The following piece was written by J.K. Taylor. The most amazing thing about this piece is though it’s 10 years old, it still rings true today. The author contacted me about this site and told me to search for this in Google. I did and amazingly the first site Google came up with had the entire piece. I asked the author if I could re-post it on this site and he agreed. Just remember this piece is 10 years old…and yet it could have been written yesterday.

I HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE - 1997 !!!

Fellow Volunteer Fans,

IT IS THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN. This is the week that I live for the whole year. The THIRD SATURDAY IN OCTOBER. For me, one of my main reasons for living and breathing as a Tennessee Volunteer Fan is so that I CAN HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE! As most of you know, I DESPISE THEM. I really don’t give a rip about Florida. Someone asked me last year to right an equivalent post prior to the Florida game. I couldn’t come up with anything more than a few sentences. I would like to begin my annual post by thanking the “network powers that be” for allowing this game to be played on its rightful day. The Third Saturday in October is my favorite day of the year. You know, there was never a book written titled Second Saturday in October. It just “ain’t” right, and I would petition the SEC Commissioner to put a stop to some of this nonsense.

October is my favorite month of the year. It always has been, not just the last two years. It is when there is a crisp coolness in the air, and the colors Orange and Crimson splash on a field of Green. You know, I really wish that we could do away with the silly rule that states that the home team wears dark and the visitor wears white. This is only really necessary if both teams have the same color jerseys. I know that as recently as the early 1980s, UT wore orange jerseys and Bama wore their red ones. But, I digress. Some of my post this year is new hatred, some is warmed over hatred from last year and the year before. I hope y’all enjoy reading (or rereading) as much as I enjoy living it.

For me, this is HIGH HOLY WEEK and the Saturday of the Tennessee-Alabama game is the HIGHEST of my HIGH HOLY DAYS. It is bigger than my birthday, the 4th of July, or all of the Federal Holidays that I get all combined. It is the one day of the year that I literally think about every single day the other 364. Not a single solitary day goes by that I don’t somehow, some way think about the Tennessee-Alabama game. Until recently, I lived in north Alabama, so I saw a lot of BAMA paraphernalia. Every time I see an Alabama Bumper sticker I think about THE GAME. Every time I see someone wearing an Alabama sweatshirt or T-shirt, I think about THE GAME. Every time I see the color red, I think about THE GAME. I hate the color red. Red is the one color that refuse to wear. My wife will pick out a shirt or a pair of shorts in a store that she thinks will look good on me. If it is crimson or red I will refuse to buy it. My wife bought a new car a year ago. A red one. It is a cool car, but I hate the color. Every time I see it, I think about THE GAME. If I pull up to a traffic light and the signal is red, I think about THE GAME. What makes it worse is there is usually some “bubba” in front of me with a BAMA bumper sticker. If I’m lucky enough to be first at the light, then the idiot on the other side of the intersection will have a BAMA license plate on their front bumper. GOD, I HATE BAMA!

Every single night when I used to watch the sports news in the Huntsville-Decatur area, there was going to be something said about the Crimson Tide and I would think about THE GAME. Every time I saw a Birmingham Paper and I saw Paul Finebaum or Bill Lumpkin’s columns, you could bet that somehow they were going to work in at least one sentence about the Crimson Tide. It made no difference that they might have been writing a column about equestrian or water polo. There was a restaurant up the road from where I worked where I often had lunch. They had a picture of Paul “Bear” Bryant on the wall behind the cash register. I would see that DAMN PICTURE, and I immediately thought about THE GAME.

For me, BAMA not Florida, is Tennessee’s nemesis. I HATE BAMA’s GUTS. I HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE with every word I speak, every blink of my eyes, every thought that I have, every breath I take, and every beat of my heart. I HATE THE ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE!!! I literally cannot stand the sight of ‘em. When I first moved to north Alabama and was single, I glued an Alabama decal to the bottom of my commode in my apartment. It was a “natural law” on Saturday afternoon that you would sit around the apartment all day watching college football and drinking beer. It was a rule that you had to yell, “PISS ON ALABAMA” every time you went to the bathroom. (no, I didn’t have a wife or kids at that time) It was even better when I had to sit down.

Perfect….

I HATE BAMA because most of their fans are a bunch of dumb ass, cousin dating, illiterate, rednecks who couldn’t find Tuscaloosa on a map of the State of Alabama if the Southeastern Conference Championship depended on it. Shucks, half of ‘em probably can’t find the State of Alabama on a map of the United States. They are so dumb that they proudly wear flip-flops and overalls out on the town to Wal-mart on a Saturday night because they can’t tie their own shoes or zip up their pants. However, they proudly fly those BAMA flags from the window of their new 1997 Red Chevrolet or Dodge pick-up trucks with their BAMA bumper stickers on the rear bumper. The truck probably cost 3 times their annual income, but is worth 5 times more than the 1970’s model house trailer that they proudly park it in front of next to a brand new satellite dish so they can watch their “beloved” CRIMSON TIDE play and fail to cover the spread against the likes of Bowling Green, Southern Miss, Tulane, etc., etc. on Pay-Per-View. Every once in a while, BAMA plays a really, REALLY, BIG GAME against seasoned, SEC opponents like Kentucky or Vanderbilt. Isn’t it strange that one of BAMA’s permanent SEC Eastern Division Opponents is Vanderbilt? Well, I guess the BAMA faithful can now say that their schedule just got tougher.

With the Tide’s loss to UK this month, they suffered their first loss to the Wildcats since Calvin Coolidge (or was it Howard Taft) was President of the United States. I guess now Kentucky will become a “seasoned” Bama opponent. It is a good thing that Kentucky is in the SEC or Alabama would probably chose to never play them again. However, since UK is not one of their permanent East Division opponents, they will only play them twice every eight years. What is really sad is the idiot BAMA FANS who actually will engage you in a conversation about how the “Green Wave” or “Vanderbilt” could actually give BAMA a tough game. Then, after BAMA only beats one of these “bunnies” by one or two touchdowns, they get mad because BAMA didn’t climb 6 places in the A.P. Top 25 Poll. Then, I HATE BAMA because I have to listen to these same BAMA FANS explain why the reason that BAMA didn’t cover the spread against Vandy, Tulane, or Brownie Troop 247 is BECAUSE (Are y’all ready for this?), “Stallings didn’t want Tennessee and Auburn to really see what BAMA has for a team. They were just sandbagging until later in the season when they bring out the big guns.” UNBELIEVABLE!!! I will admit that I haven’t heard much of this stuff this season since Mr. Dubose took over as head coach, but I think those two losses to “seasoned” opponents like Arkansas and Kentucky shut most of this up. However, if they had greased those games like they normally do, instead of losing, I’m sure I’d have heard any earful by now.

I HATE BAMA because of those two dipshit fans who go to games with a roll of toilet paper stuck on a box of Tide washing powder held with plungers. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a BAMA game that those two idiots somehow don’t wind up on television. I received an e-mail after last year’s game. In case you think I’m kidding, here it is.

>In case y’all were at the game and didn’t tape it. Guess what two guys were part of CBS’ intro to THE GAME. That’s right. Right there with the footage of General Neyland, Paul “Bear” Bryant, Johnny Majors (as the player not the coach) Reggie White, and all the other Third Saturday in October greats of the past…

Oh well, I guess anyone who works that hard deserves to be on Television. At least they aren’t wearing “HOG HATS”. I HATE BAMA because in 1992 David Palmer got not one, but TWO DUI’s and the BAMA GRAD JUDGE gave him “youthful offender status” so he could play football for the Crimson Tide when they won the 1992 national championship. If that had been you or I, we’d still be in jail. I HATE BAMA because they are a bunch of ARROGANT WHINERS. Two years ago when BAMA lost to Arkansas, they got upset because of a blown call by the officials. This happens all the time in football and is simply part of the game. Sometimes the breaks go your way, and sometimes they go the other way. BUT NOT FOR BAMA, THEY GOT THE WHOLE ENTIRE SEC OFFICIATING CREW SUSPENDED FOR A WEEKEND BECAUSE THEY HAD THE AUDACITY TO BLOW A CALL THAT WOULD HAVE GONE IN BAMA’s FAVOR.

I HATE BAMA because they play over half their HOME games in Legion Field, but argued that it was a NEUTRAL SITE when it came time to play Auburn. I always felt sorry for Auburn fans for having to put up with that crap.

I HATE BAMA because they still talk about Paul Bear Bryant in the present tense. I have nothing but respect and admiration for the late Paul Bryant, but I am sick and tired of some dipshit redneck Bama Fan who, while pumping gas at the gas station, sees my “GO BIG ORANGE” license plate on the front of my car and starts telling me what THE BEAR would have done if he had been coaching the VOLS against Florida. I already know what the f*%$@#g BEAR would have been doing. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN MOLDING BECAUSE HE IS DEAD. Bama Fans are almost as bad as Elvis fans when it comes to this. I say “almost” because, to my knowledge, Bama fans don’t dress up like the Bear and hold a candlelight vigil at his graveside the way fans of the King do in Memphis every year.

Q: How many Bama fans does it take to change a light bulb? A: 75,001 - one to change the bulb and 75,000 to sit in Bryant-Denny Stadium and talk about how good the old bulb was. Several years ago, I was listening to the Rush Limbaugh radio show and a lady called him from somewhere in Alabama. When Rush introduced her and said the name of the town, and state she was from she started talking about being raised in Alabama, and emphasized the fact that it was the same state that Bear Bryant made his famous coaching tenure. I’m driving along and wondering, “Does this lady actually believe that there is anyone with any intelligence whatsoever who doesn’t know where THE BEAR is from?” Then I realized the point. She was honestly believed that she was supposed to be special and privileged because she happened to live in the same State as the late Bear coached. She didn’t have anything to contribute to Rush’s Show, she apparently just wanted to make that point. He rather quickly got rid of her. I was so white knuckled from gripping the steering wheel and cursing The Crimson Tide and her arrogance that I almost had to pull over. By the way, this was in 1991 only a few weeks after we had suffered our sixth straight loss to the Tide. There is a nice print available that shows different scenes of the Tide beating Miami in the Sugar Bowl to win the 1992 National Championship. These scenes in the print are contained within an area that is the shadow of Paul Bear Bryant’s head wearing his famous hat.

WHAT IN THE HECK DID PAUL BEAR BRYANT HAVE TO DO WITH ALABAMA, COACHED BY GENE STALLINGS, WINNING THE 1992 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP? OH YEAH, STALLINGS WAS ONE OF THE BEAR’S BOYS!!!

I’m surprised the Bear was sober enough to shake hands

I HATE BAMA because my wife is a BAMA FAN and she wears those stupid s#^t clothes with that dang elephant on them around the house which irritates me and really makes me think of THE GAME. But I got EVEN with her. I converted her 9 year old son, (my stepson) to the “Path of ALL THAT IS ORANGE AND WHITE AND RIGHTEOUS” and now it is all he thinks about. He wants to buy everything orange that he sees. If we pass a construction zone going down the highway, he says, “Cool, that guy had on an orange Tennessee vest!”. My wife says we’re sick, and I just don’t have the heart or see the need just yet to correct my stepson. During the taping of our wedding reception a year ago, my brother happened to be standing next to the guy holding the video camera. Todd started whistling “Rocky Top” probably without even thinking about it. The camera picked up the sound and recorded it perfectly. So now, every time my wife watches our wedding video, guess what she gets to hear. Of course, Ashton and I usually high five each other and start singing. I LOVE IT!

I HATE BAMA! Because after living in Decatur, Alabama for FIVE OF THE LONGEST YEARS OF MY LIFE, I FINALLY got the opportunity to move to Atlanta, GA. I figured this would be great. Since Georgia Tech chickened out and left the SEC, Atlanta is basically an “SEC Neutral” town much like Memphis (my original hometown). My wife and I got to Atlanta and we found a house that she and I both liked. When I entered the living room, my eyes about flew out of my head. The shelves were filled with ALABAMA paraphernalia complete with the “Paul Bear Bryant” Coca-Cola bottles. From there I walked out on the back deck. Sitting in a pool was a three foot tall elephant rared up on this hind legs with trunk in the air blowing water up and back down into the pool. The Elephant was sporting a RED A on his side. I about lost it right there as my blood pressure climbed 15 places in the top 25.. My first question was, “That does go with y’all, correct?”. Of course, my wife loved the place and shortly after we moved in, I performed a full blown orange exorcism.

Unfortunately, the deck underneath where that damn elephant was sitting is permanently stained. So, GUESS WHAT COMES TO MY MIND EVERY TIME I SEE THAT DAMN SPOT? YOU GUESSED IT, THAT GOD FORSAKEN ELEPHANT AND WITH IT, THE GAME. I MEAN FOR NEYLAND’S SAKE, 4 MILLION PEOPLE LIVE IN THE ATLANTA METROPOLITAN AREA, WHAT ARE ODDS? BUT HEY, IT IS A GOOD THING, IT GIVES ME ANOTHER REASON TO HATE BAMA.

I HATE BAMA because I am sick and tired for the BAMA FAITHFUL spouting off about their 12 national championships. ALABAMA is an excellent program with a long football history and tradition and they have won more than several legitament national championships, BUT GIVE ME A BREAK! Some of those championships might as well rank right up there with the “MARTHA WHITE CORNBREAD TOP 25″, or the “BIRMINGHAM TIRE AND BATTERY TOP 25″.

I HATE BAMA because a BAMAFAN once told me that while the team they want to beat the most is Tennessee, the team they least like to lose to is Auburn. I know if he wasn’t speaking for all their fans as a whole, and I guess playing Tennessee doesn’t rank right up there with playing an instate rival like Auburn. I TAKE THAT AS AN INSULT. I UNDERSTAND IT, BUT I STILL HATE IT. I HATE BAMA JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE BAMA. BOTTOM LINE IS THAT I HATE BAMA BECAUSE TENNESSEE LOST TO THEM 9 TIMES IN A ROW FROM 1986 UNTIL1995. IT LITERALLY COST ME THE BEST YEARS OF MY COLLEGE FOOTBALL VIEWING LIFE. I WILL NEVER FORGET THE 6-9 LOSS TO BAMA IN KNOXVILLE IN 1990. THAT WAS THE LONGEST DRIVE FROM KNOXVILLE BACK TO MEMPHIS OF MY LIFE. I DEMAND SATISFACTION. I WANT TO KILL ‘EM. I WANT TO BEAT THEM SO BAD THAT THEY DON’T WANT TO SUIT UP AGAIN THE REST OF THE YEAR. I WANT TUSCALOSA ERADICATED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH. I DON’T HAVE TO AVOID THE RUSH, I HATE BAMA 12 MONTHS, 52 WEEKS, 365 DAYS, 8,760 HOURS, A YEAR!!!!! I HATE THEIR GUTS.

IF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA WERE AN ACTUAL PERSON, I WOULDN’T PISS IN HIS BUTT TO SAVE HIS LIFE IF HIS GUTS WERE ON FIRE. A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO THERE WAS A JOKE ABOUT A BAMA FAN’S STUPID DOG. WELL I DON’T CARE ABOUT SOME MANGY, FLEA AND TICK INFESTED BAMA FAN’S DOG, BUT MY DOG HATES BAMA TOO!

A FELLOW VOLUNTEER FAN WROTE ME LAST YEAR AND TOLD ME HE FELT EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. HE SAID, “I HATE BAMA SO MUCH THAT IFWE BEAT THEM 212-0 FOR THE NEXT 100 YEARS IN A ROW IN NEYLAND STADIUM, IT WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH TO SATISFY MY HATRED OF THEM.” I THINK HE SUMMED UP IN ONE SENTENCE EXACTLY HOW I FEEL AND IT TOOK ME SEVERAL PAGES TO EXPRESS, EXCEPT FOR ONE THING. I’D LIKE TO PLAY THEM ON THEIR HOME FIELD (BRYANT-DENNY, NOT LEGION FIELD) AND BEAT THEM JUST AS BAD.

However, I do have more respect for BAMA than any other team in the SEC. Playing and beating truly means something to me. This rivalry dates all the way back to 1901. Alabama and Tennessee rank 1 and 2 respectively in all time SEC victories and winning percentage. We are the TITANS of the SEC. It is for this reason that I feel the way I do. I love poking fun at the Alabama fans as much as they love doing it to us. We have something that other schools in the SEC (such as Florida) will never have.

Keith, “My two favorite teams are TENNESSEE and whoever plays Alabama.”, Taylor

I added the pictures and comments for them

So J.K. Taylor and I profess on this day 10/16/07.

TtT