Sunday, December 04, 2005

Dear Phil

Dear Phil,

Thank you for your letter.

I appreciate that you are disappointed with the University of Tennessee 2005 football season. I agree that the results are simply not acceptable.

Last night I watched UT enter the field in a blaze of orange and white and crush their opponents mercilessly in a 70-3 walkover of a conference championship match. I was wearing orange and I was happy, but yet there was a bitterness in my heart. It was not my UT victorious. This year, I will not be putting up my orange and white Christmas decorations, for us this year football is over.

As I sat in the bar where some 100 US alumni watched post-regular season football, I saw a former University of Colorado linebacker and fellow American expat congratulate the Texans on their win and say it was a good game, and I had a revelation. In your letter, you state that the pride and the passion of Tennessee fans are what makes us unique. But I must beg to differ. We do have pride and passion, but what makes us special our is orneriness. Our arrogance when we win and our somber sullenness when we lose. We are not always the best sports. We draw dislike from many other fans, and they like to rub it in good when we lose.

I, as a Tennessee fan, will not be changing my sporting attitude, so I'm sure you appreciate why we really, really need to have a winning football team.

Looking forward to next season (but sullenly),

-Vol Abroad

7 comments:

genderist said...

I think that Phil might need continuous letter-writing during the off season to help him remember that we remember... the letter-writing campaign on behalf of the fans. It could work.

Somebody find out his home address. :)

Michael Hickerson said...

Well, we have nothing on the general ornierness of UGA fans..they truly give SEC fans a bad name.

Anonymous said...

"We are not always the best sports. We draw dislike from many other fans, and they like to rub it in good when we lose."

Finally an unsolicited admission from a UT fan. Many UT fans are just flat out obnoxious.

Maybe Phil would have better luck on the field were he to curtail his recruiting in the correctional facilities.

Rex L. Camino said...

I generally spend the entire season trash talking back and forth with a few UT following friends of mine, but the season was so bad that I couldn't do it after a while, and I hate UT.

One even emailed to ask about it, as the absence of trash talking was somehow worse.

Rex L. Camino said...

Oh, and Roll Tide.

Vol Abroad said...

y'all say it like the Vol way is a baad thing.

...and yes, the pity was worse than the rubbing it in this year.

Rex L. Camino said...

..which was why I was kind enough to give you a "roll tide", VA.