Tuesday Mailbag: The Rapture Coming?
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Michael writes:
"Clay,
While taking a vacation down to Charleston this past weekend, I was reading “Dixieland Delight” for the (conservatively) fifth time. I came across a very disturbing passage. Very last sentence on page 352, you were discussing the attendance of the 2006 SEC Championship game at some 75,000 plus and how “pedestrian” that number is in the SEC. Then comes the following line, “If only seventy-five thousand people showed up for a football game at Tennessee, the Rapture would have actually occurred.”
I don’t know how to take this Nostrodam-ian (is that even a word?) piece of information. I had so much left that I wanted to do in my life, and now I know, officially, that this Saturday, October the 4th 2008, in the words of Bill Paxton’s character in Aliens, “Game over, man!”
I’m thinking the over/under for attendance at Saturday’s game with Northern Illinois, and being a 7pm kickoff, at about 65,000…and I’m taking the under. While the world coming to an end is a definite drag, on the bright side Section L in the south end zone should be so desolate that I might be able to carry in a Lay-Z-Boy recliner to watch the Vols instead of my horrendous folding Stadium Seats.
Enjoy the last 116 hours or so that we all have left. At least with Armageddon, it stops the damage that Jonathon Crompton is doing to the history of UT quarterbacks. Go….Vols???"
My two biggest fears have arrived: a. close reading of Dixieland Delight and calling me on everything I've said b. suggestion that the Rapture is imminent. When I was about 10 or 11 I became obsessed with the idea of the Rapture. I read all those books about the end times and I was convince they were nigh. This was after, I became obsessed with the Anti-Christ at the age of 7 or 8. So much so that I started to worry that I might be the Anti-Christ. I'm probably the only person around whose mom had to say, "Clay, I promise you, you aren't the Anti-Christ." Which made me feel better. Of course now we all know that Tim Tebow is the Anti-Christ so I don't have any fears anymore.
Back to your question, yeah, we're in trouble on the attendance at this game. I'll be there and I'm thinking they may give me an entire section to sit in by myself. Worst of all, Vandy is hosting College Gameday here in Nashville. Yep, Nashville has surpassed Knoxville on the college football pecking order. So I'm getting my car Saturday morning and leaving behind the much bigger game to go watch a much less important one. A game that doesn't start until 7 at night. So I won't leave Knoxville until around 10:30. Meaning I won't be back in Nashville until 2 or so. This is going to be awesome. And by awesome I mean horrible.
All of this doesn't even include what happens if we end up with a red-headed quarterback in Nick Stephens. Has there ever been a successful red-headed quarterback? Will he sunburn easily? Are we luckily this is a night game to protect his epidermis? Is Coach Fulmer going to have to update his injury report each week with the status of Nick Stephen's sunburns? "We're working like heck to get better but Nick has a sunburn that makes it hurt to put pads on." For the rest of the season, assuming the world doesn't end, we're going to have to root for cloudy skies or cool weather. Which is unfortunate because you know we're going to be on JP/LF/Raycom a ton now that we're so bad.
My call is announced attendance of 92,000 but an actual attendance of around 77,000. The lowest in decades.
Ryan writes:
"Clay,
What is the deal with all of the hype over blackouts, whiteouts, or any other color on the color wheel out? Is it supposed to be intimidating for players to look into the stands and see fans clad in a certain color? I feel that this might be more intimidating if fashion-design schools had football teams. They would be more worried about differing shades of white rather than a corner blitz. However, I don't know that most Division 1 teams are going to be affected. When are schools going to realize that this is way too overhyped? Rally towels and thunder sticks have served their time as previous fan favorites. I think the next fan craze should be disposable cameras. Thousands of flash bulbs going off at the same time as a quarterback trying to find an open receiver are bound to have a greater effect than one certain color.
The SEC has moved to be anti-black people to being anti-fans of all colors showing up in non-matching colors. I find the whole idea of suggesting that teams wear only one color to be really demeaning. Especially when coaches are involved in encouraging you what to wear. This is like your doctor being obsessed with what type of car you're driving to see him. (As opposed to whether or not you have health insurance. Which is the only thing he cares about other than whether you're rich enough to pay out-of-pocket.)
Disposable cameras is a great idea. The flash could have a legit impact if you sequenced everyone. Of course epileptics in attendance would probably die. So their parents wouldn't be happy about this. And given how bad everything else is going Jonathan Crompton is probably epileptic.
My friend Shaw suggested a while back that the only way you could really intimidate and opposing team was by getting everyone in the entire stadium or arena to dress as clowns and instead of making a bit of noise just jump in sync on all big plays. Complete silence as clowns jumped while looking down at you. That seems pretty terrifying to me.
But this color obsession is so lame. One exemption. It's Athens, a thunderstorm is forecast, and a white out has been planned. Then you've got the largest wet t-shirt contest in the history of the universe breaking out. I'm for that. Labels: Nick Stephens white out black out wet t-shirts disposable camearas rapture
Posted by Clay Travis at 7:17 AM
 
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