Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The War Between the States, or . . .
'The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.'


I thought LSU-Tulane was a pretty vicious football rivalry. After all, we used to wear "Tuck Fulane" buttons and throw "Greenie Weenies" (hot dogs boiled in green dye) onto the field at the Green Wave players.

When I was a freshman, someone stole several large, concrete Tulane University signs from the New Orleans campus. One sat in front of an LSU freshman dorm for a long time.


Then, my junior year, somebody from Tulane cut the locks and let Mike the Tiger out of his cage on the LSU campus.

I thought that was pretty intense. I was wro-on-on-ong.

LIKEWISE, I thought LSU-Ole Miss was a pretty hot rivalry itself. ENNNNNNNNNNNNNNT!

Nebraska-Oklahoma?
Naaaah.

Alabama-Auburn? Not even.

Michigan-Ohio State? Notre Dame-USC?

Fugiddaboudit!

NO, A TRUE college-football hate match is when each team's fans invoke their state's Civil War-era terrorists and mass murderers in some sort of unholy Litany of the Demons --
"Kill for us!"

In this corner, massacring for the University of Mizzou-RAH! Tigers, at 157 pounds, William Quantrill leading his raiders, and aiming to burn Lawrence, Kan., a second time!

And in this corner, at 179 pounds, leading a raid for abolition and the University of Kansas . . . John Brown, coming off a tough loss at Harper's Ferry and back from a-mouldering in the grave for one night only to lead the charge against some Missouri slavers!

ARE YOU READY for some football?
Nathan Fowler at AOL Sports is:
You know what the best part of Kansas and Missouri having their best ever seasons at the very same time is? The entire nation will get exposed to what is possibly the most bitter and hateful rivalry in the country in all it's glory (or shame, if you prefer). You can have your Ohio State v. Michigan or Alabama v. Auburn, but the last time I checked nobody from Columbus ever went to Ann Arbor and systematically executed every man they could find while burning the town to the ground. And certainly nobody made t-shirts later celebrating that fact.

But that did happen in 1863 in Lawrence, KS when William Quantrill led his band of "Bushwackers" to the "Jayhawker" stronghold and went on a 4 hour rampage that would become known as the "Lawrence Massacre" - one of the ugliest episodes of the brutal 10+ years of fighting along the Kansas and Missouri border. While the Civil War has become the South v. the North in most people's minds, the fighting in fact began as a violent guerrilla conflict between the abolitionists in Kansas and the slave holding Missouri settlers (more or less, like many guerrilla campaigns there were quite blurred lines at times). In many ways, those old wounds have never quite healed - Grandpa Simpson will be be deep in the cold, cold ground before he recognizes Missour-ah as a state, for example.


Those t-shirts seen above that some Missouri fans are making for the showdown at Arrowhead in two weeks are celebrating the Lawrence Massacre and in fact have Quantrill's visage and slogan emblazoned on the back - "Raise the Black Flag and Ride Hard Boys. Our Cause is Just and Our Enemies Many". Talk about going straight past normal levels of fan behavior and making a hard right turn into loony land, that might be the single most offensive game day t-shirt I've ever seen. Kansas fans are now responding with t-shirts sporting noted violent Kansas abolitionist John Brownled a massacre of his own and the 1859 Harper's Ferry raid that really kicked off the Civil War powder keg) with the slogan "Keeping America Safe From Missouri Since 1854". . . .
JUST IN CASE, I think we Nebraskans might be putting the National Guard on our southern flank. When people go that nuts, you can't be too careful. Y'know?

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