Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer
Sep 20, 2005
A Journey into the Heart of Fan Mania
By Warren St. John
IBSN# 0609607081
Crown Publishers, 2004
College football in the south is a religion. Growing up in Alabama, I didn’t know a single person who didn’t have a favorite SEC team. In my neck of the woods it was either Alabama or Auburn and Heaven forbid you didn't take sides. You’d occasionally see a Vols fan or a Gator fan on I-65, but mostly my world was made up of Crimson Tide football.
But I never stopped to think that there was a whole other world outside of college football. I knew I was a Bama fan because my family was made up of Bama fans. I inherited the legacy, so to speak. I knew that Auburn and Tennessee were the enemies. I knew that wearing crimson and white was an honor. But I never stopped to think why.
Why are people fanatic over sports? What is the fascination? Why do they buy RV’s the size of a double-wide trailer just to go sit in a asphalt parking lot, two, or even three, days before the game starts? Why do they pick up and head off to the next football game in another state just to tailgate all over again in the next few days? Why do they grab the nearest stranger and bear hug him when their team makes a winning play? Why do southerners take such pride in their college teams?
New York Times reporter, Warren St. John asked himself that too and decided to find out.
Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer is an account of St. John’s foray into the lives of a RV society. His book isn’t just about the tailgaters and why they are at the game, so to speak, but rather about why someone can love a team so much that they will spent tons of money getting to one, miss important events (such as a daughter’s wedding), or show such a devotion to one team that they are buried in a casket decorated in their team’s colors and logos.
The fun starts as Birmingham-born St. John meets up with fellow Bama fans, Chris and Paula Bice, as a guest in their motor home for the first Bama game of the season. The Bices open his eyes to the ultimate tailgate party, complete with Bama Bombs (maraschino cherries marinated in Pure Grain Alcohol) and Van Tiffens (the PGA cherry juice in Sprite).
At each game, St. John meets more Alabama fans and gives us a look into their weekend lives. Each RV family has a special recipe of sorts that they share with him: baloney sticks, assorted alcoholic drinks, spicy pickled tomatoes, and barbecue, to name a few. Each reveals a little about themselves and show that they aren’t so different from you and me. They just have a passion for southern football and they aren't afraid to show it.
At the Alabama-Florida game, he settles down in the Alachua Campground and writes:
"The Alachua campground is a scenic little bog beneath a canopy of moss-covered pines not far from the highway. A hundred and seventy-five Alabama RV’s have overrun the place along with a smattering of deeply confused Canadians – snowbirds who’d never thought to check the American college football schedule before choosing their RV campground….
"In the lot the usual laid-back Friday afternoon scene of beer drinkers in folding chairs has been displaced by a flurry of activity…I spot RV’s I recognize: Donnie, Skipper, and Bill Prescott are all parked together in the back of the bog. I run into Frances and get my ticket. Jerral Johnson, the Show Chicken Man, is standing over a grill that leaks wisps of smoke…Johnson offers me dinner – potato salad, iced tea, and a succulent filet mignon, which he has slow-cooked in tin-foil…"
Warren St. John gives us a look into a subculture that has never really been exposed before. By purchasing his own RV, dubbed The Hawg, he drives from game to game, and finally to the SEC Championship game in Atlanta. Does he find out the answers to the questions that drove him there in the first place? The reader makes up his/her own mind after reading this book. There is no neat little ending, just a pang that football season is over and you have to wait another year to cheer like a banshee for your favorite team.
"...Rammer Jammer Yellowhammer is not only a travel story, but a cultural anthropology of fans that goes a long way toward demystifying the universal urge to take sides and win."
Reviewed by Dana Sieben
www.southerngalgoesnorth.blogspot.com
*************************************
Warren St. John, the author has a link for book clubs, if interested:
http://www.rammerjammeryellowhammer.com/bookclubs.htm
"We believe that book club gatherings about Rammer Jammer should be as much fun as the book itself. You get the barbecue, and we’ll supply a jar of Bama Bombs, a reader’s guide and a selection of recommended articles on the research on understanding the phenomenon of sports fans. We'll even forward the mixing instructions for a batch of Pink Panty Pulldowns, though we take no responsibility for any misbehavior that occurs afterwards. If circumstances allow, Warren is happy to join your book club by speaker phone for half an hour."
