Name:   au67 - Subject:   From whence cometh the ogre? Date:   12/3/2013 10:42:27 AM

You grow up in Beauregard cheering for either the Tigers or the Tide; there is little middle ground. Passion for one team and hatred for the other are common and accepted.

Dual support is not honorable. No self-respecting diehard says, “I hope Auburn wins except when they play Alabama,” or vice versa. Among the rabid, rooting for one school means the other is your lifelong enemy, to be held in utmost contempt until your dying day.

You love one with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, while simultaneously loathing the other with every cell, gut, nail, and fiber in your being. You want your football team to go 14-0 and win the national championship (as, remarkably, each have done in recent seasons). You want that other school across the state to lose every game, and be humiliated in the process.

Such quirky fanaticism comes naturally in our neck of the woods and is akin to apocalyptic religious fervor. We’re talking blood sport here, a Hatfield and McCoy rivalry like none other. The Red Sox and Yankees are sweethearts by comparison.

Substitute any town in the state of Alabama for Beauregard and you have your answer.