Rivalries

I don’t care much for rivalries with exception to one: Auburn and Alabama. You can tell which side of the fence someone is on depending on how they order the two teams. 

I grew up wearing the Orange and Blue and screaming War Eagle during kickoffs amid a sea of Bulldog Red and Volunteer Orange when I was growing up in Chattanooga. That was replaced by the maroon and black of the Gamecocks or the Purple and Orange of Clemson. I stuck with my Tigers through good years and bad, always faithful despite fan bases around me that didn’t have a clue about the meaning behind “War Eagle” or the Auburn creed.

When I uprooted myself for the final two years of high school spent in Huntsville to earn in-state residency to go to Auburn, it was a sacrifice I felt was easy to make. When I was in elementary school, I was the outsider for being a little smartass know-it-all. I grew up into a adolescent smartass know-it-all by the time I reached high school in Beaufort, and missed out on the the chance to form lasting friendships long before the family ever moved to the coast.

Small towns can be insular in that way. If you aren’t from there, you don’t belong there is a way some might view the subject. 

I never helped matters by always trying to be smarter than everyone else. I still suffer from that particular problem, it isn’t lost on me that I sometimes have a tendency to correct people when unwarranted and unwanted. I try my best to bite my tongue, but sometimes it is a compulsion in the same way some people can’t help tapping their foot when nervous.

This isn’t to say that I didn’t have friends. Or wasn’t participating in the community. I’m sure floating around somewhere are pictures of me in middle school taking part in some historical program.* But by the time my sophomore year rolled around and I knew I wanted to go to Auburn, my connection to the BHS Eagles athletics programs was all but nil. My fondness for their Green and White color scheme never materialized.

Outsider status remained in place for several reasons at Sparkman High. As a junior I was focused solely on the work to be done to get onto Auburn, follow that path that I was being pushed upon to academic achievement and later success in life with a fancy piece of paper and a lifetime of student loan debt.

I diligently focused on what I was hoping to do in the future instead of the football team and their lack of on-field accomplishments. I couldn’t tell you the Senators record off hand between 2001 and 2003** when I did my stint at Sparkman. It was just a place for me to get a diploma and move on. 

My aunt was also my guidance counselor, which put in in an unenviable position of essentially being categorized as a ‘narc.’ All the things combined, I had a handful of people I was friends with in high school.

Sadly, none of those friendships lasted long. That is mostly my fault. Maybe I just don’t play well with others.

So I rely on Auburn-Alabama, a rivalry that remains alive and well in my bones today. I don’t like wearing red of any color if I can help it, and refuse to say roll t*de with anything less than sarcasm. I’m happily willing to admit that the rivalry is lopsided in favor of that Tuscaloosa team, and applaud their many accomplishments over the past decades on the gridiron and their national championship wins over the past decade and a half under Coach Saban.

The rivalry remains alive because of moments like Punt Bama, Punt! of old, the Cam-back and the Kick Six games on more recent memory. I don’t care whether I have to work holidays (I’ve done that plenty) or am required for family occasions throughout random days and times of the year (gladly will show up and have fun.)

But the last Saturday in November? That is my one high holy day of the year when Auburn and Alabama play, and nobody better mess with it. 

As I have gotten older and time has worn down my radicalism toward all things establishment, I’ve come to understand the real toxicity of rivalry.

Sports rivalries can be positive and fun, provide an atmosphere of community engagement and allow like-minded groups otherwise separated by space and daily life to learn about each other – when done right. 

The Auburn-Alabama rivalry is the definition of toxic – despite the one time that Auburn teammates went to Tuscaloosa after the 2011 tornado to help with cleanup.

Plenty of stories have begun on Alabama in the Monday edition of papers that the big game over the weekend caused some sort of physical altercation between friends and family. People have been seriously injured, stabbed, maimed and shot over Auburn-Alabama football. A Bama fan got mad because someone TP-ed the statue of Bear Bryant, so he poisoned the 100+ year old Toomer’s Corner oak that was a symbol of Auburn pride and victory.

I can’t tell you the number of times I went to the corner to throw my roll of toilet paper into the tree after a win. The loss of it was akin to losing a relative.

I’ve lived through times personally when Bama fans are overly upset about a loss and take it out on whoever is around. I was never hurt, but it wasn’t pleasant circumstances to be sure. I know that feeling when your team loses and it is like the world is crashing down upon your head. But you know what? The sun does come up the day after, and life moves forward. 

No matter how you feel about it, when you get right down to it the rivalry is about a game. When you try to put upon it meaning that it shouldn’t have in your life? That’s called obsession, and it is dangerous to be obsessed with anything.

Small town rivalries like Cedartown and Rockmart are no different. Each side feels they are better than the other because of where they grew up, which high school they attended, what plant or business they work in, and then push their kids to feel and act the same way.

Decades upon decades of “we’re better than you” end with generational tribalism, so deep that one can’t even see the forest for the trees anymore. The world is growing up all around the area and yet two communities are stuck always trying to one-up each other on every field of competition. 

And if one side gets something new and special and the other doesn’t? Oh boy, get ready to hear about it… Rockmart gets a Longhorn and Dunkin’ Donuts? Why doesn’t Cedartown have them too? CHS has a fancy new Fine Arts building? You better build one at RHS too.

I can go on and on just in the time I’ve been here – which is around 10 years now in one capacity or another.

The fault is not in the stars, Polk County. The fault is in ourselves. 

I’m honestly glad I’m not from here***, so I can be critical when needed of this small corner of the world without having nostalgic feelings about a team or a town and “the way things were.”

What happens on the gridiron or the court, the baseball or softball diamond, on wrestling mats and volleyball courts has no impact on the way I feel about one team or the other. I’m simply on the sidelines trying to hold the camera steady and get a good shot of our local athletes showing off their talents. Some days I do that with gusto, others I feel less motivated.

Ultimately I care about what happens to these kids. I want them to succeed in their dreams for the future, and applaud what they are able to in their limited time on the field of competition and in the classroom. 

Yet I understand acutely that many people in Polk County live and die by what happens between these two rivals. My hope is that future generations will grow out of this and recognize that we can accomplish more by working together in all things instead of focusing on who is “better.”

We can do better, Polk County. Whether you want to is up to you.

The first thing you have to do is to see the problem for what it is: rivalry is holding us back, and it is time to set aside some of our ill feelings for a side of the county to actually get things done.

A good example of this is the recent work that the Cities of Cedartown and Rockmart are attempting to get done together over the issue around municipal sludge. Usually when the cities talk and work something out together, it is usually between administrators who are talking and coming up with solutions to various problems. This time, elected officials are getting involved as well since everyone wants the same thing and are showing that cooperation can happen.

I care about these communities, and I love writing about them. I want to see them prosper into the future. Which means at some point, we have to decide to be friends instead of rivals. Otherwise, we are going to be swallowed whole by Metro Atlanta, and when new folks move in they won’t care about the storied histories of Cedartown and Rockmart athletics.

Polk under those circumstances will become just another bedroom community like Paulding, full of growth and newness but with out any character to make it truly home.

Footnotes

*It was a fantastic volunteer opportunity to get out of class. But playing a French guy named Genauche (sp?) hanged by his fellow marooned sailors who setup on Parris Island never completely sat well with me. Much like an assignment many years later at Fort Benning while I was in journalism classes at Auburn. That’s a story for another day.

**For the record, I did go back and look at both the Beaufort High School and Sparkman High School football season records for the years I was in attendance. The 1999 Eagles program went 0-11, and then followed that up in 2000 with a 6-7 record (to immediately in 2001 go back to 0-11.) The Senators (ultimately my alma mater) went 3-7 for both the 2001 and 2002 seasons. I graduated in Spring 2003, so my time was ended and I was well beyond caring how they fared on the field. However I will note that Sparkman did finally get their first playoff appearance in 2004 and finished with a winning season, only to fall back to mediocrity.

Beaufort had a renaissance in the years after I fled from the coast back toward the mountains, then onward to Auburn. A successful 2004 season saw an amazing turnaround under a new coach – 13-1 with a state semifinal appearance – and more winning seasons after. BHS won their first region title since 1992 in 2010, and won a state title in 2022 under another new coaching staff – as well as winning region titles for three of the past five years.

***One could argue with as much as I’ve moved around in life from one place to another I really am a native of nowhere and everywhere.