I could have just as well been talking another language when I would mention to my Southern friends about being a major Boston sports fan, I had a lot to talk about..Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics, Patriots and the Revolution.
Icons like Ted Williams, Bobby Orr, Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Tom Brady to name a few. The stories I tell about being a Red Sox fan growing up and how painful that was - doesn't do well down here. Come on..remember Bill Buckner? Local Tallahassee sports icons ? Charlie Ward, Bobby Bowden, Mike Martin (has coached the FSU baseball team for 167 years).
Comparing two non player Northern and Southern sports icons:: In Boston when you thought of a cigar and victory, for many years you thought of Red Auerbach:
As general manager and team president of the Celtics, he won an additional seven NBA titles, for a grand total of 16 in a span of 29 years, making him one of the most successful team officials ever in the history of North American professional sports.
Down south, when you see this:
You think of only one man- Paul William "Bear" Bryant
During his twenty-five year tenure as Alabama's head coach he amassed six national championships and thirteen conference championships. Upon his retirement in 1982 he held the record for most wins as head coach in collegiate football history.
I don't remember a fan up north with a tattoo of Auerbach......
Serous stuff there!
College football down south is religion: I would go into work the day after a Monday night pro football game and ask the sports fans down here if they enjoyed the game..9 times out of ten I would get the response “oh,I don’t watch pro football”
Southern sports fans may occasionally support a pro team, from where I live, there are no major pro teams around, so some may adopt the Atlanta Braves, TB Rays, TB Buccaneers etc…
Southern Football fans are major college football fans. Imagine the Super Bowl and the 7th game of the World Series rolled into one..that’s every Saturday down here in the south during college football season. Up east, college football was not so much in the limelight, usually relegated to the second or third page in the sports section behind all the major pro teams. Go Eagles!
Here, it’s headline news, even during the off season.I happen to move to Tallahassee from Boston during Florida States run for a national title. What and experience and one that I will never forget.
Nowadays the team is not doing so well. The mood of the whole town is in the hands of the Seminole football team. I mean, everybody, EVERYBODY gets in a really bad mood with a loss: They start asking for the heads of anybody related to the team. And when the boosters start to question the team....
But win..and....
Now, I am not saying that the fans of Boston sports teams did not suffer after a loss, it's really different down here...maybe because FSU Football is the only major game in town?
During my first FSU/Florida Gator game at a local establishment, I had to use the men's room, pulling up to the urinal, I noticed that I would be peeing on a Steve Spurrier (Gator coach at the time) urinal deodorizer. That was a first for me. Why do I remember this?
I would wonder what was in the toil...errr never mind....
Oh, and in Tallahassee they do not sell any alcohol in the stands at game time,that doesn't stop the students from thinking of ways to bring it in...
Yup, plasma bags..fill it up with your favorite libation tuck it under the arm put on a shirt and off you go..
My experience with rivalries was Yankees/Red Sox - Celtics/Lakers; here it’s Seminoles/Gators - Seminoles/Hurricanes. Wearing orange on game day here (Gator colors) is like wearing orange at a St. Patrick's day parade in South Boston- You just don’t do it. Plus...they do things like this...
NASCAR:
I never got race car driving while up North, and I still don’t get it now that I am in the South. Maybe because as a Boston driver we were actually in a race to survive the roadways everyday - no big deal?
I don't know, Watching vehicles go round and round and round and round…and round does not want to make me paint my face and sit in the stands for any amount of time. But as you know, these races pack em in.
If someone could let me know what it is that I am missing with NASCAR, I would really appreciate it. I respect all who enjoy this sport, I have yet to understand why.
