al from Dadeville’s tactics become the new norm in sports?  I hope so.  Things are becoming way too corporate.  It’s time to go rogue.  It would be refreshing to see a St. Louis Cardinal fan spray roundup on the ivy at Wrigley.  I hope to see a shirtless Coach O chopping down a redwood before the Stanford game.  Florida State Seminole fans literally scalping opposing fans would be taking it too far.  I don’t know where it will end, but I’m intrigued to watch it all take place.

We’re not even sure this is the first time fan lunacy has gone this far.  I doubt Al from Dadeville is the Neal Armstrong of diabolical sports fans.  Any chance Magic Johnson caught the HIV from a Celtics fan who took one for the team?  After hearing about tree poisioning, I started to wonder if this conversation happened in 1938:

Joe:  Hey, Al, why can’t the Sox catch a break?  These damn Yankees have had our number since we traded the Babe.  I wish there was something we could do.

Al:  Funny you say that, Joe, because I was in my lab last night and I created a terrible nameless disease and I have it with me, right here in this vial.

Joe:  Did you say a terrible nameless disease, Al?  What are you going to do with that?

Al:  Well, Joe, do you see Lou Gehrig over there?

Maybe that conversation never happened, but after Al from Dadeville, I’m not ruling it out.  We’ve seen the rage that sports can produce and will produce again.

Alabama fans are currently playing it cool in public, but privately laughing hysterically.  You know the phrase “Auburn Tree Huggers” will never stop being funny to tide fans after watching Auburn fans hugging the dying oaks.  Bama fans love this.  If this video isn’t already on every Alabama message board it should be under the title, Auburn Fans Reacting to Toomer’s Corner Poisoning.   The Tigers are coming off an amazing year that included an incredible come from behind Iron Bowl victory, an SEC Championship, a Heisman Trophy winner, and a National Championship.  Now they are reduced to hugging a dying tree.  It’s almost enough to make one forget blowing a 24 point lead in the Iron Bowl… almost.

What will become of horticultural assassin Harvey Almorn Updike Jr.?  His lawyers will have to be creative to beat the one count of 1^st Degree Criminal Mischief.  Al from Dadeville should use the mercy kill defense.  He should say he went into a rage after seeing Auburn fans continually cover the trees in the same stuff you use to remove fecal remnants.  “I’m tired of watching those trees get tortured every time Auburn’s high-priced QB leads the team to a victory over Vandy.  Is this how you treat something you love?”  It probably won’t work.

The SEC is full of maniacs so I’m sure this won’t be the last act of crazy.  Auburn will do something and it will probably be disturbing and hysterical.  I’m up for anything that will help pass the time until next season.

Today is 10/10/10 and every Alabama fan is aware of what happened yesterday in Columbia, South Carolina. Bama fans are used to winning, and they should be. With 29 consecutive regular season victories dating back to the 2007 football season, another National Championship, and their first Heisman trophy winner, these are good times for the Tide. This minor setback increases the pressure to win out the remainder of the season. It is time to keep that chin up, learn from this loss, and return to your winning ways.

Here are 10 quotes from Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant to encourage Alabama fans:

1) It’s awfully important to win with humility. It’s also important to lose. I hate to lose worse than anyone, but if you never lose you won’t know how to act. If you lose with humility, then you can come back.

2) I think the most important thing of all for any team is a winning attitude. The coaches must have it. The players must have it. The student body must have it. If you have dedicated players who believe in themselves, you don’t need a lot of talent.

3) Losing doesn’t make me want to quit. It makes me want to fight that much harder.

4) I know what it takes to win. If I can sell them on what it takes to win, then we are not going to lose too many football games.

5) If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride – and never quit – you’ll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.

6) I have tried to teach them to show class, to have pride, and to display character. I think football, winning games, takes care of itself if you do that.

7) I honestly believe that if you are willing to out-condition the opponent, have confidence in your ability, be more aggressive than your opponent and have a genuine desire for team victory, you will become the national champions. If you have all the above, you will acquire confidence and poise, and you will have those intangibles that win the close ones.

8) First there are those who are winners, and know they are winners. Then there are the losers who know they are losers. Then there are those who are not winners, but don’t know it. They’re the ones for me. They never quit trying. They’re the soul of our game.

9) If we’d beaten ‘em, I wouldn’t be going out.

10) If wanting to win is a fault, as some of my critics seem to insist, then I plead guilty. I like to win. I know no other way. It’s in my blood.