It was a perfect, late November afternoon in 1994. If you were a Gator fan.
The University of Florida Gators (9-1) football team was ahead of the Florida State Seminoles (9-1) by a whopping score of 31 to 3 as the fourth quarter rolled around. All of the Gator fans in my end of Doak Campbell Stadium were packing it in early and laughing as they headed off for victory drinks at the nearest bar.
I wanted to leave, too, right along with the gloating faithful from my alma mater, but my dear friend, the writer and commentator Diane Roberts, told me to remain seated.
"I have never left a Seminoles football game early in my entire life since I was 8-years-old, and I am not about to start today," Roberts said in polite-but-firm tone.
I was an invited guest in the Roberts family"s block of season-ticket seats, so I sat my happy b**t back down. Little did I know that I was about to be one of the few Gators left in the stands to witness one of the greatest comebacks in college football history: The Choke at Doak.
The hometown crowd went into seizures of joy as the Seminoles put an impressive 28 points on the board in the fourth quarter, leaving the game tied at 31. There was no overtime play in those days, so the FSU fans decided to treat the tie as a victory.
It was a perfect, late November afternoon in 1994. If you were a Seminole fan.
Roberts and I celebrated the draw in the most Tallahassee fashion possible. We drove to the Books-A-Million on the Apalachee Parkway and stood in a small, roped-off corner reserved for the press as we watched ex-Seminoles halfback and Southern-fried movie star Burt Reynolds sign copies of his book for a long line of swooning female fans.
The casual observer may find it strange that Roberts a scholarly academic who teaches at Florida State, holds a Ph.D degree from Oxford University in England, provides commentary for NPR and regularly rips Florida politics in various Florida newspapers - decided to write about college football in her latest book, "Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America" (Harper). I do not.
Even brainy Southern writers who love William Faulkner and Flannery O"Connor can possess a weak spot when it comes to smash-mouth football in the South.
"I"m a Seminole lifer," Roberts writes in "Tribal." "I grew up in Tallahassee, looking forward to the rhythm of fall Saturdays, making potato salad for the tailgate, making sure for the 14th time that we had the tickets and the parking pass and the corkscrew, singing the fight song and spelling F-L-O-R-I-D-A S-T-A-T-E (proving that education in Florida is not completely a lost cause), settling in to experience the ecstasy and terror of the contest."
That said, don"t get the idea that "Tribal," which officially hits bookstores on Oct. 27, is a rah-rah sports book written for the FSU faithful and the FSU Boosters. Roberts, who is famous for her sharp wit and razor-edged pen, takes college football to task. She delves into such hot-button topics as race, rape-culture and religion. Entire chapters are devoted to FSU football star Jameis Winston"s infamous behavior off the field and the hazing death of the FAMU Marching 100"s drum major Robert Champion during an away game in Orlando. One irreverent chapter is called "G*d Is My Offensive Coordinator."
Roberts, who has also taught at the University of Alabama before joining the FSU faculty eight years ago, definitely maintains a love-hate relationship with the sport; she"s a self-professed feminist with a football problem.
"I can"t quit college football," Roberts writes in "Tribal." "It"s like a bad boyfriend: you hate that he"s so right-wing, his table manners embarrass you, he"s barely read a book, and you don"t want your mother to meet him, but d**n, he"s so fine and makes you feel so good (when he isn"t making you feel so bad), you just can"t help yourself."
FSU Coach Jimbo Fisher probably won"t be buying copies of "Tribal" to use as recruiting tools for new players.
"Well, I doubt they will give it as a fundraiser present," Roberts said during a recent interview. "On the other hand, I have tenure and if academic freedom means anything .... You know, I take shots at other universities, too. I just happen to know mine best. At least, we never had a very long history of waving the Confederate battle flag, they should just count their lucky stars on that. They could still be trying to talk people out of singing "Dixie," which they are at Ole Miss. Good lord."
Even though "Tribal" takes satirical jabs and is filled with biting criticism, Roberts said her love for FSU should shine through it all.
"My affection for FSU is clear - I chose to teach at FSU because it"s home," Roberts said. "My parents went to FSU, h**l, my great-great-grandfather Luther Tucker went to FSU before the Civil War - when it was the Seminary West of the Suwannee. But I"d like FSU to be less of a hostage to the football industrial complex, better at preparing all those kids who will not become NFL gazillionaires for a life beyond football. I satirize because I care."
EXCERPTS FROM "Tribal"
Diane Roberts will read from "Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America" at 8 p.m. Nov. 17 at The Warehouse, 706 W. Gaines St. It"s free and open to the public. Here are some excerpts:
On college ball: "It"s the preferred sport of Republicans, climate-change deniers, Christian fundamentalists, and people who think every American foreign policy issue can be solved by the 101st Airborne."
On Bobby Bowden"s arrive in Tallahassee in the mid-"70s: "Seminoles swiftly fell in love with him: such nice manners! a cross between Rhett Butler and Billy Graham, a Bible-witnessing, witticism-spouting, mama-complimenting, twinkly-eyed, self-deprecating Southern performance artist with a first-class line in charming b.s."
On Bobby Bowden"s return to Doak Campbell, after his forced resignation, in 2013: "The vain, old country-boy King Lear sulked for three years before he agreed to come celebrate the 20th anniversary of his - and Florida State"s - first national championship. ... The 80,000 of us in the stands cheered and whooped, forgiving the old man for having presided over our team"s decline and for acting as if Tallahassee would have collapsed into a heap of red dust without him."
On knowing Southern fans by what they carry and wear: "Cocktail shaker in the glove compartment of the Jeep? Probably went to LSU. Wears pearls to bed? Went to Randolph-Macon. Owns a kilt? Sewanee. Camo in church? Texas A&M. Keeps saying he could have gone to Yale? Duke. Knows a suspicious amount about livestock? Auburn."
On a certain quarter back for the Florida Gators: "Tim Tebow is the acme of godly jockhood. Football players, both college and pro, name-check Jesus about as often as they chug Gatorade, but when it comes to teeth-achingly earnest piety, he makes every man jack of them look like mere country club Whiskypalians."
On Jameis Winston getting special treatment from the TPD: "But football, especially football in towns like Tallahassee, lives inside a golden bubble, and the police treated Jameis Winston as though he traveled under a diplomatic passport."
On Winston"s most infamous, troubling rape accusation: "The sorry tale of Jameis Winton and Erica Kinsman demonstrates how college football is knotted up with history, race, and s*x. Whose body is more valuable: the black athlete or the white girl. In a nation of white people historically jittery about black male sexuality, Jameis didn"t help his cause by putting out an Instagram video in which he and a teammate sing a rapey version of a rap song: "She said she wants to take it slow/ I"m not the type of guy, I"ll letcha know/ When I see that red light, all I know is go.""
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Source: http://www.tallahassee.com/story/entertainment/2015/10/09/fsu-football-fans-ready-arrival-tribal/73633378/
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