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It wasn’t easy explaining to my father’s family in New Jersey what it was like to be in Alabama on the weekend of a big game, like when Alabama played Louisiana State — as they will this Saturday night — or when the Crimson Tide battled Tennessee or Auburn. During an Auburn game, as Geoffrey Norman wrote in his book “Alabama Showdown,” “One or two people every year die of a heart attack right there in Legion Field. The better the game, the more people who die.”
People from Texas understood what he meant; it was like when the University of Texas played Texas A&M or Oklahoma. To Oklahomans, it was like when their Sooners play Texas or Nebraska. People from Michigan and Ohio understood — it was like when Michigan played Ohio State, and they had to pass out fliers to fans of the visiting team advising “Wear jackets over your team colors and don’t take them off until seated.” (The same flier suggested driving across the state line in a rental car with neutral-state license plates.)
In New Jersey, though, there were no ready comparisons, nor, for that matter, in New York, where most fans think college football is something played somewhere west of the Hudson River and most sportswriters see college football as a mere appendage to the pro game. What a shock they would have should they ever cross the river and find out that for the vast majority of Americans, college football is football.
My Jersey cousins would ask, “You mean like when the Eagles and Giants play?” Not quite, I’d reply. Nobody dies at Eagles-Giants games. The year doesn’t hinge on Eagles-Giants games. People in Philadelphia and New York still get married on the day of Eagles-Giants games.
This Saturday, nobody in Alabama or Louisiana is going to get married, and somebody is going to die.
(Scott - the story continues in Salon... but I like stopping here. It's perfect.)