A Nick Saban Hoodoo Wink?
December 14th, 2009
Tom Campbell
Saban flashes a knowing smile and wink after Ingram won the Heisman Saturday night…
Under the Microscope
by Glynn Wilson
Somewhere in the great divide between religion and science there exists the uniquely American game called football — and the practice of voodoo.
Nick Saban knows a thing or two about football, and if there’s any truth to certain urban legends spreading around the “Internets,” he may have learned a thing or two about voodoo during his five-year stint coaching LSU down on the bayou.
You can’t live in that damn swamp without finding out a little about Hoodoo, gris, gris and the rest, as I learned in my four years of living in New Orleans, as did my good friend Rick Bragg, who was there at the same time.
They say college football is a religion in the Deep South, especially in places like Louisiana and Alabama, but according to Bragg, “it’s not. Only religion is religion.”
“Anyone who has seen an old man rise from his baptism, his soul all on fire, knows as much, though it is easy to see how people might get confused,” Bragg wrote in Sports Illustrated when Nick Saban announced he would take the head coaching job at Alabama — after telling the people of Louisiana and Florida he never would.
“If football were a faith anywhere, it would be here on the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa, Ala.,” Bragg wrote. “And now has come a great revival.”
When the announcement went out Saturday night that running back Mark Ingram had won the University of Alabama’s first Heisman Trophy, the news traveled over the Internets faster than the old church bells could ring across the Old South.
The Alabama faithful sent e-mail messages and text messages to their groups of friends. Bloggers posted news links, photos and comments. And the social Networking sites of Facebook and Twitter lit up like Christmas tree lights with tweets supporting Ingram with the now infamous acronym RTR, short for Roll Tide Roll!
We are reminded that there are other traditions around here involving superstition, curses and the occasional jinx, like getting into the room unexpectedly and asking an irreverent question at the appropriate time.
When my old friend Tom Campbell sent me a Facebook message last week and said he was going to be in New York for a legal conference and would love to be present when and if Ingram walked away with that 25-pound, bronze stiff-arm statue, I just had to laugh. Would it be possible to obtain press credentials to shoot pictures and cover history in the making for The Locust Fork News-Journal?
I don’t know, I wrote, “but I’ve shown up for all kinds of things in the past and talked my way in just by acting like I know what I’m doing. Check the White House party crasher story.”
I figured what the heck. You can’t win if you don’t try.
So Campbell filled out the online application and I wrote a letter to the Heisman program coordinator and a few days later, Tom was sitting across from Mark Ingram with a press credential hanging around his neck a couple of hours before Ingram would make history.
Knowing my reputation for asking the tough question no matter what the situation, when given the opportunity to ask Ingram a question in the press conference after the award presentation, Campbell asked a question the hardened New York press didn’t even have the guts to ask. He asked how Ingram felt about the “Heisman Curse,” the jinx that has fallen on some teams in championship games after one of their own won the coveted award.
“It doesn’t phase me at all,” Ingram said. “Some people, when they have success, they let it get to their head, but when I get to practice on Friday, that will be my main focus, the national championship game, doing whatever I can to get us ready for this. My team is looking forward to it, I’m looking forward to it, and I will do whatever I can not to let them down.”
At that point Campbell glanced through his camera lens over at Saban, expecting one of his mean, now famous steely glares. Instead, Saban looked right at Tom with his Nikon D90, smiled a knowing smile — and winked.
Is it possible that Saban has already thought of the curse and visited a voodoo mambo to take measures to ensure the Crimson Tide will be able to roll over the Texas Longhorns on January 7 in Pasadena?
Some of Alabama’s wins this year looked more like they were inspired by voodoo than football science, especially that 12-10 squeaker over Tennessee in which Mt. Cody blocked two field goals to keep the Tide in the game, and the 26-21 victory over Auburn down on the plains, where a long drive in the final minutes resulted in a winning touchdown.
One Web writer in Georgia, when talking about Saban leading LSU to its first Sugar Bowl victory since 1968 and a BCS National Championship, accused Saban of learning not only how to “make a passable roux” during his time on the bayou. He accused Saban of “converting to voodoo.”
Voodoo, hoodoo.
Who knows.
Meanwhile, as Bragg also wrote in Sports Illustrated, “They say college football is a matter of life and death down here, but it’s not. Winning only makes life sweeter…”
For Ingram, winning may not be the only thing, but it is better than anything that comes in second, and it is the stuff of dream fulfillment.
When asked at the press conference after the trophy presentation if he was surprised by the award, Ingram said, “Yes, I was surprised, but it’s a dream come true. It’s something I’ll carry for the rest of my life.”
Reminds me of a song.
Somewhere, over the rainbow … dreams you dare to dream really do come true (sometimes that is. Ask Tebow!).
Related Coverage and After Matter
 |
Heisman Trophy 2009 Photo Essay
Tom Campbell: A Witness to History
Mark Ingram Wins Alabama’s First Heisman Trophy
Heisman Trophy Award Finalists Named
Alabama Teaches Character and Class: Let Tebow Cry…
New Orleans Voodoo Wards Off ‘The Big One’
Somewhere Over the Rainbow Lyrics
Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high.
There’s a land that I heard of Once in a lullaby.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue.
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.
Someday I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far Behind me.
Where troubles melt like lemon drops, Away above the chimney tops.
That’s where you’ll find me.
Somewhere, over the rainbow, bluebirds fly.
Birds fly, over the rainbow,
Why then – oh, why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow,
Why, oh, why can’t I?
Under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, anyone with a computer, the drive and determination can be a journalist…
December 14th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
“You remind me of a man…”
“What man?”
“The man with the power.”
“What power?”
“The power of hoodoo.”
“Hoodoo?”
“You do!”
“I do what?”
“Remind of a man.”
“What man?
“The man with the power…”
Repeat, ad infinitum.
Great story.
Glad Locust Fork press credentials evidently carry some heft.
December 14th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
All of this — the SEC championship, Mark Ingram winning Bama’s first Heisman, the overall record of the last three years, etc., makes for the start of a new Crimson Tide legend with Coach Saban.
If the Tide wins the national championship against Texas, we might be able to start talking about “two great coaches,” mentioning Saban in the same breath as Bear Bryant.
Who woulda thunk it?
December 14th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
As I told another good friend Brooks Boliek, the author of the Inside a Voodoo Temple story linked above, there are a couple of interesting things about all this.
1. It was nice to turn the tables on them editors in New York for a change. Usually they are the ones sittin’ there putting the story together with reports from Locust Fork, Birmingham, N’Awlins, etc.
This time, I had a man in the room in New York and handled the coverage from here : )
The Web turns the world upside down…
2. I don’t know the extent to which Tom knows this, but it is ironic and appropriate that he asked the Heisman Curse question. I’ve had the reputation of doing just that for about 30 years.
Where did I learn and/or develop the practice? At the University of Alabama, of course.
In 1982, on a journalism class trip to Montgomery, I got famous for asking then House Speaker Joe McCorquodale if George Wallace was mentally or physically capable of serving another term as governor. He said no, and the story hit UPI, but Wallace was elected a fourth term as governor anyway — by one vote per precinct in Alabama’s 67 counties.
Then, on the day of Paul “Bear” Bryant’s death, some of my friends at The Crimson White treated me like a pariah, ironically a word that literally means drummer, outcast, when I asked the impertinent question on the day the Bear died.
The entire staff of the student newspaper jumped into the breach to help with the coverage of Bryant’s unexpected death. Trying to figure out how to make a contribution, I called Druid City Hospital, asked for Bryant’s public relations man, got him on the phone, and among other things, asked if Bryant had sclerosis of the liver when he died.
He was a known heavy drinker, but the official cause of death was heart failure due to a serious bronchial condition, if I recall correctly. After my question and answer, which confirmed it, a sentence was added to the big obit in the CW admitting that yes, there wasn’t much left of the great man and legend’s liver.
Sorry for that, but there it is…
December 14th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Oh, what the heck.
Might as well include the video as well as the lyrics…
The Wizard Of Oz 70 years!
Somewhere Over The Rainbow – Judy Garland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0-um0pHTAg
December 15th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Now, what to do for an encore?
December 15th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Good stuff! ROLL tide!!!!
But while you were busy scooping the sports world:
A. There was this health care SNAFU in Washington. Good ‘ole Alabama Senators (morons) not helping there…
B. ummmm…some missing emails were found.
C. You want to scoop the New Yorkers again then get back on the coal ash story. LFJ is sitting near ground zero with regard to coal ash and as with the Siegelman story could become the destination site/archives for info/insight on the topic.
Headlines help, but so would so thoughts on the new health care proposal going to play out for us average folks? Besides getting screwed, of course? Everyone else seems just exhausted on health care issues.
Roger
December 15th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Ah, my anonymous New York fans are back…
A. There’s not a damn thing I can do about the health care bill but post the latest stories on the headline page. As you say, and I have already said, there’s not a single rep. from Alabama who will ever support it, so it will be up to activists in other states…
B. I am leading the news page with the missing e-mail story, but it will be years before we get to see the damn things…
C. I just did something on coal ash and I’ve been waiting for several weeks for test results and sources to come through to take another trip to the Black Belt to follow-up.
Hopefully it will happen before Christmas, but if not, we are about to go into the holidaze period when reporters are on vacation and readers are not paying attention, so don’t expect much unless major news breaks for the next few weeks. Also still waiting on one big check for some pioneering Web advertising we’re working on. New equipment on the agenda too. Can’t do much more without it…
December 16th, 2009 at 7:03 am
>> Ah, my anonymous New York fans are back…
Not me. I’m Roger from Atlanta (where I am slave to the MSM machine). I just enjoy your site and thought you were asking for suggestions. Nothing critical intended at all! However, it is ironic because I first found LFJ on a rec from a colleague in NY who sent me a link, I picked you up while you were covering aspects of the coal ash story (I’m off that now but I KNOW there are some big money/payoff/political threads dangling).
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA87FoCBPTk How can Sessions admit AGW and still support Big Coal??????????
Sessions linking Global Warming mitigation to Income redistribution but what he really is doing is protecting Big Coal!
Have a restful holiday! We all need rest and to take care of ourselves because it appears we are not getting health care!
Good luck with LFJ changes and growth in 2010!
ROLL TIDE!!!!!!
Roger
December 16th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Oh well, Roger. You are using the same anonymous.org e-mail as my anonymous NY fans, so I figured you were one of them. Maybe your friend is one of them. Tell ‘em thanks for me.
We will continue to build the Web Press here and cover the news better than corporate, chain newspapers ever did. The economy is shifting that way too. Did you see my piece from Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta on the final battle of the civil war awhile back? There ain’t a mainstream newspaper in Christendom that can do this. Oddly, it was attacked by a lefty blog…
Fighting the Final Battles of the Civil War
http://blog.locustfork.net/2008/12/12/fighting-the-final-battles-of-the-civil-war/
December 16th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
>>You are using the same anonymous.org e-mail as my anonymous NY fans
Probably so — and that means you probably have important fans. The service has been used by members of the MSM media to communicate between corporate lines for many years. Oddly enough, the execs use it more than anyone (mostly to feather beds before they jump ship or to develop projects, I suspect). I am not that important, but we use it for communications with citizen journalists and i-reporters and others in foreign countries. It’s now a habit, I suppose.
It’s also helpful when you want to post comments lauding other media! By internal agreements, use of the site and service is unmonitored to protect all parties (i.e., managing editors agree not to read mail or monitor activity).
I’ll check out your Fighting Battles article. Fabulous nature photos in LFJ, btw.
December 17th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Thanks again. Funny, but while we have MSM fans in New York, the West Coast and Atlanta, the corporate MSM in Alabama doesn’t seem to have a clue…
To change the subject back to the Saban wink photo, RB saw the photo Wednesday and said:
“People all over Alabama and Alabama fans all over the country are printing it out to put under the Christmas tree…”
Which gives me an idea. I’m going to make a bunch of 8×10s and get Saban to sign them. Should be able to find some UA frames at a Bama store or somewhere : )
January 9th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Mount Cody’s last second block? That wasn’t voodoo, that was probably a bunch of Alabama fans praying their hearts out to God not to lose! lol
January 9th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Or maybe it was just a very big guy in the right place at the right time : )