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Around SBN: Knicks Beat Lakers With Familiar Strategy

Taking One for the Team

First things first; while spending much of yesterday being batted around the blogosphere like a pinata, I neglected to take care of a couple of housekeeping details, which I would like to get out of the way before we begin. Two questions to which you need to know the answers are these:

  • Is Georgia a national power? Yes, Georgia is.
  • Is there such a thing as a classy Auburn fan? Yes, there is. (Jay Coulter of Track 'Em Tigers gets extra credit for playing to my innate Southern conservatism by referring to, then reiterating, the fact that Andrew Cuomo is "a New York liberal." He also gets in a dig at Georgia by pointing out that Auburn has won "two out of the last three" series meetings. Another way of saying that, of course, would be to note that the Plainsmen have won two out of their last five games against the 'Dawgs, but, really, who's counting?)

(Obligatory reminder of Odell Thurman's 99-yard interception return.)

Now, though, I would like to get to the subject I wish I had covered yesterday, after first offering a word of thanks to Burnt Orange Nation's Peter Bean for being a classy guy even when I am being a bad friend to him. 756 cocktails to you, sir, and also a unicorn.

As you know, I am a big believer in pregame rituals, particularly the sacrificial ritual of feasting on the flesh of the enemy.

That is why I was intrigued by Nico's recent posting, which produced a reader comment revealing that University of Alabama classics professor Kirk Summers performs weekly sacrifices during football season.

Relax; he's not hurling young maidens into volcanoes or committing acts of animal cruelty. Instead, Professor Summers's sacrifices go a little something like this:

As they watched the sacrifice take place, the crowd of students chanted in Latin. "Volvere aestus volvere!" they said. Or, in English, "Roll, Tide, roll!"

The football season is about to begin, and Classics 222 is busy ensuring a victory for the Crimson Tide against Hawaii.

Before them is their leader and teacher: "Kirkules." The sacrifice for this weekend is a symbol of their enemies: a pineapple.

"The pineapple was the most appropriate gift for the gods before the Hawaii game," said Kirk Summers, an associate professor of classics and leader of the sacrifice. "We believe that out team can't win unless we make the sacrifice and do it properly."


All right, I'm on board for this. After a football season in which the 'Dawgs lost to Vanderbilt and Kentucky, you'd better be on board for it, too.

I am not going through that again!

We need a regular Friday sacrifice that has a plausible connection to that Saturday's Georgia opponent. It needs to be something that won't turn me into the latest Atlanta-area resident to get himself into trouble with the law over being unkind to animals. (In other words, we can grill a chicken the night before the South Carolina game, but we aren't going to kill a chicken the night before the South Carolina game. We're obsessive sports fans; we're not Santeria.)

Pick a game, any game. We have a full schedule to fill here, folks. Your suggestions go in the comments below, so let 'er rip. What will be the pregame sacrifice preceding each Georgia game this fall?

I'm going to let all of you have your say on this, so don't be alarmed if I hang back a bit and you don't hear from me a lot for the next couple of days. Have at it.

Go 'Dawgs!

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From The Let's-Get-This-Out-Of-The-Way-Now Dept.
I would be more than happy to sacrifice 5,6, even 10 or more Trojans on November 2nd to ensure victory the following day versus Troy.

I'd even be willing to take two or three rather than just one for the team. All at the same time, if necessary.

by Dawgter Feelgood on Aug 9, 2007 12:34 PM EDT reply actions  

Suggestions
OSU--fraying a lasso before burning it

SCU--an exorcism to rid the SEC of the ghost that is Blake Mitchell

Western Carolina--skin a cat

Bama--cut some reader's mullet

Ole Miss--although I'd hate to see it done, maybe burn some Faulkner (seems sacreligious but appropriate at the same time--make it a short story)

UT#2--Bama took mullet honors, so maybe we go with burning a pack of GPC cigarettes and a pint of shine

Vandy--sink a toy sailboat

Florida--destroy some jean shorts, of course

Troy--I'll agree with Feelgood

Auburn--eat a Moonpie with an RC

Kentucky--an Ashley Judd movie

Tech--destroy any Star Trek or Storm Trooper figurine

by TheUnknownStuntman on Aug 9, 2007 4:04 PM EDT reply actions  

commentary
Good suggestions, but I must draw the line at desecrating good Southern literature.  There's no way in hell I can get behind burning even a short story -- particularly one by Faulkner.  Now, burning a T-shirt with the Confederate "battle flag" that says "American by Birth; Southern by the Grace of God"?  I can live with that.

W Carolina -- skin a cat?  Maybe an effigy of a cat.  Come on, now.  Don't we have to stay within the realm of decency and the law?

For Kentucky, I was going to suggest something with bourbon (I frequently suggest something with bourbon, come to think of it, or perhaps I become more suggestive with bourbon?), but that would be almost as bad as burning Faulkner.  Speaking of which, you know the Kentucky quarter in the current States series?  Until I visited Louisville back in June, I thought that was a picture of a horse and some kind of barn or stable on the back.  Nope.  That's no barn; that's a bourbon warehouse.  Between Lexington and Louisville (and elsewhere, probably), horses and bourbon warehouses are all you see.

Ack.  Let me back up and try an actual list of my own.  And I haven't even been drinking.

by NCT on Aug 9, 2007 4:36 PM EDT up reply actions  

On Cats and Literary Greats
Of course the cat comment was in jest--I was a little lazy with the pushover.

As for Faulkner, I agree that I probably went overboard with that one.  You can see from my original post that I hesitated to write it.  The more I think about it, the more I worry about tempting fate with Faulkner.

I kept any Bear reference out of the Tide sacrifice for a reason.  You just don't temp the football gods.  Upon further reflection, I see that Faulkner is likely to have the same power.  

I now suggest a desecration of the new Col. Reb.

by TheUnknownStuntman on Aug 9, 2007 10:01 PM EDT reply actions  

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