Via the Alabama gentlemen of Picture Me Rollin and Uncle Rico’s Time Machine comes the latest installment of our rippity-offity Stuff ______ People Like series

Coach Bryant: This is perhaps too obvious, but there is little doubt that since the apotheosis of General Robert E. Lee there has not been as much hero worship directed toward an individual until the time of Paul William “Bear” Bryant. There are goods odds that you could walk into any mom and pop diner in most parts of Alabama and start a very healthy debate amongst people that adamantly believe that debating is for sissies, if you threw out this question: Greater man; General Lee or Coach Bryant. Rest assured he wasn’t the only coach to take his Alabama teams to the Promised Land. But he was however, the best and most of the modern association with Alabama’s football glory days begins and ends with him.

There are a few things that need to be stated about the man and the legend though. First of all, it’s Coach Bryant. If you refer to him as Bear you are a rival fan or brain-dead. Bear is a title that shows disrespect to the man, similar to the way calling a senior citizen by their first name if you don’t really know them is disrespectful. He was “Coach”, first and foremost.

If you find a crimson and white person’s respect (or if you prefer, deification) of Coach Bryant silly or poorly placed then to quote Ricky Bobby “fuck you”. Crimson and white people could give two red cents about your opinion on that subject. If you feel the need to point out that he drank to much or was of questionable character at times then you are simply jealous and crimson and white people are well armed with anecdotes that prove you are merely hating.

To prove their devotion, a new book is published about him about every 36 hours. If you missed the latest one, don’t worry there will be another in about, oh, 10 minutes. The books are increasing at such a rate that soon someone will have to build the Paul Bryant Library, which will naturally be located next to the Bryant Museum, which is on Bryant Drive, not too far from the Bryant Bridge and Bryant High School and a conveniently located branch of the Bryant Bank, just to house all the books about Bryant himself.

Don’t kid yourself and think that simple knowledge of him it is all that is required. It is also an obsession with all things associated with him. Like Golden Flake Potato Chips, Coca Cola, Chesterfield cigarettes, and most especially…

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The EDSBS staff decided the “Stuff _____ People Like” had gone soft. So we therefore bonded over the one thing Tennessee fans and Florida fans can both crack out the sharp, stabby knives over: Georgia, a.k.a. Red and Black People, who ironically take their colors from two shades of people horribly oppressed in this very state. And no, it gets no nicer from here, and yes, we live here and love it.

Past installments may be read here, here, here, here, and here

Mandals. Don’t want to wear socks, but don’t want to look too gay/hippy/liberal with Jesus sandals? Rock yourself some mandals, Red and Black person. It’s just all part of that “laid-back groove” thing you’ve got going on. Or being horrifically lazy. They’re both Red and Black People concepts you’ll see pass through time and time again here.

Obviously not a real Georgia fan, as he’s not wearing white ankle socks with them.

Gwinnett County. Georgia has famously only traveled to play a football game somewhere else once, and it was to Atlanta to play Georgia Tech. Little known fact: every “road” game you might have seen the Georgia Bulldogs is in fact a simulation created by the Georgia Tech School of Computer Engineering, who does the work as a contractor for the University of Georgia. If this seems unusual to you, consider that Tech owes Georgia for the vicious but humorous practical joke of playing Reggie Ball at quarterback for four years (record: perfect! 0-4.)

Gwinnett County embraces everything UGA fans could want: a featureless wash of broad roads, convenient fat/grease repositories, and 4BR/3BA houses strewn wantonly on stultifyingly boring land kinda sorta halfway between Athens and the necessary evil of Atlanta. (more…)

As part of our ongoing ripoff of SWPL called “Stuff ____ and _______ People Like,” the EDSBS Staff presents “Stuff Orange and White People Like,” an analysis of things Tennessee Volunteer fans like. Enjoy.

Pitchforks and torches. A nine-win season is cause for satisfaction elsewhere in D-I, but in the SEC and Knoxville in particular, it’s a blight. Any win total under double digits lights up the AM radio dial with orange faithful ready to gut their coach like a catfish of astonishing proportions. Going 5-6 in 2005 brought, concurrently and consecutively, collective apoplexy and vows of silence—they still can’t talk about it. Bring up The Season Of Which We Do Not Speak to a Tennessee fan and his eyes will glaze over in rage or incomprehension. Either way, Does Not Compute.

Orson’s note: Wonder who those people in Frankenstein who, when confronted with a problem, immediately rush to get a.) an impaling instrument, and b.) fire? For any problem? Tennessee fans, that’s who. They’re threatening Frankenstein because, with some time in the weight room, he could be the next John Henderson, but noooooo, he wants to kidnap maidens and accidentally drown little girls in lakes all day like a bad monster.

John Henderson rocks fat titties all day, by the way, despite playing for a team we despise. “BLOOD MAKES THE GRASS GROW!” comes from his sideline rantings in college, and he also did this, which is now how we wake up every morning.

We do it just like that. Except the wife does it with a padded white glove, and she does it softly, so as not to knock my exfoliating facial mask off. Sometimes she gets a little too into it, and some of the dust lands on our white oxford shirt! It’s a funny time, the mornings in the Swindle house!

HFCS That’s high fructose corn syrup, friends, and it is a fact of natural law that the highest concentration of HFCS swollen people on the planet reside in Tennessee. (more…)