Soap Box

*** NOTE ***

Due to Charlie's time constraints during this busy time Charlie will be doing one new soapbox a week for the time being to be posted on Mondays. We will supplement with a "best of" Soapbox Rewind from the archives. - TeamCDB

I know that football is really huge all over the nation, but in the South it's almost a religion. 

We never had big league football until the last few decades but our college teams were as much a part of Southern culture as hominy grits and folks wear the school colors like badges of honor and will get downright ornery with someone who starts dissing their team.

No more rabid college football fans exist than the ones who follow the Southeastern Conference. Team loyalty is akin to patriotism and if an SEC team played a game on the moon, somehow, some way, there would be thousands of their fans who'd make the trip.

They'll wear hog noses or dog-ears, put special license plates on their cars and fly banners on their front porches and in their yards.

I've even seen a whole house painted the colors of an SEC team and if you'd peruse the parking lot of any SEC football stadium on any Saturday afternoon you'd find some of the most creative automotive paint jobs you could ever hope to see.

Loyalties run deep in our part of the world to the point that if an Alabama fan runs out of gas in Auburn territory, he'd rather push the car all the way back to Tuscaloosa than fill it up in enemy territory. Just joking.

The SEC is, team for team, without a doubt, the toughest conference in existence and the level of physical play is brutal. There is no let up in an SEC schedule. Saturday after Saturday, team after team, every game a small war, every win a great victory, every loss a heartbreak.

The Friday night lights also burn brightly in Dixie.

I remember sitting in a movie house on a Friday night and hearing the score of the local high school football game announced over the public address system.

Southern devotion to football is legendary and the rivalry between certain high schools goes back for decades and sometimes for generations. Every team has their own enemies list and the competition can be fierce and the hitting heavy as the kids give it their all to earn the local bragging rights for the year.

College football stars are never forgotten down here, once a star, always a star. Peyton Manning is in a league with Davy Crockett in Tennessee. Cam Newton will always be part of the folklore at Auburn University and no Crimson Tide fan will ever forget that Bart Starr and Joe Namath went to Alabama, and no matter which professional team he plays for, Tim Tebow will always be remembered as a Florida Gator.

It takes a lot of devotion to play football even at the high school level. The conditioning starts in the hottest part of the summer and the practices are grueling and repetitive. You have to learn the playbook, the blocking assignments and situational awareness. If you're not into the mental game you're not going to be good at the physical game.

It's tough on a 15-year-old kid to put in a long school day, spend hours at football practice after classes and take care of the academic side as well. You've got to really want it bad and push yourself to the limit of your endurance to earn a place on a good high school team.

And the situation goes on steroids when you play football in college.

I admire an athlete with God given-ability who will work hard and hone their athletic talents to the point of excellence and thrill us all with their exploits on the field of play.

Myself personally, I happen to think that college football is America at it's best and If I ever had to go to war, I want to have a bunch of hardcore football fans watching my back.

I would tell our enemies that if they want to see what America is really like, walk into a Southeastern Conference football game on a fall afternoon and look around you.

You see, it's not that bunch of wimps In Washington you've got to get through to get to America. It's these folks.

And if you want to find out how tough they really are, just walk up to some guy dressed in purple in Baton Rouge on a Saturday afternoon and tell him that LSU sucks.

When you wake up, you'll get the picture.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops, and for our country.

God Bless America

� Charlie Daniels

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