College Football, Star Wars and Baby Behemoths

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A few months after this site started up, which seems like 10 years ago, I received an emailed article about golf from some Alabamian named Chad Gibbs.

“No one cares about golf,” I muttered.  But I read it anyway, and it was surprisingly funny, so we ran it.

Then Chad sent another article, this one about his home state and American Idol. It was funny, too.  I showed these articles to Don Miller.

“That guy needs to write a book,” he said. “Tell him I’ll write the foreword.”

Then, a little over three years ago, Chad finished his book.  It was a hilarious collection of biographical vignettes, and it had a cover that would guarantee gangbuster sales.  But Chad didn’t have many connections.  I knew maybe three publishers around the country, which made me infinitely more connected than Chad was.

“Don’t worry, little Chadwick…I’ll lead you to the promised land of publishing deals.  I know people.”

For the most part, no one was interested.  But then Karen Spears Zacharias put us in touch with an editor at Zondervan, a plucky fellow named Andy Meisenheimer who got Chad’s humor, and, perhaps most importantly, understood the value of Baby Chad on the cover, in all his gargantuan glory.

With an editor hooked and sold, I started furiously pounding out percentages on my girlfriend’s graphing calculator.  “Let’s see…$30,000 advance…since he’s a rube from northern Alabama, I bet I could talk him into getting 30%…”

The problem: Andy’s enthusiasm was matched by an equal level of rancor from some Zondervan higher ups.  They didn’t see the appeal, and the more Andy worked angles to convince them, the more they pushed back.  As an illustration, here’s what I picture every time I imagine it:

Tron Lightbike Scene

(NOTE: Lest this video clip be chalked up to mere bandwagon jumping in lieu of the new Tron trailer released at Comic Con a couple weeks ago, I swear this article was written before.  I’m on the cutting edge like that.)

For over a year, Andy pitched and got turned down.  Finally, after a particularly disheartening hail mary, we gave up.  I called Chad.

“I think you need to find someone who’s actually an agent,” I told him.  “Maybe they’ll find you a deal elsewhere.”

Chad talked to the well-regarded Chip MacGregor, an Oregon-based guy who represents a number of other Burnside contributors, and who probably informed Chad 30% was a bit exorbitant for an agent.  A week later, Chad had a book deal.  With Zondervan.

Even with my shortcomings as an agent exposed, I was overjoyed Chad finally had a deal.  Plus, he promised me a WhatIfSports.com gift certificate for my year of tireless effort on his behalf.

I'd make fun of the off-looking Vulcan, who towers over the city of Birmingham, but I'm rather fond of Portlandia, and she's almost as ridiculous.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“Well, I guess I could fly you out for an Auburn game,” Chad sighed.

“Oh, awesome.  A trip to Birmingham.  Thanks, Chad.  I can’t wait to experience the sweltering humidity of New Orleans, minus any of the culture or cool stuff.”

The reason Chad was flying me out was he had an idea for his second book.  It would be about the intersection of faith and SEC football, and Chad would spend a weekend in every college town in the Southeastern Conference: Saturday for gameday, and Sunday for church, hosted by college football fans of various faiths and denominations.  He wanted to fly me in to see Auburn face West Virginia, and maybe I could provide some perspective as the outsider from the West Coast, where gridiron battles were fought by tiny, prancing elves too frightened to play in the South or Texas, and where tailgating consists of protesting the destruction of trees, sometimes while nude.

Then Zondervan heard about Chad’s newest book idea.  They liked it better.  It was more focused and a better way for Chad to introduce himself into the publishing world.

“Let’s do this football thing as your first book instead,” they told him.  “We can release your memoir afterward.”

“So you want to sign me for another book?” Chad was confused.

“Wait…we thought you had a two book deal…” there was scrambling on the other end of the line.

That’s how Chad signed his second book deal, without even finishing up the first.

One of the many things Chad and I agree on.

Last September, while my wife was almost 9 months pregnant, I flew to Birmingham to spend a weekend with the Gibbs.  Chad and I are uncannily similar.  We are both uproariously funny and we are both brilliant writers.  We both love college football and we both think Boba Fett is badass.  Despite our status as born and bred American Protestants, our favorite international soccer team is Celtic F.C.  What’s particularly surprising, though, is both of us somehow alchemized our bumbling charm and sluggish lack of ambition into marriages with beautiful, red-haired pediatricians.  Chad’s wife, Tricia, just finished her final year of residency in Birmingham while my wife’s last year just started in Phoenix.

Over the years, Chad and I had become good internet friends, but we’d never met.  It was nice to greet him face to face, to discover he wasn’t considerably taller than me (unlike Aaron Donley), and to stand awkwardly waiting for luggage.  Fortunately, the ice was broken during the 45 minutes odyssey of finding where Chad had parked his car.

That night, Tricia joined us for dinner at Dreamland BBQ, which was delectable as most all BBQ places are.

“You’ve gotta try some of this.  It’ll change your life,” he said, ordering me a glass of sweet tea.  I didn’t tell him that, with a grandma from North Carolina, I was well acquainted with that particular form of liquid crack because, hey, free sweet tea!

Most of my knowledge of Alabama is culled from Drive-By Trucker songs and Forrest Gump, so I expected to see a heavy dose of moonshine runners, dullards with crewcuts, and tornadoes.  While there were, at least, tornadoes, I found Birmingham to be a charming and cosmopolitan town.  For a region where Shocktop is considered a fancy microbrew, I was pleased to discover J. Clyde, which ranks right up there with Falling Rock and the Horse Brass as one of the best pubs I’ve ever been to.  If I lived in Birmingham, I would live across the street, and I would go there every day, and I would probably die of liver failure.

After dinner, the Gibbs took me home and Chad popped in a DVD featuring clips of great Auburn football games.

“This will get you fired up,” he pointed at the screen.  “We watch it every Friday night.”

As Chad replayed a particularly vital field goal in slow-motion, I began to realize SEC football was different.  I consider myself a diehard fan of the Oregon Ducks, despite the fact I didn’t actually attend that school.  I get email notifications for every recruit signing.  I scan Ducks Sports News and Ted Miller’s PAC-10 Blog on ESPN on a daily basis.  The only excuse for missing gamedays with my friends is weddings, and even those are met with grumbling resentment.  I don’t attend many games at Autzen Stadium, but I’ve tailgated there with an old Army buddy who is the most hardcore fan I know…the kind that suffers crippling depression after a disappointing loss, or at the end of the season.

Jordan and Chad survive Hurricane Noel

As far as I could tell, everyone I met at that Auburn game was at least at that level.  The quality of SEC football, as a whole, is better than the PAC-10.  I can admit that.  But I don’t think it’s that much better.  The fandom, though…sheesh.  It’s like all that pent up state pride, damaged from losing the Civil War, was funneled directly into pigskin.  It’s something to see.  We all have nationalistic tendencies — the bent toward curling inward and rejecting what is not us — and there are more dangerous manifestations of those tendencies than cheering for a sports team every Saturday.  I was rooting for Auburn, but a tiny part of me wanted to see what 87,000 crushed dreams looked like.  Every time West Virginia’s Barry Sanders-clone halfback, Noel Devine, ran out to the edges, you could feel that crowd seeth, “Git ‘im…git ‘im…”  I can’t imagine what that level of vitriol would’ve felt like paired with a firehoses and dogs in the 1960s.

But the people I met and ate with at Auburn that day were wonderful hosts, with trailers outfitted with John Henry-sized HD televisions and pit smokers bleeding oak into the wet, hot air.

I cannot say the same for West Virginia fans, who’s genetic abnormalities and drunken debauchery rivaled the French National soccer team’s ability to reaffirm stereotypes.

“Here’s what scary,” Chad whispered as we passed a collection of Deliverance extras milling around a 24 pack of Natty Ice in the middle of the street.  “Those are the fans who have enough money to travel.”

I could go on about that weekend, but the more memorable parts should be left to Chad’s book, God and Football: Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC.  Don’t worry…there’s more to it than Chad and I sitting around playing cornhole.

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