For those of us who lived it, it was the Woodstock of our generation, with even less showering. So FanHouse sent Clay Travis in search of the masters of the soaring golden football, the electronic gladiators of Tecmo Super Bowl. This is their story, eight bits of gridiron glory at a time. Nay, this our story. Part I can be found here.
My name is Clay Travis and I'm in love with a video game, Tecmo Super Bowl. There, I said it.
That's why I've traveled all the way to Madison, Wisc., to compete against 87 strangers in the largest Tecmo Super Bowl tournament on Earth. I've already lost my first game 21-14 and now I'm playing one of the best players in the tournament, Josh Holzbauer, a defending champion.
And I have to win or else I will be eliminated from the tournament and have nothing to do but walk outside and kick icy snow drifts.
It's 11 in the morning, I'm 30, my wife and son are back home in Nashville, and Barry Sanders is literally running circles around my defense. I can't tackle him. No matter how hard I try. Worse than that, my running back for the Minnesota Vikings, Herschel Walker, appears to have ingested 14 bottles of quaaludes and a bottle of gin. He has no speed.
For the first half, I stay competitive.
Somewhat.
Trailing 14-0 late in the second quarter, I have a first and goal against the Detroit Lions. Score here, and since I deferred possession after winning the opening toss, I'll begin the second half with the ball and a chance to tie the game. My first down pass into the end zone is incomplete and then on second down I'm intercepted.
Josh has time for just one play, and he drops back to the end zone and uncorks the Tecmo Super Bowl Hail Mary.
Anyone who has ever played the game knows the aching feeling as the ball traverses the entire length of the field, climbing high into the video game sky.
Josh's receiver soars into the air to make the length of the field catch and scores as time expires.
It's 21-0 and my Tecmo Bowl tourney chances have just given up the ghost.
I lose 35-0 without marshaling much of an offensive effort.
Now I'm 0-2, it's barely 11:15 in the morning, and I'm effectively eliminated from contention.
It suddenly hits me that I'm in Madison, Wisc., about to spend eight hours watching other people play a video game.
16. With just one game remaining, my only goal is to win a single game.
That's what I've traveled this far to accomplish, a single win at a video game from 1991.
Nothing else matters.
My final competitor is Andrew Happel, a dark-haired player who is also 0-2, having failed to score against Josh or Bryan, the other competitors in our foursome, in his first two games. Andrew wins the toss and selects a match-up between the San Francisco 49ers and the Houston Oilers.
I take the 49ers.
Predictably, Andrews scores his first touchdown of the tournament on his opening drive.
Once more, I'm down 7-0.
Worse, Andrew's drive, featuring three fourth down conversions, has taken almost the entire first half. Worse than that? In fifteen plays, I have not managed to pick his play.
Not once.
There are only eight play options.
Many times Andrew has faced third or fourth down and long so I know he's going to be passing. Yet, even still, I can't stop him.
My hands are white-knuckled on the controller. I need something, anything, positive to happen.
17. I take possession.
On my second offensive play, Jerry Rice goes 70 yards for a touchdown.
Finally, I can exhale.
Then I get a stop and take my first lead of the tournament at 14-7.
From there I punch in a fourth quarter touchdown to finish with a win, 21-7.
It's now 11:30 in the morning and the bracket challenge portion of the tournament, the 32 single elimination games, won't commence until 3 p.m.
18. Bryan Johnson, who finishes 2-1 and will advance to bracket play, and I head for lunch at State Street Brats.
Over lunch we debate the lasting popularity of the game. Why, of all the video games we have ever played, this one stands out so much in our memory and has attained such a cult following. Why, in essence, even as adults we are willing to cross state lines to compete against other grown men we don't know.
Neither of us would make this trip for any other game.
Ultimately, we decide Tecmo Super Bowl's allure is a combination of many things: the inclusion of actual NFL players, the fact that unlike Madden there was not a yearly Super Tecmo Bowl update so the game captured several years of players without changing, the relative simplicity of the game that, unlike a modern Madden game, allowed everyone a chance to win, the season-long competitions and statistics keeping that allowed one game to build upon another, the impact of luck -- the Hail Mary length of field pass is the great equalizer -- and ultimately the psychological battles over play selection.
As we would later describe it, "The get in the dome factor."
Could you reliably predict what plays your opponent would run given the circumstances? Mere happenstance would suggest that one in eight times, you'd predict the right play of your opponent. But good players had a much higher rate of play selection than the odds would suggest. In fact, once you could get inside a player's head, a series of correct play calls wasn't impossible. In fact, it could become downright likely.
Not only were you playing a foe, you were reading an opponent, poker meets football.
19. By the time we return, the psychological intensity of the games has increased.
Banter is more limited. The players left in the tournament know how fine the video game line is between success and failure. How quickly the Tecmo Super Bowl gods can take vengeance on the unworthy.
As the bracketed games commence, Josh Holzbauer's girlfriend, Erin Holte, has arrived for the competition. After confessing that Josh destroyed me in an earlier game, I ask her about her boyfriend's obsession with a video game.
"I don't get it," she says.
Holte lives in Milwaukee and she and Josh are in a long-distance relationship. When she comes up to Madison, the games don't stop. "I'll watch him play 10-plus games a weekend," she says. "And it gets more intense in the month or two leading up to the tourney."
Does she mind?
"Not really, because he seems happier when he's playing."
20. Eliminated from competition, I walk among 16 opening round games, attempting to discern greater truths, Buddha-like, from listening to the sound of the trilling music.
I learn many things.
A.) Games between good competitors aren't very high scoring. No competitive game features a team putting up more than 30 points. In fact, if you can score 21 points in a regulation game, you stand a very good chance of winning in this tournament.
I'd debated this with people before I left for the games, whether offenses or defenses would predominate. For the most part, defenses keep offenses in check.
B.) Most good Tecmo Super Bowl players eschew length of field passes and other gambit plays in favor of more traditional, and higher probability of success plays.
While the length-of-the-field touchdown might be the most memorable play of the game, it isn't particularly effective. Not from a strict probability perspective, anyway.
Most good players only attempt these long passes at the end of halves or at the end of games, when scoring via another method is impossible.
C.) Scurrying out-of-bounds is common.
Why?
Because fumbles come at inopportune moments and avoiding contact keeps drives alive.
D.) In games between very talented players, luck is magnified.
Talent only occupies about 70 percent of a Tecmo Super Bowl game. The other 30 percent comes from what we affectionately call the Tecmo Super Bowl gods.
When will a fumble or interception come? Will open receivers inexplicably drop passes? All day long the largest groan comes when an open receiver drops a pass. There is simply no explaining the luck factor, but all of us are aware of it.
E.) Big gains are generally taken away and drives become important because they can milk away the entire half.
I watch one game featuring two great players. The score at the half is 3-0.
What's most impressive about the game? One of the players has only had five offensive plays in the first half.
Five!
F.) Really good players rarely give up gains of more than 30 yards.
Even when spectacular offensive players like Bo Jackson and Barry Sanders are in the open field, most defenders practice containment at this point, keeping a good gain from turning into a touchdown.
Which leads me to this:
21. Tecmo Super Bowl is like a poker match.
There's skill involved, but the luck factor is what ultimately makes the game addictive. Going to the river for the flip in poker? It's the equivalent of waiting for a Hail Mary pass to land as the final seconds of a game tick away.
Catch the length of field pass in the end zone and a last-second upset is possible even if you've played the game perfectly. You can never rest.
22. All players get along well, except for the guy wearing a Notre Dame jersey with J. Christ as the name on the back.
J. Christ is making his first and last appearance in the tournament and is rapidly eliminated. Rather than leave, he begins drinking beer by the pitcher.
Looking for a fight, J. Christ eventually finds a willing participant, another eliminated competitor. Suddenly there's a rush outside into the parking lot as the fight materializes.
J. Christ squares up in a 1910s boxing stance, fists moving in front of him like a brawler in the steerage section of the Titanic.
But before punches can be thrown J. Christ's girlfriend materializes in the parking lot and gets between he and his combatant.
Other than this, there's a respect for the game that is almost golf-like. No one attempts to look at the video game controller as a player selects plays, mutual respect governs the competition.
23. As the Sweet 16 arrives, it becomes clear that the truly good players have groupies.
Corner men, hype men, call them what you will, but these friends of the Tecmo players stand over the player's shoulders offering encouragement and leading cheers.
Bryan Johnson, eliminated in the previous round, and I agree that the finals need to be in Las Vegas. Replete with ring announcers and entrances to pulsing music.
24. By the Sweet 16, there are no heavy drinkers remaining.
Earlier, many competitors drank, now the games are too serious for alcohol. One false move with the controller, a missed tackle, a mistimed field goal, can spell doom. Read the rest here.
The first half of the 88 competitors arrive shortly before 10 a.m. on the first Saturday in March. We're meeting at the Badger Bowl, an old bowling alley four miles outside of downtown Madison, Wisc. It's a brilliant sunny morning, snow piles block out several parking places and dry ice cakes the black pavement. On the frozen lakes surrounding Madison, people play ice hockey, ice fish, and ice skate in brilliantly colored parkas that stand in stark contrast to the bright white snow reflecting in the sunshine. But we've not come to spend any time outside, inside we've all got serious work -- it's time for the world's largest Tecmo Super Bowl tournament.
It's dim inside the bowling alley. Already, amazingly, every bowling lane is occupied, but I don't see anyone playing Tecmo Super Bowl. For a moment, I allow myself to consider, what if this was an elaborate prank? What if there is no tournament and I've traveled to Wisconsin for no reason at all. Nervously passing the packed bowling lanes, eventually I come to a large bar replete with a stage and dance floor. Later, in the evening, an Ozzy Osborne cover band will take the stage and rock out for middle-aged bowlers. But that's in the future. In the present there are eleven flickering televisions of varying sizes, from old school big screens to 20 inch TVs, all turned to the greatest sports video game of all time. I breathe easier. I'm not alone in my love affair for a video game that is almost 20 years old. Competitors are getting in some last minute game prep. My heart skips a beat, I'm nervous and I don't know a single person. It's time for the sixth annual Tecmo Super Bowl tournament and I'm one of the competitors.
A man in a Randall Cunningham jersey stretches in front of the empty bracket stretched across a full length table. Another competitor walks up beside me, "I wish that jersey said, 'QB Eagles,'" he says. "That would be awesome."
Immediately, I am at ease. I'm among Tecmo Super Bowl friends. The joke, for those who are not diehard fans of the game, is that Randall Cunningham refused to allow his name to be used for the game. So he's identified on the screen as QB Eagles. The joke has a high hit rate for American men aged 25-40 who grew up playing sports video games. Otherwise, it's likely to be greeted with awkward silence.
I check in at the table with Josh Holzbauer, one of the event organizers, pay my $15 entry fee -- the winner will collect $400 -- and survey my surroundings: the eight-bit Nintendo machines, the vintage video game graphics flashing upon the screen, the bedraggled controllers that have, at two decades of age, survived many a video game war, and lots of grown men preparing to play the game they played as children. Suddenly I remember the feeling of eighth grade crushes, geometry homework, the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," and midnight curfews ... what it felt like to stay up all night sitting front of a television screen with your best friends playing a video game over and over again.
Across the ocean in Paris, Marcel Proust remembered the past with madeleines, I remember the past with Tecmo Super Bowl.
"Find your stations," yells Josh Holzbauer.
It's finally time for the competition. But how, you might be wondering, did I end up here? Follow along on a journey into the heart of Tecmo Super Bowl.
1. My pregnant wife and 2-year old son drop me off at the Nashville airport shortly before 7:30 Friday night. I will be away from them for two days to participate in a video game tournament for a game that was released in December of 1991.
In December, 1991, I was 12 years old.
My wife thinks this is odd. She also thought it was odd when she would see her husband play an old video game with his friends whenever they came back into town. Grown men, bent over old controllers, frantically pushing one of two buttons, a or b, with all of our might, as if the world's fate depended upon it.
Which, to be fair, it sometimes felt like it did.
But here's the thing about Tecmo Super Bowl, every man who played the game, is jealous of my trip to play against other grown men. Since December of 1991 when the game was released, it has been popular. Now, just shy of twenty years later, the game has one of the greatest cult followings in video game history.
But unlike when you were young and there were always friends to play with, now we're all grown. If you're like me you probably live in a house with a wife and at least one child. And even if you're not married and don't have children, you probably don't have the time to spend an entire day playing an old video game with your friends.
So in some way, my trip to Wisconsin is like a trip back in time.
2. To reach the Tecmo Super Bowl tournament, I'm flying something called Midwest Air.
Yeah, you've never heard of it either.
As part of my travel, I have either a layover or stopover in Milwaukee. I'm uncertain which it is because while my plane will be the same, I have to disembark and then reboard.
In the process of disembarking, I lose my ticket to reboard for the second leg to Madison. So I have to get a new ticket from the desk clerk.
Five minutes later after I'm reticketed, we reboard.
Only there's one problem -- I've managed to lose my new ticket.
"I just gave you that ticket five minutes ago," an exasperated desk clerk says.
"I know," I say. "I apologize for my incompetence."
I've always had an ability to lose boarding passes. Last year, I opened a book I'd been reading four years ago, "The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber," and found my boarding pass for a Southwest flight to Albuquerque, NM.
I'd lost the ticket four years prior.
"You really lost it?" the desk clerk asks. "How is that possible?"
"I'm really not sure," I say, "but it's gone."
"What are you doing in Madison?" she asks. I believe she asks this question to relieve the tension between us. Either that or her question was a ploy designed to elicit whether or not I posed a threat to the other travelers.
"I'm going to a video game tournament," I say.
"Just go," she says.
3. Near midnight, I arrive in Madison, Wisc.
On the way to my hotel, booked less than a mile from the Badger Bowl, traffic stalls in front of a train crossing. Several Midwesterners, noting that no train is coming for a long time, hop out of their cars and take it upon themselves to lift the guardrails and wave cars through.
I've never seen this happen before.
Which brings me to my big observation about life in the South as compared to life in the Midwest. In the South, the people are friendlier, but less organized. If you ask a Southern person how to get somewhere, we'll talk to you for 15 minutes, but inevitably our directions will be incorrect because there is no real purpose to any of our roads. The cities have grown too rapidly for us to really have any idea about directions, and we never have any idea what the actual names of roads are anyway. Probably because the road names change so frequently. Plus, we don't really use the compass directions east, west, north and south. But we're friendly, so we'll pretend we know the directions to where you want to go.
In the Midwest, directions are infallible. The road signs are readily apparent, the roads don't change names, if you have directions you never get lost. I think this has something to do with the cold. There's a belief that you might die if you get lost in the Midwest.
And they don't want you to have to stop.
Getting lost is an insult.
4. Gameday arrives and I face the first dilemma of the competition: How do you get loose for a video game competition?
You can't stretch, right?
This really threw me for a loop. I was antsy and ready to play, but I didn't feel like there was anything I could do to channel the nervous energy.
Ultimately, I don't do anything.
5. My fellow competitors at the Badger Bowl appear, for the most part, to be between the ages of 24 and 36.
There are no girls.
Many players wear old jerseys honoring players who are featured in Tecmo Super Bowl. Ronnie Lott, Derrick Thomas, Brent Jones, Randall Cunningham, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and, interestingly, one Notre Dame jersey with the name J. Christ on the back.
Eleven states are represented: Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Rhode Island, New York and Tennessee.
As the competition nears, one girl, Jamie Morrone, materializes at the bar with her boyfriend. Jamie is a blonde twenty-something already wearing a blue t-shirt commemorating the day's competition. (I'm also wearing my own matching blue t-shirt with Tecmo VI emblazoned on the shirt and the state of Wisconsin in the background).
Asked if Morrone finds her boyfriend's obsession with a 1991 video game strange, she shrugs her shoulders, "I'm just supportive, and he's buying all my drinks for me," she says.
6. This is the sixth Tecmo Super Bowl competition, and with 88 competitors divided into 22 groups of four for first-round play, the largest tournament yet.
While it's the sixth competition, it's only the fifth year. The first competition, featuring 20 players, was such a success, that the guys couldn't wait an entire year for the second. So they played two in the first year.
This year's theme is, "They threw to Jerry." As in Tecmo legend Jerry Rice. As such, the overall tourney bracket has been divided into four regions named after Tecmo quarterbacks: Joe Montana, Rich Gannon, Steve Young, and Chris Miller.
Chris Miller was the toughest connection to find. Ultimately the guys discovered that Miller threw a touchdown pass to Jerry Rice in the 1991-92 Pro Bowl.
7. One of the competitors in my group is Bryan Johnson, a 26-year-old Chicago White Sox video coordinator.
Johnson and I talk as we await the beginning of our competition. Johnson tightly clutches a piece of folded over white paper. He has run fifty season simulations on the game to come up with relative team values, ranked 1-28. He's averaged up the number of wins each team put together in fifty simulations, while also creating a column of each team's highest and lowest win total. He's averaged the performances and utilized those numbers to assign a power ranking to each Tecmo team.
Johnson is slightly embarrassed by the work, but only slightly. He also has a good sense of humor about his obsession. "I don't have a girlfriend," he says. "Shocking."
Johnson has driven up from Chicago for the competition. "I wouldn't do it for any other video game," he says.
I know exactly what he means.
8. There are many rules associated with the competition.
Lots of them are detailed and only hardcore players of the video game would know their significance. You can read those rules here.
But one rule that is incredibly important is this: you have to be prepared to play with any of the 28 teams on the game.
Hence Johnson's simulation and ranking of team strength.
Before each contest a coin is flipped, the winner of the coin flip selects the two teams, and then the loser of the coin flip gets first pick of the two teams.
It's a brilliant system to keep match-ups fair.
Lawrence Taylor book9. Before we start there is a dramatic reading from LT: Over the Edge Tackling Quarterbacks, Drugs and a World Beyond Football.
The author?
Tecmo Super Bowl God, Lawrence Taylor.
The excerpt is short, dealing with Taylor's rookie season, and the usual requirement that each rookie stand up during training camp and be humiliated by being forced to sing his team fight song, answer ridiculous questions, and so on.
Lawrence Taylor's performance was different. He stood up in front of the New York Giants: "I'm LT," Taylor said, "Don't f*** with me."
10. Our television, the group E location, is tucked away in the corner of the bar, not one of the big screens.
Two high bar stools sit in front of the television. A wall is directly to our left.
To begin the tournament we have all been divided into pools of four teams, World Cup style. Two players will advance from each foursome, after which time a 32-team single-elimination tournament will commence.
11. Each of the 10 televisions feature a Jerry Rice memorial coin. On one side is Jerry Rice's head, on the other side is a logo for the NFL Quarterback Club.
My first game is against Bryan Johnson, a guy who has run 50 simulations to value the teams.
We're both nervous. While I haven't run the simulations, I have done a Google search to find someone else's rankings based on simulations. I pull out my iPhone and survey the rankings after I win the toss.
I select two evenly matched teams: the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.
Johnson has read my column and knows that the Chiefs are my team. Yet the Eagles are higher rated on his sheet.
"I'll let you have your team," he says.
12. "I'm really nervous," Johnson says, fidgeting on the stool beside me.
Truth be told, I'm nervous too. While I don't expect to win the tournament, I do expect to be competitive. And above all else, I don't want to be blown out. Yet, what if I've come to a tournament where men can manipulate Tecmo Super Bowl players like Leonardo Da Vinci could paint?
What if I'm in for an absolute mauling, a video game decapitation?
Johnson takes the ball first and attempts a long field goal on fourth down. Jittery, he pushes it wide left.
"Damn," he says.
With good field position, I take over the ball and go to my favored player, Christian Okoye, the man who I'd name my own son after, on a running play towards the top of the screen.
It's Okoye time!
13. But the Nigerian Nightmare fails me.
Johnson picks my play and his defense swarms Okoye, who fumbles on the first hit of the game. The ball spirals into the air, sickening music accompanying the bounding ball.
Jerome Brown of the Eagles, RIP, scoops up the ball and rushes it to the end zone.
Just like that, I'm down 7-0.
My mouth is dry. I'm shell-shocked. I reach behind me and take a drink of someone else's water.
"That was a big play," Johnson says.
My opponent takes possession again after a stop and converts a forth down by half a football length. (In Tecmo Super Bowl when the chains are brought out for measurement, the ball is either a first down by a half of a length or short by half a length.)
On the same drive, Johnson scores to go up 14-0.
14. Ultimately, I find myself trailing 21-0 at halftime.
Generally, a three-score second-half deficit is impossible to overcome in Tecmo Super Bowl, because there simply isn't enough time.
But I stage a spirited comeback and slice Johnson's lead to 21-14 on Okoye's second rushing touchdown of the game. Facing a third down deep in his territory with around 30 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, Johnson reaches into his Tecmo Super Bowl bag of tricks and calls a punt on third down.
Why?
Because the clocks runs so rapidly on punts that I will have no chance to run another play.
(By the time you read this I'll be on a plane headed for Madison, Wisconsin where the Tecmo Super Bowl tournament will be played on Saturday.)
There has never been a better sports video game than Tecmo Super Bowl. Ever. Period. In fact, I'll go this far: if you are male and between the ages of 22-35 and cannot tell me who your favorite Tecmo Super Bowl player is within five seconds of being asked, there is a 100 percent chance you have wasted your entire life.
There are very few players in my life who, merely by being mentioned, stir fond memories within me. So what if many of these memories occurred on a computerized field inside my television screen instead of in real life? Nick Lowry, Robb Thomas, Christian Okoye, Barry Word, and Steve DeBerg, your pixilated alter-egos all made me a better man. And even though I've never been to Kansas City and don't even know a real person from Kansas City, I love the 1991 Kansas City Chiefs with a passion. To some people this might seem weird, to me it makes perfect sense.
It's en vogue to criticize kids these days because they spend all day playing video games when they should be learning life lessons by reading the Koran or baking cookies for old people. I say, this criticism is pure balderdash. If I were ever given another course to teach in college -- Vanderibilt has already made that mistake once -- I'm convinced every life lesson could be culled from my Tecmo Super Bowl gaming experience. I would call this class, The Tao of Tecmo Super Bowl, and my students would emerge with a more refined and nuanced view of life. Plus their thumbs would be very strong and extremely dexterous.
89Share This is because I firmly believe the majority of my moral code was hewed on the hardscrabble and pixilated universe of my old-school Nintendo's football screen.
Come Saturday I will be competing in a Tecmo Super Bowl tournament with 88 other Tecmo Super Bowl diehards. You can read the details of that tournament, which I will write about on Monday, here. Until then, dive in and experience the 46 life lessons that the greatest sports video game in creation taught me.
(Editor's Note: These life lessons originally ran on Clay Travis' Web site four years ago.)
1. Some people are just flat out better than others at things. For example Lawrence Taylor is the Christ figure of Tecmo Super Bowl. LT is omniscient, all-knowing and everywhere at once, blitzing the quarterback until the QB flees into the end zone, at which point LT turns and races into the nowhere of the screen only to reemerge at the other end zone in time to bat the pass away from an open wide receiver. It is no coincidence that both LT and He have two letters.
2. Words can hurt ... use them liberally.
3. When wide receivers miss passes their fingers resemble cheerleaders in the throes of the always classic spirit fingers. So the sexes, while different, are equal.
4. Fumbles make a goofy sound when they escape from your player's hands. Be alert to all goofy sounds.
5. Greed is good. Feel free to run Okoye the Untackle-able until the Nigerian government criticizes you for your wanton lack of consideration for his health.
6. Occasionally players are going to charge into the stands and create a maelstrom of turmoil. This was why when the Indiana Pacers took on the Detroit Pistons fans I was unmoved. I'd seen it all before on a Tecmo Super Bowl out-pattern that ended in the fourth row.
7. Greed can be bad. Randall Cunningham and Jim Kelly are both idiots for refusing to license their likenesses to Tecmo Super Bowl. Such a decision deprived these men from the eternal glory that could have been theirs for a mere pittance of a licensing sum. Steve Grogan laughs in their general direction.
8. Despite everything you've heard about life being composed of a myriad of options, there are really only eight. Four involve passing and four involve running. If one of these options is not good enough for you then move to Russia and take up communal farming you communist pig.
9. Taking the road less traveled really just means you like to run the flea flicker more often than you should.
10. Thou shalt not peek at another man's controller during play selection.
11. Audibling out of plays should not be allowed no matter what. We must fail in order to succeed. I think Quincy Carter learned this rule too well.
12. Most fans are indistinguishable masses of humanity that are only there to pay attention to what you are doing on the field. Also, they all do the same thing at the same time, so if one person is mad at you, everyone is mad at you. Incidentally, this is the only rule that Rasheed Wallace follows.
13. At times the best response to any situation is to just take your punishment. Ergo, when another player picks your play, frantically attempt to pass the ball (while risking interception) or take the safe sack. For rushing plays, turn backwards at your own peril; it's better to just hit the line and take your beating.
14. In the eyes of the Tecmo Super Bowl gods there is no race, creed or ethnicity; except for Bo Jackson, who is a God and not subject to the limitations of mere mortals.
15. Haste makes waste. Sometimes your defensive player will get blocked so hard he will sit on the field and his head will appear to be spinning. No matter how much you might want him to, he will not be able to stand and rush again until he has fully recovered from your misuse. Incidentally, this is also a clever subtextual metaphor for alcoholism.
16. There is no try ... just pass or run.
17. Everyone is happy when they leave the hospital ... even more so when they leave wearing a football uniform complete with pads.
18. Never run a reverse.
19. Invariably, when you are cursing at the football screen your mom will say, "It's just a game." Fifteen years later your wife will say the same thing. Accept that men are from Tecmo Super Bowl and women are the ones who pull the proverbial umbilical cord out of the wall that allows Tecmo Super Bowl to breathe.
20. Once you pick a team, stay with that team. I will be the Kansas City Chiefs until the day I die.
21. When something isn't working, just blow on it ... wait.
22. Sometimes you throw a perfect pass and it still doinks off your receiver's hands. Ergo, your plan may be perfect but your execution might still fail.
23. It may seem paradoxical, but sometimes running backwards can make you throw the football farther forwards.
24. Never substitute. God chooses starting lineups for a reason.
25. If you throw a football high enough into the air, it becomes golden.
26. Both Super Tecmo Bowl and life breed strange bedfellows, but do not shy from these connections. For instance, I would give former Kansas City Chiefs kicker Nick Lowry a kidney if he needed one.
27. Everyone has a male friend who always says something like, "I can't believe you guys are sitting around playing this old video game again." This person is not really your friend.
28. Acceptable pause in the game: you are overcome by laughter over your 58th successful juke move in a row with fullback Barry Word; unacceptable pause in the game: your wife is in labor.
29. Sometimes it takes more of a man to concede defeat than to continue battling. If you are down 28 or more points ... please start a new game.
Twenty years ago, on March 4, 1990, a mother watched her son take flight.
"He was so high," says Lucille Gathers Cheeseboro, two decades later. "And then when he came down, he was so low."
Taking flight was Hank Gathers, a soon-to-be NBA multimillionaire, who she'd already pledged to follow to whichever NBA city he called home when his career at Loyola Marymount ended. And why wouldn't she follow the second oldest of her four sons, the son who'd gone all the way across the country to play basketball at USC and left her in their hometown of Philadelphia?
"I cried for a couple of weeks," she said, "because I missed him so much and he was so far away."
But now, in Gathers' senior year, all was well with the decision. Her son Hank's Loyola Marymount team was 23-5, averaging 122.4 points per game and had scored over 100 points 28 times behind the controlled chaos instituted by head coach Paul Westhead. On Feb. 3, 1990, Gathers had dominated Shaquille O'Neal and LSU, posting 48 points and 13 rebounds in an overtime road loss at Baton Rouge.
Now, 29 days later, it was March, and time for a West Coast Conference quarterfinal game game against Portland. Time for Gathers and the Lions to make their run.
Sitting in the stands alongside Hank's mom on that March day in Los Angeles were two other sons, Derek and Chris, Lucille's sister, Carol Livingston, along with other family members and friends. "We had burgundy and red towels that the minister's wife had made for us. We were holding them up and cheering," says Lucille. The towels are emblazoned with slogans, "Hank," says one, "The Bank Man," says another, a nickname Westhead had given his star player.
Still standing from Hank's alley-oop dunk, the family crumbles as he hits the floor.
"I couldn't move," Lucille says.
Twenty years later, there are still some days when Lucille can't move. "I feel good this morning," she says, on a late February day when snow blankets the city of Philadelphia and keeps her indoors. "But some days I can't talk about it, can't mention his name. They say you don't get over a child dying, you get through it."
Her voice cracks, tremors.
"I'm still not through it."
******
Hank was Lucille's second child. Named Eric at birth, he acquired the nickname Hank from his father. Born on Feb. 11, 1967, Hank was closest with his brother Derek, who was born just 10 months later, on Dec. 30, 1967. The two would attend school in the same grade, closer to twins than brothers.
Hank Gathers and Bo KimbleHank was not a natural on the basketball court. In fact, according to high school and college teammate Bo Kimble, Hank didn't play much on their JV or freshman team. "He worked twice as hard as most players, Kimble said. "Nothing came easy to him."
One day in high-school practice, Kimble drove to the basket and attempted a windmill dunk. Hank jumped, met him at the rim, and blocked the shot so hard that Kimble feared he'd hyperextended his arm. Kimble was furious. "We played basketball the Philly way," Kimble said. "That meant that when we were between the lines, we were not friends. If I'd tried to windmill dunk with the other hand, he'd have hypextended that one too."
Furious, Kimble was ready to fight. As calm as could be, Hank approached him after practice. "Don't forget we've got a meeting at 6," Hank said.
"He'd left it all on the court! Already!"
While in high school, Hank also developed a reputation as a prankster, once lighting Kimble's sneakers on fire after practice. "We'd just had practice," recalls Derek Gathers, "and Hank disappeared. Next thing you know he's under the [locker room bench] and Bo's sneaker is on fire."
As Kimble recalls, "He should have lit them on fire. They were horrible sneakers, the cheapest shoes. The soles were so bad, I felt like I was playing in skates. As Kimble watched his shoes smolder, Gathers said simply, '"You ain't wearing those sneakers again."
By his senior season, wearing number 44 on the basketball court for Dobbins Tech, Gathers blossomed into a major college prospect, winning a Philadelphia city basketball title alongside Kimble. He and Kimble committed to play together in college at USC.
After the coaching staff that recruited them to USC was fired following their freshman year, Gathers and Kimble transferred to Loyola Marymount, a small Catholic university in Los Angeles with an undergraduate enrollment of less than 5,000.
Basketball success followed rapidly. As a junior, Gathers led the nation in scoring with 33 points, and rebounding with 14 per game, a feat that only two players have managed in the history of major college basketball.
But in December, something scary happened, Gathers collapsed while attempting a free throw at UC-Santa Barbara.
Back in Philadelphia, Lucille received a phone call that woke her in bed and informed her of her son's collapse. "I thought they were kidding," she said, "because he always had trouble at the foul line."
Doctors found he had an abornmal heatbeat and and prescribed a beta blocker. Gathers missed two games in December and returned for a Dec. 30 contest against Niagara.
A shocked Lucille didn't know what to believe. "I'm just thinking this thing was going to go away. He's too big, he's too strong, there's no way anything is wrong with him."
Twenty years later, she wishes she'd insisted that an entire battery of doctors examine her son. But that's in the future, when she will have two decades to examine every moment, minutes, hours, and days that stretch onto infinity that can lead her to ask a simple question, "Why?"
Intent on watching her son play in the West Coast Conference tournament, Lucille climbs on a plane and travels to California.
******
There are 13 minutes and 34 seconds left in the first half. Hank Gathers has just dunked off an alley-oop pass and is running up the court. The cheers from inside the gym are still loud and cresting when Gathers falls to the ground.
Gathers' maternal aunt, Carol Livingston, is the first to arrive alongside Hank's prone body. "Somebody do something! Somebody please do something!" she screams.
Lucille, in shock, arrives on the court later. Her son has a pulse, but is incapable of speech. His eyes flutter, doctors attend to him and then rush him to the hallway to use a recently purchased defibrillator.
Lucille's son is rushed to the hospital where doctors work on him for over an hour, attempting to save his life.
Multiple teammates arrive at the hospital still wearing their uniforms.
Just over an hour after his collapse, Hank Gathers is pronounced dead.
******
Hank Gathers was funny. That's what his coach Paul Westhead recalls 20 years later. "He had an incredible wit," Westhead says. "On the team bus, he'd take the microphone and talk about every player and coach as we got on the bus." Westhead, now the women's basketball coach at Oregon, pauses for a moment, laughs softly, "No one escaped the humorous wrath of Hank Gathers."
And opponents didn't escape him on the court.
"He didn't have the size of Karl Malone, but he played like Malone could," Westhead says. "He'd get rebounds on anybody and could score on them too. Like Malone at his best, he was unstoppable. Against LSU and Shaq he had 48 points and 20 rebounds." "When [Gathers] fell down, I wanted them to get him back up. I always thought he would get back up. " -- Paul Westhead Westhead is silent for a bit longer, "When he fell down, I wanted them to get him back up. I always thought he would get back up."
******
Lucille flies across the country to bury her son. Thousands turn out for his funeral in Philadelphia. So many people pile into the church that they play the service for an overflow crowd standing outside in the cool air.
"I flew back with his body on the plane," Lucille says, "they didn't tell me he was with us."
So overcome with grief is Lucille that she can't attend her son's burial. Instead, she's at the hospital, being treated for a racing heartbeat.
******
The West Coast Conference suspends the tournament and awards Loyola Marymount, the regular-season champion, the league's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Seeded 11th, Loyola Marymount faces a first-round game against sixth-seeded New Mexico State. Just 11 days after Hank's death, Kimble, Hank's teammate and best friend, leads Hank's team onto the court.
In memory of Hank, Kimble shoots the first free throw of that game left-handed. "It just came into my mind," says Kimble of the idea. "Hank had struggled so much at the free throw line that he'd switched to left-handed. His form was better then."
To Kimble it didn't matter if the shot went in. "I didn't care if it ended up like that old Larry Bird commercial, with the ball bouncing over the backboard and going on down the street. The message was to Hank: I love you, I respect you, and this is for you."
Against New Mexico State, Kimble toed the line and lifted the ball with his left hand.
Nothing but net.
Loyola rushes past favored New Mexico State, 111-92.
Back in Philadelphia, Lucille catches a few moments of the game.
"I cried through most of it, but I tried to watch," she says.
******
Remarried since Hank's death, Lucille says that occasionally her second husband finds her crying. "He understands that sometimes I have to cry it out. Sometimes I just miss him more than other times. I don't know why."
In her bedroom, Lucille keeps a photograph of her son in his Loyola Marymount uniform. He inscribed the photo to her, "To Mom, I love you very much," Hank has written.
"I look at that photograph all the time," Lucille says.
After Hank's death hundreds of letters pour into the family from all over the world. Lucille reads them all. She has her pastor get a copy of the photograph and she writes back to every person who sent her a letter.
She signs Hank's name alongside her name, and the name of her other three sons.
"The letters made me feel better," she says.
Still, she lies awake at night wondering, among other things, how much different Hank's son's life would have been had her own son lived.
"Hank's son, Aaron, is 26 now. He still lives in Philadelphia, but every time I see him I wish he'd have really known his father."
******
First-round winners, Loyola Marymount faces the defending national champion in the second round, third-seeded Michigan.
Once more, Kimble toes the line for the first free throw of the game, the left-handed shot.
Nothing but net -- again.
Heavy underdogs once more, Loyola could not miss, pounding the Wolverines, 149-115.
That's right, 149 points.
In the process, Loyola sets 11 NCAA tournament records.
The team was into the Sweet 16 and the entire nation was rooting for them. Kimble's picture graces the cover of Sports Illustrated. On his left shoulder is a number, 44, an emblem for Hank.
Twenty years later, Kimble, who will be drafted eighth by the Los Angeles Clippers, will have visited 40 countries, including Africa three times. Each time he visits Africa, locals approach him. They know the Loyola Marymount story, they want to talk about the left-handed free throw, they want to touch his hand.
"It's simply amazing," Kimble says.
******
"I have a Hank room in my basement with all his trophies," Lucille says. "I've also got lots of videos that the school sent me. I watch them all the time."
Lucille says she has 20 or 25 videos, but that the one she watches the most frequently is of Hank at an awards banquet.
Her 6-foot-7 son stands before a microphone. He was a communications major and after his death Lucille would accept his degree. "I almost fell because the sun was so bright," she says of graduation day.
In the video, Hank stands before the team and calls out each player's name, number, and where they were from. After each player is introduced he tells a funny story about them.
Hank saves himself for last.
"The tape's faded," says Lucille, "but his voice is so great."
"He says, 'Well, I guess I have to do myself now. This is Eric Hank Gathers and you really don't know it, but I used to be a good foul shooter."
The room erupts in laughter, Hank's troubles at the free throw line are well known.
"He was like that," says Lucille, "even when he was a little boy he could always make you laugh. You could never get angry with him." Read the rest here.
With less than a minute to play in the game and the Tennessee Vols inbounding the basketball while nursing a two-point lead, Bruce Pearl put his hands together to call a timeout. Then, something extraordinary happened. Senior wing J.P. Prince, the man responsible for more spectacular and more boneheaded plays than any player in the history of Vol basketball, called off Pearl on taking the timeout. Amazingly, Pearl relented. The Vols inbounded the basketball, ran the shot clock down, and kicked a pass out to sophomore shooting guard Scotty Hopson. Hopson, a native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky who picked the Vols over the Cats after a spirited recruiting battle, rose up into the air and let the ball go.
While the ball was in the air, it was still a ballgame. But by the time the ball swished through the net and sent 21,162 inside Thompson-Boling Arena into a fit of ecstasy, the game was over.
It was 70-65 and 37.1 seconds remained in the game. The Vols would go on to win 74-65, meaning the top two teams in college basketball have three losses among them, two having come in Knoxville, Tenn.
Prior to this game, Pearl said that Tennessee could have a good season if they didn't beat Kentucky, but that the Vols couldn't have a great season without beating Kentucky. Saturday's game would be the second meeting between Coach John Calipari and Bruce Pearl, the first time the two men have faced each other twice in the same year.
But the two foes have coached against each other once each of the last four seasons, when Calipari was at Memphis. Currently, Calipari leads the series 3-2, and in the midst of those five games we've rapidly learned that neither man can stand the other and that the games between the two teams are almost always close. But many in the national media, in their rush to crown Calipari as the unchallenged leader in the SEC coaching clubhouse, overlooked the fact that Pearl had gone .500 against Calipari despite having much less talent. In fact, fired Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie had a better career record against Pearl than Calipari.
Nevertheless all of these facts were snowed under in the rush to crown Calipari's greatness.
In the game less than a month ago, Pearl flummoxed the high-flying Cat offense -- give John Wall the ball and get out of the way -- with a zone defense. The result? With 10 minutes remaining in the game at Rupp Arena the Vols held a 52-50 lead. Then Kentucky's Eric Bledsoe hit a couple of big threes down the stretch to blow the game open.
Now there were 40 more minutes to come, this time in Knoxville.
More so than any of Pearl's five seasons, this has been a season of turmoil for the Volunteers. On New Year's Day Tyler Smith, the Vols best player, was arrested on a traffic stop, two guns were uncovered, and ultimately Smith was kicked off the team. Three additional Volunteer players riding in the vehicle were suspended. Pearl's Vols responded to that setback by rolling off five consecutive wins, including a home victory over number one Kansas.
But since those five games and the return of the three suspended Vol players, Tennessee had stumbled, going just 6-5 over the last 11. Did the Vols have what it would take to bring down the Wildcats?
Time would tell. Come along as we take a telecast journey. Here are 17 thoughts from watching the game.
1. If you've ever thought about living on the East Coast, aside from the general unattractiveness of the women, this CBS regional broadcast should end those desires.
On the one hand, two top 25 teams that hate each other, Kentucky and Tennessee, are playing for over the 200th time. On the other hand, Georgetown is playing Notre Dame.
Guess which game the East Coast got?
This is what East Coast sports programming boils down to, pick two teams from large cities and put them on television even if the game isn't a good one.
I know, I lived through college here.
It was a sports disaster.
2. The UT student section regales the Kentucky basketball team with SAT chants.
The great thing about John Calipari is you're not even sure which player those chants are being directed at. And we probably won't even find out for another five years.
3. Does Bruce Pearl have a new orange jacket?
We got into a big discussion on the radio show about the fact that Pearl's jacket didn't match the Tennessee basketball team's uniform.
But this jacket looks new and the orange looks like it actually matches the team's orange.
Given that Pearl is 0-3 on the season against Vandy and Kentucky in the orange jacket, maybe a new jacket was called for.
4. CBS's Jim Spanarkel reports that Samuel L. Jackson is a huge Tennessee fan.
So congrats to him for sharing a bit of knowledge I didn't have.
By the way, in case you're wondering, the fact that Jim Spanarkel is doing this game is a great sign that CBS hedged their broadcasting bets.
Where did CBS find him?
Well, according to Wikipedia, Spanarkel is "currently a First Vice President and a certified financial planner at Merrill Lynch in New Jersey."
Maybe Word Wide Wes is a client, who knows?
5. After giving up the first four points of the game to Kentucky, Tennessee takes off on an 18-0 run that sends the Vols in front by 14.
During this run, Tennessee attacks Kentucky in transition.
The Wildcats seem stunned that Tennessee is running, and are slow to react after missed shots. Tennessee takes advantage, scoring rapidly rather than running down the shot clock as the Vols did in their previous match-up.
Advantage, Pearl.
6. Has there ever been a great player that is less interested in running up and down the court than DeMarcus Cousins?
In fact, has there been a more dominant player that moves less in recent memory? Imagine if Cousins was actually a hustler, what he'd be capable of doing on the basketball court.
As is, he loafs his way up and down the court like he's already playing in the NBA and has a limited number of steps he can take in a game. His running is downright Manute Bol-ian.
7. At the half it is 40-29 Vols, and Kentucky has yet to execute a single offensive play.
Honest question for Kentucky fans, what has Cal done to make a single adjustment on the offensive side of the ball in the first half?
Honest question for Tennessee fans, what amount of money would you have wagered on J.P. Prince connecting on two three-point baskets in the first half?
8. Calipari makes his halftime speech.
He calls World Wide Wes on his cell phone: "Wes," Cal says, "I'm going to need you to get me five NBA lottery picks next year. I can't beat Pearl in Knoxville with four."
9. With 14:06 remaining in the second half, Tennessee storms out to a 19-point lead at 54-35.
The game is close to blowout territory, but the Vols will not score a basket for the next five minutes. Instead Cameron Tatum will decide that each Vol offensive possession should end with him hoisting up a heavily contested three forty feet from the basket.
10. And John Wall turns into Michael Jordan for the next five minutes.
Jordan played five or six years in the NBA before he began to get the Jordan treatment from the refs.
Wall?
It's taken him just over one month for SEC refs to literally trip all over themselves to give him beneficial calls.
In particular there are two plays that account for six points and make this a ballgame. First, Wall charges over Cameron Tatum, gets the block call and the resulting basket.
Then, less than a minute later, Wall flies down the court, is fouled one step inside the three point line, and then is allowed to take three more steps before laying up a shot.
You guessed, it, and one!
It's almost like the SEC officials are competing to see who can finish the season having called more and one plays for John Wall.
11. At this point, with the game headed towards a dogfight finish, there's a frenzy in my house.
It's lunchtime for my two-year old son and my wife has to pick a lunch destination with my in-law's.
The Treaty of Ghent was executed in a more timely fashion.
Am I the only person this happens to? Inevitably, just when games get tight, my son has to put on his coat and refuses to do so. He's wailing, rolling around on the floor kicking his legs, now I know what Coach Cal feels like when he asks DeMarcus Cousins to go to class.
12. Kentucky runs a recognizable play out of a timeout, the alley-oop.
Only the pass bangs off the backboard.
Who ends up with it?
DeMarcus Cousins of course.
Honest question, if Kentucky's offense consisted entirely of passes thrown off the backboard, how many plays would end with Cousins getting a lay-up or shooting free throws?
Answer.
50%.
By the way, Kentucky fans, how many times did the Wildcats feed Cousins in the post today and let him work?
I can't even remember one single time.
13. Kentucky ties the game 65-65 on a Cousins dunk.
Immediately preceding his assist, John Wall registers a 3.9 forty.
After watching Wall streak up and down the court all season, I'm legitimately interested what his forty time would be if he left Knoxville and headed to Indianapolis for the NFL Scouting Combine.
The Ole Miss student body voted Tuesday to adopt a new mascot, replacing Colonel Reb, the grandfather-of-Yosemite-Sam looking gentleman and symbol of the Old South associated with Ole Miss athletics since 1938. The final tally passed by an overwhelming majority as 74.6 percent of ballots cast voted yes.
Since the Colonel was removed from the football stadium seven years ago, Ole Miss has been the only SEC school without a mascot. However, after the vote, the drought will end, once a 12-15 student mascot committee is chosen. With this vote should come a commendation to Ole Miss students for taking charge of the mascot replacement and moving on from what had become a deeply divisive symbol of the school. Now they've just got to make the correct selection among a bevy of candidates. And not kowtow to what will undoubtedly be lame suggestions put forward by whatever marketing company the university hires to float suggestions their way.
The early dark horse?
Try Admiral Ackbar, the rebel leader from Star Wars who famously screamed, "It's a trap," at the last possible moment. Already the Admiral, a native of Mon Calamari, which already sounds like it could be just down the road from Itta Bena or Yazoo City or Mississippi's other colorfully named towns, has picked up an early tide of support thanks to the Web site notrap.org and his past credentials as a leader of the rebel alliance. In fact, the Admiral has already hit the campaign trail, hustling for votes on Twitter, -- "I am eagerly awaiting on the forest moon of Endor for the results," the good admiral tweeted -- and garnering 1,400 followers on his Facebook page.
I can't wait until LucasFilms gets word of Ackbar's role and sues the students for appropriating his image.
Anyway, given that a student body selecting a mascot is a big deal, who should the committee consider? Fortunately I've got 10 nominees for you. But before I discuss those, let me go ahead and toss my support firmly behind one man, William Faulkner.
I first wrote that Faulkner should be Ole Miss' mascot in November of 2006. I included the idea in my first book, "Dixieland Delight," and later endorsed the idea in a 2007 column that you can read here. I rationalized as follows: Faulkner went to Ole Miss as a student, the university owns his home, Rowan Oak, and his Nobel Prize for literature, Faulkner played quarterback in high school, and, most importantly, the alums I've heard from all love the idea. It's impossible to do better than Faulkner.
William FaulknerPut plainly, Faulkner was a literary rebel, a man who refused to follow contemporary ideas of what a story should look like, and, as a result, millions of people know the state of Mississippi through his words. Are you telling me that a Faulkner mascot, a student dressed up in a tweed jacket, with a pipe in the corner of his mouth, a mustache, and a cane, wouldn't immediately become the most iconic mascot in the South? Maybe the entire country?
What's more, Faulkner actually encourages football fans to read -- and if you read message boards, the e-mails I get, or even the comments after these articles, who could be against that? -- and offers an indelible connection to the university's educational mission and, and this is pretty key, the year Faulkner died, 1962, was the last year that Ole Miss won a national title.
Erase the Faulkner Curse?
You bet.
It absolutely, positively has to be Faulkner for Ole Miss mascot. Anything less is a joke. Which leads me to these further nominees.
1. The Flood
Ole Miss' original mascot was The Flood. It was replaced in 1938 by Colonel Reb. So, at a school that claims to love tradition, Colonel Reb was actually an interloper.
If you want to return to tradition and completely cut the legs out from underneath the Colonel Reb adherents, why not return to the most traditional mascot of all?
2. Cooper Manning
The famous "other" Manning brother, Cooper is a graduate of Ole Miss whose football career came to a close due to a neck injury. It was this injury that led Peyton to select Tennessee.
So restoring Cooper to his rightful place, the sideline at Ole Miss, might end decades of misery.
Either that or dressing up someone as Archie Manning's DNA might be the answer. The NCAA has too few double-helix shaped mascots.
3. Miss Ole Miss
The best slogan at Ole Miss: "We redshirt Miss Americas."
The story derives from when two future Miss Americas were on campus at the same time. So why not have a campus vote every year for the woman who most embodies the qualities of Ole Miss women? That is, she's really hot, smart, well-dressed, and everyone wishes they were with her.
The bonus?
Students remain engaged in the mascot process due to voting each year.
4. Ed Orgeron
Ed OrgeronFor three primary reasons:
A.) He's already a pro when it comes to jumping around on the sideline.
B.) His go-to move, ripping off his shirt and swinging it above his head, is sure to inspire the hoi polloi
and
C.) Once probation hits at USC, he may well be unemployable anyway. He'll need the job.
5. Jake Brigance from "A Time To Kill"
Bonus: John Grisham is an alum.
Further Bonus: Brigance can make shooting unarmed men inside a courthouse with an M-16 seem heroic.
Quoth the Jake: "Close your eyes ... Now imagine she's white."
Given the SEC arrest rates, who needs a mascot who can make the players seem like good guys even when they're clearly guilty as hell?
Flim Flam Bim Bam
Ole Miss, By Damn!
6. A riverboat gambler
If this happens, students should riot.
My antipathy for the riverboat gambler cliche is well known and oft-stated, basically it makes no sense.
Why?
Because in today's South, a riverboat gambler isn't actually a risk taker, he's more likely to be your grandmother on a rotary trip to Baton Rouge or Evansville, Indiana.
Is there anything lamer?
Nope.
Your move Ole Miss.
7. A Mint Julep
The only problem I foresee with this mascot is that it mistakenly suggests that alcohol and college football are somehow connected.
Travis has become enamored of several objects, phrases or events which he frequenly references in the column. Among the most frequent:
'Bama Bangs - a term coined by Travis to refer to southern men's hairstyles that feature prominent bangs for no apparent reason. Brodie Croyle and John Parker Wilson are oft-cited violators of 'Bama Bangs rules.
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When Clay Travis, acclaimed author of Dixieland Delight, decided to spend the 2008 season up close and personal with UT football, he—and every other college football aficionado—thought he was in for a rollicking ride with one of the leading contenders for the national title. After all, when the Vols kicked off the season on September 1, the defending SEC East champions were ranked 18th in the country. As head coach Phillip Fulmer prepared for the game, he reflected upon a coaching career that included an astounding 147 victories, two SEC championships, and a national title. With 34 years at UT under his belt as both a player and coach, the Tennessee native had just signed a contract extension that projected to keep him at the university long enough to become the winningest coach in program history.
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There is no college ball more passionate and competitive than football in the Southeastern Conference, where seven of the twelve schools boast stadiums bigger than any in the NFL and 6.5 million fans hit the road every year to hoot and holler their teams to victory.
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The newly favored man is not really a man at all, but a hairless, effeminate, germ-fearing, non-meat-eating, exfoliating, wristband-wearing woman of the worst order. We as men are told that we must embrace the sacred feminine in ourselves, even if it doesn't actually exist, and become the very quintessence of woman, plus penises. This situation is untenable. This trend must stop.
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Clay Travis is the only former student manager in the history of college athletics to marry an NFL cheerleader. He managed to pull this off despite an irrational affinity for the television shows Dawson's Creek and My Super Sweet 16. While being raised in Nashville, Tenn., Travis developed a healthy obsession with college sports and Alyssa Milano. As a teenager his greatest accomplishment was taking a doo-rag wearing Luke Duke (balling as Tom Wopat) to the hole at the Nashville YMCA.
In the midst of a stellar legal career during which he specialized in rewarding the unjust and punishing the oppressed, Travis began writing for CBS Sports's SPiN section in September 2005...
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