It's a Southern thing by James Carville

By JAMES CARVILLE - 08/28/05 - For the Journal-Constitution

True story:

It was October in the late 1960s in Southern California. A young marine walks into a bar, and in an effort to strike up a hearty conversation says, "How 'bout them Trojans?" The bartender looks dazed and confused and points the marine toward the men's room.

I know it's true because I was that marine.

It was the first time in my 21 years of existence that I had ever encountered anyone who didn't respond to an observation of a football team or who didn't happen to notice that mascot of one of the dominant powerhouses in college football at that time.

Now that I live in Washington, D.C., it is relatively common to find people indifferent to the goings on in college football. That never happens in the South.

"How bout 'dem Tigers or Gators or Dawgs?" always elicits an immediate response from a Southerner.

hy? Why are Southerners so obsessed with college football?

Some claim our past military traditions represent some ongoing need for continuous warfare. Others will say that professional sports came late to the South and people had already developed college football loyalties long before the Saints or Braves or Falcons ever existed.

I believe that a large part of our obsession with college football has to do with the season. Fall is our time in the South. We don't give a darn about spring! April is just another month closer to July. And what Southerner doesn't enjoy the time when the first front moves in and the humidity moves out? It's sheer instinct. We just want to party, relax and drink a few cold ones. And watch some young guys knocking the living crap out of one another. There's nothing better than an SEC football game on a fall day or night.

It was the fall of 2004 and the same marine gets a phone call from someone who claims to write the newsletter on LSU football. After an exhaustive 30-minute interview that must have taken four or more hours of preparation, I asked him what kind of newsletter he had. He replied in an innocent and enthusiastic voice, "It's a tailgating newsletter for people in my LSU tailgating group." Still exhausted from the excruciating, in-depth interview, I summoned enough energy to ask him how many people read it and got, "I print 12 but usually about eight in our group read it."

It may not make sense to anyone else in the country, but it makes total sense in the South. Why would someone put in a 30-hour week to put a newsletter on LSU football out for eight people?

For the love of college football on a breezy Saturday night.

Eat your heart out, New Jersey!

Political consultant James Carville, who helped steer Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992, is a proud graduate of LSU.