Alabama is full of Wimps, RVs, shotguns, pigskins and bourbon

Well, frankly, we don't know enough about Alabama to rip it. The Crimson is a lot like Nebraska. Lots of national titles in football, powerful alumni doing things that the NCAA frowns upon, etc. We're talking big-time athletic programs. Well, we could ridicule the South. But frankly, we've spent some time down there and we happen not to mind it. Besides, bashing southerners is so passe and is verboten at such a liberal, enlightened journalistic entity as The Daily Pennsylvanian. That doesn't leave us with much. Just consider that this Penn team is 1-0 in NCAA Tournament games against schools that have won national championships in football. Speaking of football, that's pretty much all Alabama fans care about. Alabama-Auburn in football is like Penn-Princeton times 10. Or 20. People camp out in RVs for a week before the game. There's nothing abnormal about that, though. A preponderance of Alabama residents live in RVs. Sorry. We promised we wouldn't bash the south. They're all so friendly and a lot of them have pick-up trucks with actual, multiple guns in the gun racks. We'll get back on track by considering the guys who used to coach at Alabama. The ex-coach is Wimp Sanderson, known -- not necessarily in this order -- for punching secretaries, atrocious plaid sport coats and atrociously misusing future NBA stars such as Latrell Sprewell. Wimp has been farmed off to some barely Division I program (University of Arkansas-Little Rock?!) where no one cares how many secretaries he cold-cocks, how ugly his sport coats are, and where there aren't any future NBA players' careers to ruin. They also don't ask why people call him "Wimp." Wimp Sanderson is a pretty scummy guy, but he's a choir boy compared to forward Jamal Faulkner. Of course, Temple's William Cunningham, who was arrested for car-jacking, is a choir boy compared to Faulkner. When Faulkner applied to Alabama, he had to attach an extra page when the application asked him for his criminal record. Any discussion of Alabama coaches has to touch upon Bear Bryant, although not literally. Anyone actually touching Bear Bryant would be assaulted by rabid Tide fans. These people have shrines to the legendary football coach in their erstwhile homes. Chanting "Bear Bryant sucks" is guaranteed to start a fight, especially if the Alabama fans in question have consumed their Recommended Daily Allowance of bourbon, which usually occurs sometime before noon. Sorry. More South bashing. For legal purposes, let us state that not all Alabamans are alcoholics and not all drink before noon. Thank you. Some sleep past noon. Sorry. Nicknames are also important to an assay such as this. We all know that the Quaker monicker does not even come close to inspiring fear in the hearts of opponents. It would definitely help if the mascot had a big plastic head. 'Bama, however, is called the "Crimson Tide," which does not exactly conjure up images of victory either. It does conjure up images of freshmen after too many strawberry Jello shots. To make things more confusing, Alamabans have adopted as an auxiliary mascot an elephant named Big Al. What exactly elephants have to do with the color Crimson or any kind of tide we have no idea. They also like to yell "Roll Tide," apparently confused as to what exactly a tide is or does. The most often heard manifestation of this is the daaah-dah-dah-duh "Roll Tide" featured in Penn fans' nightmares as daaah-dah-dah-duh "Go Gators." That whole duplicitous mascot thing is common among Alabama teams. Auburn fans are fond of both "Tigers" and crying "War Eagle." Alabama-Birmingham is called the Blazers but had a knight as a mascot, before it was abolished for being too military in a politically correct fury. We wonder if they have water buffaloes down there, speaking of politically correct. These schools are all big rivals, too. We spoke earlier of Alabama-Auburn and the immense rivalry there. Alabama refuses to play UAB in anything, and when they did play in the NIT UAB came out on top. Blazers fans are fond of calling Alabama UAT -- for Alabama-Tuscaloosa -- which is like calling Penn "Penn State" or "Long Island University-Philadelphia." An Ivy League equivalent would be SUNY-Harlem for Columbia, although Alabamans call the Ivy League the Kudzu League, referring to the green weed that covers every open space and object in Alabama -- including small children, which includes most of the basketball team. Good things about Alabama? Well, it's a southern state that isn't responsible for Jesse Helms. But basketball teams? Look elsewhere.