Sweet Home Ala****

My Week #4 Submission

This is my submission to this week’s Stories from the Jukebox song prompt, The Beef, highlighting the back and forth song duel by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Neil Young. Subscribe to vote on next week’s song prompt and have your submission shared.

I never really liked it. Sure I’d sing along—doesn’t everybody? But that was before Alabama became the enemy.

I’ve always disliked Orange, and for good reason—after all, Florida, Auburn, Tennessee, and Clemson all wear that terrible excuse for a color. And I had to watch as all of those teams won championships, some more than one over the forty year Georgia drought.

But Alabama was different—they were like some kinda mythical football team. They’d reached a level that was unobtainable for anyone else. And we had common enemies too, as I mentioned before. So I guess you could say that I’d kinda liked Bama at one time—or at least, that I didn’t dislike them.

But then we got Kirby Smart, and in just a few years Georgia started to close the once insurmountable gap. Soon enough, we were having no issues with any of the orange teams anymore. There was only one team standing in the Dawgs way, the Crimson Tide of Alabama.

Here’s the article where ESPN first announces UGA’s hire of Coach Smart.

Coach Richt had some success early against Saban, but it didn’t last. I was at the 2008 Blackout game, and understand why it was the last time Georgia wore black. Kirby was actually Bama’s defensive coordinator at the time, and they destroyed us on our own turf that night. It was disgraceful!

That night became the first time I ever hated the song, Sweet Home Alabama. Their band played it as the Bama players rushed our field—after all, they’d just knocked off the number one team in the land. That game would end up costing us a national championship, as Less’s losers(LSU) ended up jumping us in the poles at the end of the season.

The Sugar Bowl that year was an epic trip, and routing we gave Hawaii on New Year’s Day is not what I’m referring to. That’ll make a great story one day, but this ain’t it…

The next time I heard Sweet Home Alabama was unfortunately for me, a similar circumstance as the previous debacle—only it hurt much worse. The year was 2012, Atlanta’s stadium was still called The Georgia Dome back in those days.

Georgia was playing Alabama for the SEC Championship—probably the most exciting game I’ve ever been to. I’m sure my companion Benji would agree, and we’ve been to more than half-a-hundred UGA games together over the years. It was a Saturday night in the Dome, and the scene was electric from the start! This had been billed as the ‘defacto national championship game’ as the winner was expected to roll over its next opponent in the BCS Title Game(which they did). And neither team meant to disappoint—it was a stunner!

The game was decided in the final seconds, and it was both one of the most exhilarating and devastating sports moments I’d ever experienced. It’s hard to put in words, but Benji and I were caught up in a minute of timelessness…

...the game had been back and forth all night—Georgia found itself in the redzone down 32-28, with ten seconds left and no time outs on the Alabama 8 yard line. Me, Benji, and over seventy-one thousand fans were watching so intensely that there is a hush over the stadium as we all held our breath.

Then, just like that—it was over. Confetti was falling, and Sweet Home Alabama was screaming at us over the Georgia Dome’s sound system. Completely speechless, Benji nor I spoke for the next hour and a half as we made our way out of the stadium and through the crowds to our vehicle. Our dumbfoundedness was only broken by a phone call, from his cousin as we were leaving ATL. We didn’t know until then, that the ball had been tipped at the line of scrimmage. We’d watched the play, but couldn’t see that the ball had been tipped from our angle. We arrived home just before daylight, and immediately turned the game on to watch it again.

Then, if that terrible experience wasn’t enough🤢it happened a-freaking-gin in 2017. This time it was a National Championship Game, and Tua beat us in OT. The Alabama crowd, that hadn’t made a peep all night mind you, erupted when that stupid damn song started playing after the game🤮. We were so disgusted, that when I drove past the exit to the hotel the only question raised was, “What about the room keys?”

“I’ll mail’em,” was my response as I continued south on I-75.

So while I’ll die a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan—if I never hear the song Sweet Home Alabama again, it’ll be too soon.

GO DAWGS!!!

Benji and I at one of the many UGA games we attended over the years.

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Thanks for reading! If you’re a writer, I hope this’ll inspire you to make your own submission!

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