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By B.J. Bennett
SouthernPigskin.com Senior Editor
SouthernPigskin.com Senior Editor B.J. Bennett continues his original series on football in the south.
Down Here V is the fifth installment of Bennett's continuing series on southern college football. Click to read Down Here I, Down Here II, Down Here III or Down Here IV. Email Bennett your southern college football thoughts at .
It's an old saying that "...music is what feelings sound like". Whether you are getting fired up with traditional southern rockers like Lynard Skynyrd or Molley Hatchet, enjoying a Sunday afternoon with Dawson, Georgia's first son Otis Redding or slowing things down with Forrest City, Arkansas native Al Green or Charlotte, North Carolina's own Anthony Hamilton, music speaks for us. It embodies our emotions, fills our gaps and says the things we just can't get across.
Like a smile, a nod or, at times, tears, music can represent so many different things. Joy, pain, love, confusion, angst, understanding; music can blend such emotion together like a spoon stirs sugar and milk into a cup of coffee. Blues in New Orleans, Louisiana, country in Nashville, Tennessee, gospel in Atlanta, Georgia; different parts of the country have their own tune and flow.
In so many ways, college football is the sound of the south. Just like our favorite song, the game, and the camaraderie that comes with it, prompts an overflow of emotion we can't contain or even explain. Triumphs by our favorite teams, memories from great games, those highlights are the soundtracks of our autumn. While a song may take you back to your first kiss or first heartbreak, may remind you of a special friend or relative, a legendary player or historic play takes us back to a simpler time and place. Saturday afternoons and evenings spent with family and friends; in the south, those moments are intertwined in our upbringing just like a song. Both take us back. Only one takes us all the way back with an impromptu dance soon to follow.
Maybe it's the sounds from gameday we remember most. The feeling we get when we hear our favorite team's fightsong, the sudden roar that stems from a big play, the collective gasp in a moment of uncertainty, even the soundtrack of the car ride to the stadium. Those sounds are the pillars that construct our experiences, our memories and ultimately our lives.
Having grown up on the Florida gulf coast and the Intercoastal Waterway of south Georgia, football was the theme that branded my immediate and extended family together. Before I turned 18, I had been to over 70 college football games in 12 different venues. As trite as it may sound (for lack of a better phrase), tunes that stop me in my tracks, the Gator Chomp and the Warchant, Glory, Glory to Ole' Georgia, Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech, represent an overstuffed collage of meaningful stories with people I hold dear. Wins and losses aside, those experiences and the sounds that represent them better than I could ever tell or write about them, sprinkled my transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Looking back on my youth, it's not the birthday parties, the Christmas mornings or the trips to the stadium I remember in great detail. It's the sounds that came with them. While those beats may be school's fight songs and routine sounds from gameday, they are my unique soundtrack, each individual track with a very special meaning.
Sound fuels our desire. Anyone who has been to Senior Prom or on a Honeymoon can attest to that. We never can get enough. On the couch, we reach for the remote then look for the up arrow. In the car, you lean forward to turn the volume up a notch. On the field, our favorite players stand straight up, hold their hands to the side of their helmets then call for more noise. When in need of a big play, an entire sideline of players will turn and raise their arms into the air, the end result fueling their adrenaline and oftentimes their efforts.
"It's obviously a great win for us. The crowd was fantastic for us today, a lot of support especially at the end of the game," Alabama head coach Nick Saban acknowledged after the Crimson Tide beat Ole Miss in Tuscaloosa last season. "I'm not sure that that didn't have an effect on the outcome as much as anything."
In the stadium, we scream, we yell, we shout. We sigh, we gasp, we laugh. What are we really doing? Speaking, sharing our feelings and emotions with those on the field and those next to us in the stands. Though words may never be uttered, the meaning is crystal clear. To Florida Gator fans, that phrase took on a special new meaning for the second time in three years last fall.
Even some of the calls of our favorite announcers take on a musical cue. In and around Athens, fans will sing along with famous former broadcaster Larry Munson when recalling their epic comeback against Tennessee in Neyland Stadium, "We just stepped on their face with a hobnail boot and broke their nose! We crushed their face!" Nothing has ever sounded sweeter.
In the moments after a win over an archrival, "Sweet Home Alabama" has a whole new ring to it. Riding home after a disappointing loss, Ray Charles or George Strait seem to hit the spot and put it all in perspective. Their advice is generally better than anything a friend could ever say.
Music and sound makes things better, makes them more profound. It makes experiences more surreal, makes feelings more sincere and makes memories more vivid and clear. In the south, football is our favorite album. Forget platinum, down here we prefer orange and blue, red and black, crimson and cream and Carolina Blue.
Next take you're at a game or enjoying a tailgate with friends, close your eyes and appreciate the moment. You'll see a whole new side of things. The south has a beat and a sound all its own and, as 85,000 can attest to in numerous college towns every fall Saturday, down here every concert is live.
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