So I find myself in New Iberia, La., at the World Championship Gumbo Cook-off.
It's not far from Baton Rouge, where that evening LSU will play South Carolina. Since this is Louisiana, and Baton Rouge is not far from here and this festival really is a big deal, there are lot of people wearing their LSU gear, and a few people who support South Carolina.
Actually, there are fans of other schools showing their support, too. The "Ragin' Cajuns" of Louisiana Lafayette are well represented, as are the New Orleans Saints; I saw a couple people wearing Texas A&M stuff, a Grambling t-shirt, and even one lady wearing a Georgia shirt.
But sometimes the mind goes goofy, I'll admit.
I was standing with a guy wearing an LSU game jersey, and this other guy walks up and says, "LSU, huh? Are you guys going to stay with Zach Metzenberger at quarterback if you lose tonight?"
And I couldn't help myself. I said:\
"Wait a minute. You understand this guy is just wearing an LSU jersey he probably bought at sporting goods store somewhere, right? He doesn't really play for LSU. I mean, I know it's a nice jersey. It looks like one of those 'authentic game day' jerseys.
"But I don't think the administration at LSU is sitting around thinking, 'if our quarterback doesn't play well tonight, what do we do?' And some guy then says, 'We need to find a guy wearing a really good-looking, authentic game-day jersey and ask him! He'll know what we should do!"
OK, I'm being hard on a college football fan who was just making the kind of conversation fans make every day, every where. You see somebody wearing a t-shirt of a team and say things like, "Who are you guys going to start tonight?" or "What in the world were you guys thinking in that last game?" or my favorite, "Who are you guys going to hire as your next coach?"
As fans, we love to offer our authoritative opinion on any topic knowing we have nothing to lose - it's not our job, we're not getting paid, we're not playing the game. Heck, most of us don't even invest in tickets to the game but sit at home and watch on TV or listen on radio. Other than our emotion, our investment is limited to paying the cable TV bill every month and maybe buying a bunch of t-shirts, caps, posters, and other stuff that keeps sports from being the one business that truly seems recession-proof.
Which, come to think of it, means we do have a lot to lose. We don't want to be that guy wearing the Kentucky t-shirt during football season, knowing people are feeling sorry for us (but of course all that changes once basketball season starts).
There is a certain amount of belonging that comes in wearing team gear, particularly if you're away from home.
In the middle of the crowd, I saw a nice lady wearing a red t-shirt with the familiar black "G" of the University of Georgia. As I walked by, I gave a nice "Go Dogs!" to her.
She didn't hear me.
Or else it wasn't really a "G" for Georgia.
I remember a missionary friend who was high in the mountains of Peru and came across a villager wearing a Georgia t-shirt. The missionary said to the villager, "Hey, I like that shirt. Are you a Georgia fan?" To which the village got real excited and said to the missionary in his broken English, "How 'bout them Dawgs?" And followed it up immediately with the question, "What does that mean? An American gave me this t-shirt and told me if I ever met someone from Georgia, that's what I was supposed to say. But I don't know why."
My missionary friend said that taught him how much easier it is to convert someone to college football than to faith.
A long time ago, in an attempt to make a point, I once wrote, "You know religion is important in the South because it keeps getting compared to football."
My preacher actually used that line in one of his sermons once.
I think some of the congregation was offended, thinking he was making light of college football.
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