Tonight we drink boys

I cannot begin to explain the insult to my intelligence I have endured this afternoon. I am sitting in a leather chair imported from Italy, television mounted above the fireplace, glass of small batch bourbon in hand, and what I have watched looks more like a JV scrimmage than college football. I did not clear my Saturday nor invite my Dutch girlfriend who crossed an ocean to spend the weekend here just to be subjected to this mess.

She tells me with her sweet accent that it is only a game. Only a game. That is a phrase that reveals the kind of European detachment that simply does not translate here. This is not only a game. This is pride and tradition and money poured into stadiums and training rooms and today it has all been squandered.

The offensive line was nonexistent. The defense looked like it had been on a juice cleanse all summer. Meanwhile I am left swirling ice in a glass that costs more than their cleats and wondering how a program with this much history and this much talent pool could fold so completely.

And then she suggests Ajax. Imagine trading Saturdays in Athens or Baton Rouge for Dutch soccer in a gray stadium on a cold night. Ajax is not football, Ajax is soap. I nearly spilled my bourbon laughing.

So here I sit, humiliated and half drunk, watching my reputation as a fan dragged through the mud. Maybe next week will be better. Maybe it will not. But I will be here all the same, glass in hand, face red, because that is what it means to be a man of the South who will not abandon his team no matter how badly they disgrace him.