csberry

I've borrowed from my parents my "school memorabilia" folder containing everything from report cards to programs for school plays to career placement testing results. One of the interesting things I found was an editorial I wrote for the Bama student paper, the Crimson White. This was written my senior year ('94 or '95).

Behind every cashier counter in every restaurant and hanging someplace in every business and household in Tuscaloosa is a shrine to Alabama football. An outsider coming into town and observing the masses of photographs and artists' renditions of the University's greatest football moments and players can be compared to a tourist's exposure to the Amish lifestyle or the Egyptian pyramids. The easiest way that I've been able to describe the behavior to my friends up north is that Alabama football is a religion.

As the years have gone by, I"ve thought a considerable amount about this fanatical behavior in Alabama football fans. One thing that I've felt is missing from the picture (other than incense and animal sacrifice, unless getting ribs from Dreamland counts in your mind) is a bible. Sure, you can go to any corner store and buy a copy of Alabama's Greatest Football Victories for Jesus or any variety of Forrest Gump merchandise. But "Forrest Gump" is a great example of why we need to write a bible now. "Forrest Gump" is "The Last Temptation of Christ" of Alabama football. It isn't based on football fact and is therefore a sacrilegious creation. Didn't you know? That is why we wouldn't let them film the movie here. Apparently a high-ranking film executive was financially influenced by a rich Auburn alumnus to produce this movie in order to corrupt the morals of Alabama football fans around the globe.

The University of Alabama must act now! We should gather our best historians, writers and eyewitnesses together to document the life and times that are religiously pertinent to the Alabama fan. This divine undertaking should produce a down-to-earth, yet heavenly, reproduction of our pious pigskin past and it shall be called the Bama Bible.

(Insert your own dramatic orchestration here.)

The Bama Bible should chronicle the legacy of the Bear, but is shouldn't be written like a stiff documentary or stats book. It should be eloquent, but honest. For instance, from the Book of Joe (Namath) Chapter 9, verse 29: "The Bear baptized the Earth with spit and grunted, 'Father, damn the Forces that would stop us from entering the Promised Land of the beloved End Zone.'" Of course there would be special Bama Bibles that would have all of Coach Bryant's quotes in red print. There should be books in the bible for halftime talks and The Bear's letters to his coaches. One of the more popular and scholarly challenging books for future football theologians and seminary students would be The Bear's Letters to Stallings I & II. Detailed in Stallings I Chapter 8 is the disciplinary treatment of publicly intoxicated players (this is often debated with the scripture from Stallings' Letters to The Deuce).

Since there has been a rise in the idolizing of Stallings as the Second Coming of the Bear, the beginning of his head coaching tenure would start the New Testament of the Bama Bible. A traditional reading during the New Year's season is the exemplary battle against Miami in the Sugar Bowl. Especially, as the struggle is detailed in Book of Jay Chapter 2, verses 7 & 8: "And lo the divine beams of the Lord shone upon him and Stallings crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. The Alabama defense would hold Miami's Satanic minions from getting a first down." In later editions, the triumphs of our football alumnus in the professional leagues would be under Acts.

Are you beginning to understand the need this university has to set the record straight on the crusades of our football players in a manner that would be greatly embraced by all Alabama football disciples? Once the University of Alabama is able to compile these scriptures, the world will be a more pleasant place to live, and "Forrest Gump" infidels will suffer.