I'm going to try to reply to all of the posts so far:
<span class="post-title"><span class="post-title">The picture at the top is tradition for Bama game week**</span></span>
<font color="#660000">It's your "tradition" to talk about Bear Bryant? Exactly what I was talking about before.
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<font color="#000000"><font color="#000000">If I arrive at BDS and the pregame video does NOT include that long, rambling, completely unintelligible garbled quote from THA BEAR, and if I don't see every possible article of clothing for sale in houndstooth, I will believe that Alabama has let Paul Bryant rest in peace.</font></font>
<font color="#000000">The man made great speeches. He also won a lot of National Championships. He has earned a place to be remembered. To say that because we play his speech on a pregame video means we haven't moved on is to also say that because we listen to the quote "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" we have not moved on from John F. Kennedy's death.
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<font color="#000000">i have never tattoo'd a coach onto my back.</font>
<font color="#000000">I haven't either. What's your point? I'm willing to bet there are a couple more Alabama fans out there that don't have a 2 foot mural tattoo of Coach Bryant on their back.
In regards to the statue of Paul Bear Bryant. Any college who has a 15 foot statue of a man surely is obsessing over him right? Unless of course, the said stature is in the "Walk of Champions" and stands along all the other coaches in Alabama history who have won a National Championship. Funny, nobody thinks we are obsessing over Coach Gene Stallings even though his statue is only a few yards from the statue of Coach Bryant.
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<font color="#000000">The houndstooth twins exemplify the Average Bama fan in that they both go to UAB</font>
<font color="#000000">What is it about the houndstooth twins that gets people all caught up? Is it that they wear crimson? No, that wouldn't make sense. Everyone wears crimson to the game. Is it that they wear houndstooth hats? No, that wouldn't make sense. Houndstooth is a normal occurance at a Bama game. Maybe it's that they are aspiring models and are trying to get free publicity by looking hot and getting people on forums to talk about them while posting pictures of them........... I think we're on to something here!
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<font color="#000000">Dude, have you ever listened to Finebaum? I wanted to call one day and ask him (Finebaum) to start a timer during his next show when he began taking calls and stop it at the first mention of coach Bryant and let's see if it takes longer than 5 minutes. Your fanbase, in particular all the "walk-on alumni," can't and never will move on. The fact that you have never photoshopped the coffin w/ checkered hat doesn't prove a damn thing -- that was just a freakin' stupid comment.</font>
<font color="#000000">Asking me to look at Finebaum as a source of what my fanbase looks like is like asking me to watch CNN and look at how conservative America is. The Paul Finebaum show is a propaganda machine. He graduated from Tennessee and hates Alabama and Auburn equally. He is an instigator and whoever is down that week he jumps on them and won't get up. He loves to side with one or the other because he knows it will make people mad and in turn they will call in. They screen their calls not allowing anyone of any sound mind to get through and only air people who are threatening to come down their to whip his *** if he doesn't take back what he said. If you are looking at a media outlet that produces a show based on their own bias to present to you the honest nature of anybody than apparently you are apart of their target audience, something that I would be very concerned about.
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<font color="#000000">Clearly, it's all those mysterious "other schools" doing.</font>
<font color="#000000">If you're referring to the houndstooth hat that is a concession stand than that is the doing of someone who is a smart businessman. Houndstooth is a fad. It's not a headstone or a grave marker. It's nothing more than a marketing fad that a lot of people enjoy wearing. It remembers a coach that took our university to heights most colleges have never seen before. He wore houndstooth so in turn it's a fun thing for our student body and fans to wear as well. If you ask any of the pretty little girls about details involved with Paul Bryant they wouldn't be able to tell you the answers, but they like the houndstooth hat nonetheless. Much like if you ask any of the guys if they were there for Coach Bryants locker room speech they will likely say no, and that's assuming they were even born. But they like the houndstooth hats nonetheless. It isn't a bad thing to put banners up at a basketball arena of when a team won a national championship and it's not a bad thing to remember a coach who won many of them at your college as well. Most people don't have tattoos of Paul Bryant. If anything, it's that the houndstooth pattern is a gouty looking pattern that stands out and is therefore noticed immediately. Put that on top of flaws within an overly passionate fanbase and you can be accused of a lot of things.
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<font color="#000000">I find it funny when people who weren't even born before his last game are seen wearing Houndstooth hats. That's like me trying to imitate the clothing of Dudy Noble. I still think wearing the Houndstooth clothing is ridiculous, but at least manage to keep it to people that actually watched him coach a game.
By the way, I may admire a person that did spectacular things before my time, but I've never tried to imitate their look.</font>
<font color="#000000">I guess you've never as a kid in a school play dressed like president Washington or Lincoln. What you do is your business. The University of Alabama has chosen the houndstooth pattern, since it's very distinct, to remember Coach Bryant. We are happy with that and don't mind if some people aren't. It's because we feel this way that it is hard to understand why those who aren't happy with that would have a problem with someone who is.
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<font color="#000000">What about this part:
Will Nevin, a first-year law student, places an offering the night before every game at the feet of Bryant's statue in front of the football stadium. He and his friends leave a bag of Golden Flake potato chips and an old-fashioned glass bottle of Coca-Cola, the sponsors of Bryant's old TV show. Nevin, 21, never saw the show, never saw Bryant on the sideline. But the image of the Bear is alive in his mind's eye. He just knows how it must have been, like hearing someone tell you how sweet an old Mustang used to run, before it was put up on blocks in the barn and covered with a tarp. The most you can do is run your hand over the paint and imagine.
You are right it is other teams fans that will not let it go.</font>
<font color="#000000">How people display their passion is a unique and very individual thing. That they have a passion is an admirable and good thing. I see how this kid feels about his University and how he feels about football in the south. I can appreciate that. How he chooses (as an individual) to display it is simply his business not that of an entire fanbase, and in doing so it isn't the belief of an entire fanbase.
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