Wright Thompson's finest work ever

People who think the world revolves around SEC football = People who think the world revolves around Yankess/Red Sox.

 

Have to agree with the folks who says he needs an editor. Any stadium likened to a cathedral, the billion-and-18 uses of the word "I", so many other cliches... Hey, the guy can write, I'll admit. But he needs that Holly Lawton-led KC Star copy desk. Man, they really made him a star. Sometimes, as Andy Ricter, David Lee Roth and Art Garfunkel will tell you, going it alone is tough.

 

Wow, it's Peter King meets Richard Russo!

 

Pretty standard Southern football fair. - mentions town square, heat, blonds. greasy spoon dinner. failed to mention train whistles, old pick up trucks and state troopers with big hats guarding the head coach.

 

I've never watched "American Idol" or "24" or "Big Brother." I didn't like "Fight Club." I don't listen to much rap or hip-hop. I have never been in a Woot-Off.

Something else I don't do? When I see people here posting about those things, in essence "odes" to their favorite this or favorite that, I don't get all high and mighty and tell them they're ridiculous for enjoying what they enjoy. If I don't "get it," I just don't participate. If it makes them happy, I'm happy for them.

If you don't get Southern football, that's fine. It's highly probable, then, you won't get into an ode, a love letter to Southern football. Turn the page. Life's too short.

I grew up watching Southern football, and I'm paid to write about Southern football. A big part of me rolls my eyes at much of it, is offended by some of it and wishes it had less importance in the grand scheme of things down here.

Yet, when I hear people say, "Oh, they tailgate in the South before football games? Um, they do in the Pac-10 and Big Ten and Big 12," it makes me wonder where are all the odes to Pac-10 football and love letters to northern football and Sunday takeout tributes to Big 12 football. If they exist, they don't inspire threads here every season or like-clockwork talk in July and August about how there are too many of them written.

I think there's a reason for that, and it's not because there aren't good writers in Pac-10, Big Ten and Big 12 country.

 

I don't doubt that passion for football in the South is different. But writing about it is low-hanging fruit that's been done to death.

 

Then don't read it. A lot of others will, and do.

 

No dog in this hunt, JD, but if I were to read it out of sheer curiosity and didn't like it, am I not allowed to comment on it?

 

Of course you are. I just don't get the notion that there should be a moratorium on stories like this. Should they never be written again? Should we wait five years? Ten? Is 20 years long enough?

Enjoy what you enjoy. Read what you want. I just don't get the pleasure some seem to derive in making fun or being dismissive of people who like something they don't like, or suggesting stories about it should go away because they've read too many of them and find them tired.

And again, I think it's telling that we never seem to discuss the abundance of odes to West Coast football or the love songs about Midwestern football. Surely, they're out there, all over the map, yes?

Oh, wait. Maybe not ...

 

We don't need our prose and odes to Big Ten/Big 12/Big East/Big Stuff football to wax Faulkneresque... we're too busy drinking beer.
You can't begin to tell me that people watching Mississippi football are more fanatic than, say, Madison, Lincoln or Norman....

 

Why don't those folks dig up some real news instead of pithyness that's been done to death? Many readers would love to read about nothing but Lindsey and Paris. Shall we accommodate them?

 

It's OK. I still like you.