My Trip Through SEC Country

INTRODUCTION

I spent November of 2006 in Charleston, South Carolina working on a play. When I’m not contributing pithy insight to blogdom, I do work a bit in the theatre, and the Charleston engagement was a bit of that work. Loving leisure like I do, and being fairly virgin to a good car trip south of the Mason-Dixon line, I decided to put a bazillion miles on my 99 Camry, and take a tour of SEC country.

Map of My Trip

If you’re reading this, you probably know I’m a bit of a college football fan, but I haven’t been to that many stadiums. I’ve only seen real live games in four, I think. Iowa State – about 150. Iowa – probably 5. Notre Dame – 1. Missouri – 1. See, in Big XII country, our rivals aren’t the little jaunt across a few miles of highway like y’alls are down south, so I don’t get much chance to go see the Cyclones play on the road.

Additionally, I’ve always been fascinated by stadium architecture. I have notebooks full of little sketches I’d draw in grade school, overhead views of football, basketball and baseball stadium, with different color codes for student and VIP sections, attendance estimates, all the trippings of huge dorkness paired with an insatiable desire for sports knowledge.

Walking in a new stadium always gives me the chills, especially when its empty. I’ve gone out of my way in the past to visit college football stadiums. I’ve stepped on the field at Ohio State and Northwestern, and peeked through the gate at Oklahoma.

But I’ve never, ever been to an SEC stadium. So, with four days to kill going down, and a week to burn going back, I decided to give myself a little tour of SEC country, and then write a little column comparing the schools, their stadiums and people, and hopefully try to tell the truth and piss a few people off.

The schools I ended up getting to, and the stadiums I ended up inside, were; Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Ole Miss and Mississippi State. I rated the schools in four categories: Stadium/Facilities, Campus Town, Friendliness of People, Pretty Southern Girls.

Keep in mind, I didn’t go to any of these places on game days, and I know that game day is a huge, huge part of what a stadium is. So, I know that. I’m writing what I saw. As far as the ratings go, 3-4 is kind of lame, 5-6 is average, 7-8 is pretty good and 9-10 is off the proverbial chain. Here’s what I experienced.

TENNESSEE – Knoxville, Tennessee

I was a little down rolling in to Knoxville, having stopped in Nashville to have lunch with the mother of a friend of mine who died two years ago. So I figured getting my first taste of an SEC town would be exactly the right medicine to cheer me up.

Nashville, TN to Knoxville, TN

Knoxville was a little bigger than I thought, and that made the stadium a little harder to find than I expected. For some reason, I thought I’d just roll in to town and see it. Not exactly. But it wasn’t tough, and I found a parking spot right across the street and hopped out. Suddenly I realized I really had no plan to actually get inside the stadium. I didn’t have my Rivals.com press pass, I didn’t even have a camera. The only real reason I could give someone to get me in was: uh, because I want to.

It was about 4:50 pm, and every gate surrounding Neyland Stadium was locked. The place isn’t exactly attractive from the outside. Tall, steep concrete with no walls surrounding, so you can see the jagged edges of the stands in relief underneath the giant gray edifice. Its wedged right in between what looked like administration buildings and the rest of campus, and there’s not a lot of room to breathe. Just when I was about to be content to see it from the outside, I saw a maintenance man locked up a gate about five gates down. I hustled over, and asked if he would let me in. Sure, he said, just don’t be long, and don’t go on the field.

Neyland Stadium from Above

I went on through the gate up a little ramp to the field. And damn it if I didn’t get goosebumps just like I knew I would. Neyland is gorgeous on the inside, completely bowled in, huge stands circling the entire field, and two majestic jerseys hanging from the middle tier; the retired uniforms of Reggie White and Peyton Manning. I was surprised to see hedges surrounding the playing field as well. I would come to learn this was completely common in the south, and not just a Georgia thing, as I had thought.

The other thing that took me by surprise was that, on a Wednesday morning three days before a home game, the field at no paint on it. The trademark orange and white checkerboard endzones were faded, and hardly visible. This, I’d learn, was relatively common too.

Anyway, so I stood there for a few minutes, and was so taken that I didn’t want to leave, so I walked over to the Student Center and grabbed a burrito and a banana, and tried to talk to a few people, so I’d get an impression of what they were like.

As for the women, I was reminded of Crash Davis, telling the other ball players in Bull Durham that, in the show, “all the women have long legs and brains.” Well, brains I didn’t really have time to find out. But the legs…um, yeah.

Some Volunteer Cheerleaders, from SI.com

Stadium: 9
Campus Town: 7
Friendliness of People: 6
Pretty Southern Girls: 7

SOUTH CAROLINA – Columbia, SC

Asheville, NC to Columbia, SC

After spending the night in Asheville, NC, I took the jaunt down to Columbia, SC to see if I could catch Gamecock fever before heading to Charleston. Quick thoughts on Asheville: sleepy little mountain town, very cool. Bought gas from an old fashioned pump with an old school, actual meter instead of a digital read out, and I ate breakfast at a delicious brunch place called Tupelo Honey. If you haven’t caught a sunrise driving down out of the Great Smoky Mountains, you’ve got some living to do.

It was a Thursday afternoon in November, so I figured there would definitely be some activity going on around the stadium. I decided to recall my Boy Scout heritage and be prepared this time. I used a map.

Williams Brice Stadium

I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed by Williams Brice. Now, let me put that comment in context. Williams Brice is more impressive than any stadium I had been to short of Notre Dame Stadium (other than Neyland). And that says a lot about the SEC, because South Carolina appears to have some of the less impressive facilities in the conference, and its still a way cooler stadium than Jack Trice, Kinnick or Faurot Field. That being said, after Neyland, I was kind of underwhelmed.

There’s a nice little lot right in front of the stadium for football officials, so I rolled in and hopped out. Its November and 80 degrees. This world is fucked up and I love the south. Luckily for me, the gate is wide open, and I stroll right in. Optimistic that I might get an Old Ball Coach sighting, I just kind of stuck my chin out like I was supposed to be there and moseyed around a bit.

Up a little walk away I went, and in half a minute I was standing by a gate on the other side of which was the endzone. There was nobody around, and I was a foot from being on the field at SoCar. Very cool. Again, hedges. Again, no paint.

I guess my feelings on Williams Brice could be summed up like this: the stadium is kind of like John McCain – very cool in theory, but when you look close, but the architecture is a little confused, and the structure is just too old and rusty to really be a winner.

John McCain

The top of the stadium has these cool lights that shoot out from the façade like lasers. Check those things out in this picture:

Laser Lights at Williams Brice

They kind of look like that laser in Star Wars on the Death Star, where all the separate small lasers merged to make one huge killer awesome laser that then blew up Alderaan. Hmm. I guess South Carolina blew up Clemson, which is slightly less impressive than blowing up a planet.

The iron structures are also very rusty, and just looked a little broken down, and I’ve never been a fan of the exposed circular staircase in the corners of stadiums. I think its ghetto and I probably always will.

On my way out of town, I stopped at a Sonic, where the woman was very rude to me when I asked the best way out of town. Luckily for her, those freakin magic burritos at Sonic are unreal, so I didn’t leave town in a totally pissy mood.

Columbia the city, no offense to the South Carolinians, it just seemed kind of dirty. The stadium is across the street from the South Carolina state fair grounds, and everything in the city had that feeling you get walking around a county fair; you’re kind of half impressed by its quaintness, and half shocked it hasn’t all fallen apart yet.

I didn’t really see many Pretty Southern Girls, or girls of any kind, so I can’t give a fair rating there.

Stadium: 5
Campus Town: 4
Friendliness of People: 5
Pretty Southern Girls: NA

GEORGIA – Athens, GA

Six weeks later, after I’d directed the play in Charleston, and spent one night in Savannah (attention tourists: when looking for a cheap motel in Savannah, GA, do NOT stay at any of the properties on Martin Luther King Drive. That is, unless you think gunshots make a nice alarm clock.), I was on the road to Athens.

Savannah, GA to Athens, GA

One thing Athens had in its favor was that for my time here, I would have a tour guide – one of my high school tennis teammates, Big Head. Big Head is working in admissions at UGA with his new wife (Layna, who is very cool) and pretty much decided to move his family to Athens because REM was formed there. Think about that for a second. You’re just out of college, you’ve got a wife to support, and you pack up and head for Liverpool because you loved Sergeant Pepper’s. Its so genius. I love it.

REM

First order of business was going out for some beers with Mr. and Mrs. Head, and I jumped at the chance to have my third consecutive meal at Mellow Mushroom. I had never heard of this place before going to Charleston, but it absolutely has the 2nd best pizza in the world. Completely insanely good pizza. Try it. Mushroom narrowly beat out a stop for burgers at what I was told is the only location of The Varsity outside of the legendary downtown ATL burger/shake hangout, which went to several years ago. Already the restaurants in town are working overtime.

After a few (ok several) beers, we walk (ok, stagger) around campus a bit. The scenery is very chill, the bars are fabulous, and the Pretty Southern Girls scrumptious. I make a mental note to confirm this during a state of sobriety.

Next morning we roll classic Georgia grits and sausage for breakfast and head over to the football stadium, passing the famous arch used on all UGA stationery and publicity materials. (And apparently sold in framed pictures on Art.com)

The UGA Arch and Sanford Stadium

We get to the stadium, and sadly, it’s the only one of the six on this trip that I won’t get to field level. There’s absolutely no access, but luckily you can see down in to it from a road that crosses just outside the endzone seating.

I’m blown away by the view inside. It’s 9 in the morning, a kind of foggy, rainy day, and the weather gives Sanford an almost mystical feeling. It has all the size and awe-inspiring coolness of Neyland stadium, but in my opinion, it’s a little more structurally elegant and its not completely symmetrical, which I think adds a bit of personality. I could have stood there and looked at it all day. I kept picturing it full of fans. A+.

I confirm in my sobriety that the campus town is still very chill, and the Pretty Southern Girls are still pretty yummy.

Stadium: 9
Friendliness of People: 7
Campus Town: 10
Pretty Southern Girls: 8

ALABAMA – Tuscaloosa, AL

I roll out of Athens for a six hour drive or so to Tuscaloosa. I stop at a used bookstore about ten feet off the road, and pick up a beaten up copy of All The President’s Men, one of favorites, for $1.50. Excellent. This is the best roadside purchase I’ve made since getting the 3-liter jug of Carolina cider from a shack 45 minutes southwest of Charleston for $8.99. The other sweet thing I do is try to find how many different stations I can get Sean Hannity on at one time. I don’t know how many of my readers like Hannity, I don’t, but if you do, that’s cool – my point is that in the south he’s on more radio stations than God. He owns AM like Michael owned Barkley. He’s on the radio more than Peyton Manning is on TV. There, that’ll work.

Athens to Tuscaloosa

On the way to Tuscaloosa, I’m giving strong thought to taking a quick detour to see Talladega Motor Speedway. I’m not really a racing fan, but I feel its just one of those things you gotta see. Unfortunately, the bookstore set me back a bit, and I’m a little behind schedule. I don’t like driving after dark after I was in car accident two years ago at night, so I try to get everywhere by a little after dusk. I decide, sadly, I’m not going to have time to stop at Talladega.

Howevah…

As fate would have it, just a bit after I cross over in to Alabama (which has, easily the best license plates of any state in the union: Stars Fell on Alabama) my car starts to make funny sounds. And then those funny sounds turn in to my car not responding well to steering. And the car not responding well to steering turns in to the car making a sound like a sonic boom every time I break. I’ve got no choice. I have to pull over and find a mechanic. And guess where I am? That’s right…Talladega!!

Thanks to my trusty assistant (my mother at home in Iowa), I find a mechanic about ten minutes from where I pull over. And guess what I have to drive right past in order to get there? That’s right, chilluns…Talladega Motor Speedway. It was just that kind of trip.

And its cool. The sides are banked so you don’t get a real good sense of the size when you’re passing by, but its neat to say I’ve been there, even if I’m not really down with NASCAR.

Talladega Motor Speedway

Anyway, enough about Talladega.

I get to a nice Super 8 on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa about 9 and crash instantly. OK, by instantly, I mean after trying to get the wireless connection to work for an hour, then dropping $100 on Full Tilt Poker in like 20 minutes.

Next morning’s another foggy rainy one, and its just two days before the Iron Bowl. From everything I’ve heard, Alabama vs. Auburn is the most hate-filled rivalry in college football, and more than anywhere else out there, whether you’re Roll Tide or War Eagle really defines you in that state. I would have liked to go to Auburn, but I only had so much time, and it was really out of the way.

However, just so the Auburn fans don’t hate, here is a picture of an unbelievably hot girl wearing an Auburn t-shirt. I, uh, met this girl and uh, she was really, um….in to me.

Hot Auburn Girl

Tuscaloosa was kind of a little bit nicer version of Columbia, but didn’t put you off quite so much with the “dilapidated carnival” vibe, and I thought some parts of it were kind of charming. However, it definitely didn’t reveal its charms to me on the level of Athens or Hot Auburn Girl, so I ended up giving the town kind of an average rating.

I get to the stadium and security is real tight because its Iron Bowl week. Somehow, additionally, its dropped to like 45 degrees, and I am going through one of those phases where I’ve just left a vacation where the weather is great, so I think I can wear shorts and a t-shirt everywhere. Therefore, I’m fucking freezing.

Bryant Denny Stadium

Front of Stadium

In front of Bryant Denny is not only the above pictured, very gorgeous front office/wall of windows/$47 million welcome mat, but a very cool and spooky row of statues. Every statue is of an Alabama coach that won a national title. There’s Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings, and a few other guys. Each dude gets their own little rotunda with the dates of their titles on it. But here’s the best part: at the end of the row, there’s an empty rotunda, which we can assume is for whoever gets the next title. How would you like to be that coach, walking down the row.

You: Hey, Athletic Director, why is there an empty rotunda there?
AD: We’re going to put a statue of you there if you when a national title.
You: Cool. I bet I look good in bronze.
AD: Oh yeah, if you don’t do it in two years, you’re fired.

So security’s tight around the stadium, and there’s actually a security guard sitting at every gate. On a Thursday morning. No one will let me in, and half of them tell me to get lost. I’m about to give up, when I decide to just ask one more guy for a shot. At first he says no, but then I tell him a sportswriter, and I’m on this SEC stadium tour, and the show wouldn’t be complete without getting inside the stadium at BAMA, for God sakes. So, he pauses, he thinks, and somehow I know I’m about to have a Hallmark moment.

So the guy finally tells me this story about how when he was on his honeymoon in New York, all he wanted to do was go inside Yankee Stadium, and no security guard would let him in, until he finally found one that would, and he always remembered how that guy did him a huge favor, so now he would do it for me.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. I freakin’ love sports.

So I run in. It’s a similar feeling to Neyland Stadium, and I think if I had seen Bryant Denny first, I would have been a little more impressed. I am impressed, but its fairly similar to Neyland and Sanford, and maybe because I’ve seen 5 stadiums in short order, I know I’m not as impressed as I’m supposed to be. For some reason, it seemed like it would be a great place to see a night game, and I don’t know why.

I roll out of town, passing a few Pretty Southern Girls on the way. I had high hopes for Bama in this department, and the Tide did not disappoint. I seriously almost got in a car accident because I saw ungodsmackingly gorgeous blond walking across University Blvd.

Stadium: 8
Campus Town: 6
Friendliness of People: 8
Pretty Southern Girls: 8

MISSISSIPPI STATE – Starkville, MS

Tuscaloosa to Starkville

I had never realized how close Alabama and Mississippi State are, and if Sylvester Croom can revitalize the Bulldogs, I think the schools proximity could make it one hell of a border war. As if the SEC needs any more of those.

Starkville is pretty much the best name for a college town you could ever imagine. It is what you think it is.

(“The town IS what you thought it was! It is what you think it is! That’s why you drive your car there. Now if you want to crown its ass, then crown its ass!”)

There’s nothing really around but Mississippi plains, undivided highways and Sean Hannity. I actually missed the exit entirely, and then found myself on the way to Ackerman and knew I was turned around.

(Just backing up a few paragraphs, can you believe I drove 2700 miles to go see empty football stadiums and considered Auburn, AL out of the way but Tuscaloosa, AL very much ON the way? Yeah, me neither.)

However, once I did finally get to Starkville, I felt right at home. The town is actually a lot like Ames, IA (where Iowa State is) in a southern kind of way. It feels like a farming community, the basketball and football arenas are in the same kind of complex/parking lot, and everything has a kind of faded-photograph feel to it.

Veterans Memorial Stadium (actually Davis-Wade Stadium, sorry)

Once I get in the stadium, the connection is even more prominent. Just like Iowa State, Mississippi State plays football in an older stadium that’s not bowled in at all, but has two individual stands on each side, and you can tell that the money coming to Starkville is a good ten years behind the rest of the region. Despite being smaller, Davis-Wade didn’t have the rust factor like South Carolina did, so I give it the slight edge on Williams Brice for that reason.

I get to thinking about it, and given the campus town feel, the proportion of their facilities to conference opponents, and these factors, I decide that Mississippi State and Iowa State are long lost twins and should root for each other whenever possible:

- overshadowed in the national media by a in-state rival that isn’t really that much better than us typically (Iowa/Ole Miss)
- peaks of success in basketball in recent years but unable to sustain long term awesomeness (Marcus Fizer/Erick Dampier)
- cross border rival that is a national tradition heavy program (Nebraska/Alabama)

Yeah, its on. Go ‘Dawgs.

Stadium: 6
Campus Town: 4
Friendliness of People: 6
Pretty Southern Girls: 5

OLE MISS – Oxford, MS

After a quick stop at Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo, MS (enough stories there for another column), I roll in to Oxford at about 7pm.

Starkville to Tupelo to Oxford

The stadium is just off the highway, so I turn in. I’m already digging Ole Miss because they have one of the coolest mascots in sports:

Sweet Ass Old Reb Mascot

and their stadium is named after Ernest Freakin’ Hemingway:

Ernest Hemingway

So I get to the stadium parking lot, and all the gates are closed. Never heard this one before, right? I am not going to let my tour end on a downer, so I do a lap around the entire stadium, and since I don’t see anyone around, I contemplate hopping the fence, but decide getting arrested in Mississippi might not be the smartest thing I’ve done in awhile.

Vaught-Hemingway Stadium

I finally find an equipment building that has a little side gate next to it open. I get through, and walk around the building, and I follow a concrete pathway around the bend and then, hello, I’m just a few feet from underneath the end zone bleachers. Its dark now, and I didn’t realize it before, but the stadium lights are on because a small part of the Ole Miss team is finishing up practice. It looks like linemen running the last part of ladder sprints or something. There’s one guy sitting in the stands with a clip board yelling (coach) and about 5 300 pound dudes sweating their balls off and getting yelled at (players.) Its totally dark where I am, I’m like 30 feet from the field, I can see everything they’re doing perfectly, but not a soul knows I’m there. Its creepy and magical and thrilling all at the same time.

THEN IT GETS AWESOME.

The coach rounds up the players, and everyone leaves the field. I’m the only one in the stadium now, and about two minutes later, they shut the lights off. I am standing alone, inside an SEC stadium, 5 feet from the corner of the end zone, and no one in the world knows I am here. I could have slept on the field if I wanted. I could have run option with an imaginary football, I could have kicked FGs all night, I could have done whatever I wanted. It was one of the coolest moments of my life.

I again decide that getting arrested in Mississippi is not a genius plan, I just stand in the corner of the end zone for a few minutes. I walk out about ten minutes later, up the concrete path and around the building, past a few equipment managers locking everything up. They both make kind of the “was he with you?” face and I just jog to my car.

The stadium was definitely the highlight of Oxford. Its cool in a video game sort of way. Astroturf with flashy red and blue letters on the carpet. It feels like you’re standing inside a model, not a real stadium. But its cool.

I was extremely impressed with the Pretty Southern Girls at Ole Miss. They were out in full force, going to parties, from parties, basically just being walking parties themselves. Hotties. All. Oxford on the whole felt a little bigger than some of the other towns, but that may have just been because it was night.

Stadium – 7
Friendliness of People – 6
Campus Town – 7
Pretty Southern Girls – 9

RANKINGS INDEX

So here’s how the six schools broke down for me in the four ratings areas:

Stadium:
Georgia
Tennessee
Alabama
Ole Miss
Mississippi State
South Carolina

Friendliness of People:
Alabama
Georgia
Ole Miss
Tennessee
Mississippi State
South Carolina

Campus Town:
Georgia
Ole Miss
Tennessee
Mississippi State
Alabama
South Carolina

Pretty Southern Girls:
Ole Miss
Georgia
Alabama
Tennessee
Mississippi State
South Carolina

Thanks for reading! What do YOU think?