...and a Nebraska fan came up to me and said he was ready to back me up.
A Beerstein Filled With a Jager Mule Costs $25, but the Juice is Worth the Squeeze
Like most Saturdays in the fall it was a cloudy and moist afternoon. Some friends and I gathered at Soulard Market for the annual Soulard Oktoberfest and settled on Duke’s as our gameday destination to watch an inevitable Tiger throttling at the hands of Saban’s Crimson Tide. For those of you that haven’t been to Duke’s, it’s a corner pub with a bar in the round and room for about 80 on its first floor. We watched as Tua lobbed an 80 yard bomb on the second play from scrimmage to give the Tide their unrelenqueshed lead. As the Tide celebrated on the field, and the room full of black and gold sighed, “ROLL TIDE” rang out from somewhere near me. A young man in a black North Face jacket celebrated, his friends near him in a shade of red. They celebrated again at Lock’s INT on Missouri’s second play, and again when Terez Hall was ejected for a targeting penalty that no reasonable sports fan - or sports writer - or official on the field would have called correct.
It was at this point that frustration boiled over and I turned to my right and said “oh, come the **** on, you’re a Bama fan, you watch enough football to know that’s a terrible call. You’re going to kick the crap out of us, you don’t need the officials help.”
His friend turned to me. “Yeah, he does this. We didn’t go to Bama, we went to Missouri State.” “So, why are you rooting for Alabama? You’re from St. Louis and went to Missouri State,” I responded. “Because **** Mizzou!” the obnoxious stereotypical black North Face wearer proclaimed as he slouched over the bar.
“Oh, so it’s a jealousy thing, then? You couldn’t get into a school with a real program so you choose to come to a bar filled with Missouri fans and students to try and talk shit, because you have nothing to support your own school?”
This, this struck a nerve. And why wouldn’t it? What provokes someone to come and watch a football game just to instigate something unless there is a real deep rooted butt hurt? Black North Face’s friend proposed a fight, and I took a lay of the room and quickly decided that would end in my favor but there would be no real winners. So I laughed at him, smiled, and told him to have a good career at Insight Global.
Hey, I know I Just Met You, but if Shit Goes Down, I Got You
Said the Nebraska fan in his red long-sleeve. “Did you guys lose again today?” I asked. “Yeah.” His face dropped.
We talked at length about Mizzou-Nebraska going back to the flea-kicker, the oldest game he or I could remember. He told me Scott Frost would have them at 10-2 in two years, and with delusions like that, you know his Nebraska fandom runs deep.
But, this is what was interesting. He didn’t go to Nebraska either. “My family grew up there, I went to SLU, and now I’m at AT Still.”
A Conclusion
I tell this story because we keep talking on this board about fan support - we always talk about fan support. And this is the real problem - Missouri is a divided state. The Nebraska fan I just met never went to Nebraska, the Missouri State kids root against Missouri. What reason do those Missouri State kids have to root against Mizzou? We don’t play each other, we’re not rivals. It’s the equivalent of Royals fans hating the Cardinals or Rams fans hating the Chiefs. In every other SEC state, their fan bases aren’t just comprised of alums and students, they’re comprised of everyone. In Missouri, Mizzou isn’t ignored, it’s disliked or even hated.
Every school but Vandy and us has this advantage and for us, we are actively hurt by it. I don’t know any way to fix it. But, if we’re going to compare AD budgets and game attendance, Missouri to Auburn or Missouri to Tennessee or Missouri to Arkansas or even Kentucky is apples-oranges. My friend who went to Tuscaloosa sat next to four Bama fans who were all from Ohio, went to Cincinnati, and had no connection to Bama whatsoever. When have you ever seen that at Mizzou?
A Beerstein Filled With a Jager Mule Costs $25, but the Juice is Worth the Squeeze
Like most Saturdays in the fall it was a cloudy and moist afternoon. Some friends and I gathered at Soulard Market for the annual Soulard Oktoberfest and settled on Duke’s as our gameday destination to watch an inevitable Tiger throttling at the hands of Saban’s Crimson Tide. For those of you that haven’t been to Duke’s, it’s a corner pub with a bar in the round and room for about 80 on its first floor. We watched as Tua lobbed an 80 yard bomb on the second play from scrimmage to give the Tide their unrelenqueshed lead. As the Tide celebrated on the field, and the room full of black and gold sighed, “ROLL TIDE” rang out from somewhere near me. A young man in a black North Face jacket celebrated, his friends near him in a shade of red. They celebrated again at Lock’s INT on Missouri’s second play, and again when Terez Hall was ejected for a targeting penalty that no reasonable sports fan - or sports writer - or official on the field would have called correct.
It was at this point that frustration boiled over and I turned to my right and said “oh, come the **** on, you’re a Bama fan, you watch enough football to know that’s a terrible call. You’re going to kick the crap out of us, you don’t need the officials help.”
His friend turned to me. “Yeah, he does this. We didn’t go to Bama, we went to Missouri State.” “So, why are you rooting for Alabama? You’re from St. Louis and went to Missouri State,” I responded. “Because **** Mizzou!” the obnoxious stereotypical black North Face wearer proclaimed as he slouched over the bar.
“Oh, so it’s a jealousy thing, then? You couldn’t get into a school with a real program so you choose to come to a bar filled with Missouri fans and students to try and talk shit, because you have nothing to support your own school?”
This, this struck a nerve. And why wouldn’t it? What provokes someone to come and watch a football game just to instigate something unless there is a real deep rooted butt hurt? Black North Face’s friend proposed a fight, and I took a lay of the room and quickly decided that would end in my favor but there would be no real winners. So I laughed at him, smiled, and told him to have a good career at Insight Global.
Hey, I know I Just Met You, but if Shit Goes Down, I Got You
Said the Nebraska fan in his red long-sleeve. “Did you guys lose again today?” I asked. “Yeah.” His face dropped.
We talked at length about Mizzou-Nebraska going back to the flea-kicker, the oldest game he or I could remember. He told me Scott Frost would have them at 10-2 in two years, and with delusions like that, you know his Nebraska fandom runs deep.
But, this is what was interesting. He didn’t go to Nebraska either. “My family grew up there, I went to SLU, and now I’m at AT Still.”
A Conclusion
I tell this story because we keep talking on this board about fan support - we always talk about fan support. And this is the real problem - Missouri is a divided state. The Nebraska fan I just met never went to Nebraska, the Missouri State kids root against Missouri. What reason do those Missouri State kids have to root against Mizzou? We don’t play each other, we’re not rivals. It’s the equivalent of Royals fans hating the Cardinals or Rams fans hating the Chiefs. In every other SEC state, their fan bases aren’t just comprised of alums and students, they’re comprised of everyone. In Missouri, Mizzou isn’t ignored, it’s disliked or even hated.
Every school but Vandy and us has this advantage and for us, we are actively hurt by it. I don’t know any way to fix it. But, if we’re going to compare AD budgets and game attendance, Missouri to Auburn or Missouri to Tennessee or Missouri to Arkansas or even Kentucky is apples-oranges. My friend who went to Tuscaloosa sat next to four Bama fans who were all from Ohio, went to Cincinnati, and had no connection to Bama whatsoever. When have you ever seen that at Mizzou?
