We're good thanks. No, seriously, we're good. We mean it.

Growing up in Michigan for the first 13 years of my life I learned that Big Ten college football was a passion with people in the midwest. When I moved south in 1974 I learned that college football down here was something different, I learned it wasn't just a passion, it's a religion. And it's adherents down here are more than mere followers, they're crazy, rabid zealots for whichever Southeastern Conference team they root for. People in the south live and die each Saturday in the fall depending on which team they follow.

In the are of the south where I live now, the mountains of east TN, there is only one team that most people around here root for and that team is the University of Tennessee Volunteers. The Vols are loved by people not just all over the state of TN, people in southwest Virginia and western North Carolina love them rabidly as well. The current success of the men's basketball team is nice but people down here know that in Knoxville and in a 150 mile radius of that city football is king. Football brings in the bacon and fries it up in the pan. It pays the bills and therefore it's put on a pedestal. It's sacrilegious to speak against the Big Orange football machine around here.

Yes, there are other colleges and universities that field football teams but none has the following that UT does. Case in point, the East Tennessee State University Buccaneers. ETSU is a smaller institution of higher learning than UT but one would think since it's located in Johnson City that people in my town would have embraced their local school's football program. Well, you'd be wrong. For many years ETSU put a team on the field, not in the same division of the NCAA as UT but still football is football right?, and for may years not many people cared. People in this area stayed away from ETSU football games in droves because the only team they cared about was UT. UT played in the marquee bowl games, UT had shots at the national title, UT played on TV on ABC, CBS, ESPN. ETSU was lucky to get radio coverage or a reporter from the local TV stations to cover their games. In short no one gave a damn about ETSU football, they stuck by UT and that was that.

So about 5 years ago ETSU decided to save some money by dropping football all together. They said that while it might be painful to some, it had to be done. Attendance at games was laughable, media exposure was slim, and so it just made sense that they drop it and put that money towards something else, they still had a highly regarded basketball team that made the NCAA tourney once in a while and a very highly regarded golf team. So the axe fell and we waved bye bye to ETSU football.

But a group of ETSU football alums wouldn't let it go. They were sure that people wanted ETSU football, they were sure that people were going to rise up and demand the Bucs be allowed to live again. They wailed and gnashed their teeth, they cried foul, they spoke to anyone who would listen to them. And yet there was no clamor for ETSU football to return. No one gave a damn that it left, well no one except for the guys who used to play.

After a few y ears of crying over the loss of their beloved sport, they hit on the bright idea of letting the ETSU students vote on whether to bring back football. The university let the students know that if they brought back football then fees would rise, all fees that is, as in all fees to all students, even those who did not like football would have to pay for it. The football alums patted themselves on the back because they were sure the students would vote to bring back football but when they dust of the election settled the measure to bring it back was resoundingly defeated.

So you'd think in the face of widespread public disinterest, student apathy, and a fan base that will never be disloyal to UT, they just give up. Well, you'd be wrong. A hardcore group of these ETSU football alums got together and they paid some outfit to do a study on how they could bring football back to Johnson City. After studying the matter and looking at things the group doing the study said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "In order to bring football back you're going to have to remove all the obstacles that got it removed in the first place."

Duh. I could have told them that. Hell, I could have told them that and I would have charged them half what they paid the other guys. Oddly enough, or maybe this is a sign of how delusional these bitter decrepit old football jocks are, they got excited about putting a plan of action together based on the findings of the study. I'm not sure what they plan to do about the dominance of UT football in this area or what they're going to do about the thousands of of fans they don't have, but if it makes them happy to think they can do the impossible then more power to them.

Me, I just wish they shut the fuck up and accept the fact that ETSU football is dead and that it will never come back. It's kind of sad to see these frustrated old jerks pine for the glory days when the seats in the Mini Dome, that's right they used to play ETSU football indoors, were two thirds empty and no one gave a damn if ETSU won or not. They remind me of the Republicans who keep saying we're winning in Iraq. They think that if they pour more money and more time into study after study that shows if people came to games here that the local economy would grow like gang busters. Just as there is a fatal flaw in the Bush led war on Iraq, there's a fatal flaw in the dreams of those reviving ETSU football, just as the Iraqi's hate us and want us gone, Johnson City and the area as a whole hates ETSU football and they want it gone forever.

But like the delusional Republicans, the faded football jocks of ETSU still cling to their dream of winning hearts and minds back to Buc football. Anyone close to both situations can see that there is no such thing as victory in Iraq and there sure as hell ain't ever gonna be a victory for ETSU football in the this area. I can only hope one day we'll stop trying to "win" something in Iraq and that the cry baby ETSU football jerkoffs will stop their pointless crusade to bring football back to Johnson City.