How to Taunt a Georgia Fan

I can imagine that getting a rise out of my brethren. On a related note, wasn’t 1998 the last time Tennessee won an SEC football championship? That was, like, 7 Colquitts ago.

It was also the last time UT won a National Championship. But I’m sure UGA must have done that recently.

. . . and this comment thread, I’m really wishing I’d never brought this up in the first damned place.

Again, full disclosure: I really don’t like Georgia…but I have a reason. I went down to Athens for the 2000 UT/UGA game, which yall won. And I have never ever in my life seen such pure unadulterated viciousness from a fanbase that I saw after that game. I saw female UGA fans spitting on anybody who walked by in Orange. This attitude was not isolated, but, rather, quite ubiquitious. It wasn’t excitement over a win. It was a deep deep hatred for another team that was finally given an opportunity to manifest itself.

I was staying with my best friend from high school, who went to UGA, and I went down to hang-out postgame with him and his cousins who had rode down from West Virginia in their RV. MY BUDDY’S COUSINS STARTED TAUNTING ME. And not in a nice, friendly way. Like, I had to get up and leave. As I walked away from that RV, my opinion of UGA fans was formed for life. So, to the extent you have a saintly vision of UGA fans as cool, calm, collected, and classy in victory and defeat. Wrong. Yall aint any less obnoxious than any other fan base.

One might argue that this experience was a karmic effect from my admittedly mean-spirited taunting in 1999. Except that I don’t believe in Karma, so that can’t be it.

I didn’t come here to give anybody a hard time or to imply that anyone on this board is the type that would spit. I initially posted just because I like the story. Yes, it is at UGA’s expense..but it just reminds me of my buddy and walking to the game — slightly intoxicated — with few cares in the world.

My second post was just a rant in response to a poster’s disbelief that someone got a rise out of a UGA fan. It was not meant to convey that UGA fans are bad people. Just that, as fans, they are just like everybody else.

I like your blog, Kyle, or I wouldn’t even be here.

Both of those stories are now codified. Which is cool. I never would have written that down otherwise. And I feel a little better now.

Though I still have not spoken to the harshest of the taunting-cousins.

Discussions like this one just remind me of the uselessness (at best) and counterproductivity (most often) of romantic naivete in the real world.

It’s nice to think that, if people just sit down with one another and talk to one another as human beings, it will dispel preconceptions and teach them to appreciate one another. That’s a nice notion in international, ideological, racial, religious, political, and tribal conflicts, as well as in the much less important matter of sports loyalties.

The problem is that it seldom works out that way in reality. Typically, the more we get to know the folks we disagree with and dislike, the more aware we become of why we can’t stand each other and how we can attack one another. Our prejudices only rarely give way to the truths that would undermine those preconceived notions; we see only what we want to see.

Familiarity breeds contempt. That is a frustrating fact in any number of arenas, personal and professional, and it is why so much well-intended human interaction is so futile. Sports are, in many respects, a microcosm of the rest of life, and this sort of thing just reminds me how poorly that reflects on sports and on the rest of life.

A slight good-natured jab by a victor’s fan after a disappointing loss usually has a much more negative effect than was intended. A remark that will be remembered by the taunter (if remembered at all) as a simple, off-the-cuff comment will be stockpiled by the tauntee as evidence of what a-holes those guys are.

Back in 2006, I was hanging out in Athens with a Tech fan and my best friend (a Georgia fan) after the Tech game. That was the year GTU (see what I did there?) was supposed to win. Calvin Johnson and all that. Anyway, the Tech fan said that he was amazed to see Georgia fans cheering just to see a UGA first down. The Georgia fan said, “Yeah, and there were a lot of them.” The Tech fan found that to be egregiously tasteless and out-of-bounds taunting. Honestly, it seemed to me like an even trade of mild jab for mild jab. Losing magnifies everything. Then again, the Trade School produces sore losers and graceless winners.

Every school in the SEC (probably even Vandy) has some obnoxious fans. It is luck of the draw as to whether or not you personally come into contact with these individuals. If you do, then you think that the entire fan base is obnoxious which just isn’t the case.

Most SEC fans are generally hospitable to their opponents and I hope that all of us remember that when an opponent’s fans come to cheer on their team at road games, they should be treated as guests (off the field only of course). We are all ambassadors for our alma mater or school we have elected to support and should act as such. Even when your team loses – as tough as it is to swallow a home loss – you need to remember to show sportsmanship in defeat as well as victory.

I’ve had some great road trips to 8 of the 12 SEC schools (UK will join that list this coming fall) and have positive memories from each of them. I recall Ole Miss fans in the Grove inviting us to a pre-game toast and bite at their tailgate, same at Auburn in the Amphitheatre, Athens in the apartments across from the place formerly known as O’Mally’s, Knox-vegas at Calhoun’s on the River, Columbia at the Fairgrounds and in a Cock-a-boose, etc. LSU fans even tossed us a few congratulatory beers after a Zook- led team inexplicably upset them in Baton Rouge for their only loss in a national championship year.

There will always be a few jackasses dressed in your school colors on gameday – and if you see a fellow fan unnecessarily giving an opposing fan a hard time, feel free to step in and represent your team with class. There’s nothing in the world like SEC football – and it’s the passion of the fans that make it so.