To the students of Vanderbilt University

About your behavior after the unexpected football victory over Alabama on Saturday late afternoon. You looked like a mob on TV. It was shocking to see.

DES MOINES, Iowa – Surprise! Rather than a call for disciplinary action, here’s a cheer from one old alumnus who is thrilled for the football team, but even happier that post-game, you all “de-constructed” the goal post, hauled it downtown in Nashville and dumped it in the Cumberland River!

Oh, what a feeling!  The “eternal sophomore,” as I’ve often called myself, has been born again in this tiring 77-year-old body.

These past three days up here in Iowa, I’ve been wearing every piece of Vanderbilt University apparel I own – including my priceless 40-year-old Vandy ball cap.

I have walked up to complete strangers here in Iowa and asked if they want to hear me sing the Vandy fight song “Dynamite!”  Some of them got to hear it anyway.

The previous Vandy ball cap, purchased in 1984 and worn ever since.

I’m the “moocher in chief” at the Rotary Club in my town of Jefferson, meaning that when they have a program I want to hear, I find some member to invite me.  (I think I’m too old now to join.) You know how a lot of Rotary Clubs collect “Happy Dollars” when they open their meetings?  If you’re happy about something, you can contribute $1 and the members will listen to you brag for a moment. 

Well, when the Jefferson Rotarians had their regular meeting this past Monday at 12 noon, I barged in just before they closed the door, gave member Chris Durlam a $10 bill, and told him I was so happy I wanted to contribute 10 of the Happy Dollars.

Then I hurried to our apartment to join 35 other people on a noon hour Zoom conference on which – you won’t be surprised – I insisted on singing “Dynamite!” to open the conversations.

That’s what happens when you’re an avid sports fan, particularly a Vanderbilt sports fan, and your football team upsets mighty Alabama 40-35 in a Southeastern Conference (SEC) game.  The Crimson Tide came into the game, played in Vanderbilt’s stadium in Nashville, undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation.  Our Commodores were 2-2.

It was my school’s first football victory over “Bama” since 1993, and the first time we’ve beaten them on our field “since the Carter Administration,” as one national TV commentator put it.  It was the first time in Vandy football history our team has beaten a top-ranked opponent.  It was also described as a “once in a generation” victory and a “once in a lifetime” victory.  As a lettered bed sheet the Vandy students held up said, the outcome would “Shock the World!”

One of my Vandy classmates Steve Caviness, now retired and living in Gulf Shores, Alabama, said this week, “I loved our football team beating Bama.  But I think I loved even more what the student body did afterward!”

Amen!

When the final seconds ticked off the clock and the huge ship’s horn signaled the Commodores victory, the Vandy students stormed Dudley Field on the floor of the stadium – cheering, hugging and eventually, climbing and dropping one of the huge steel goal posts.

A swarm of them lifted the goal post – Google says the average college football goal post weighs 500 pounds – then carried it out of the stadium and on to West End Avenue.  Continuing their cheers and chants, they marched with it about three miles east, first on West End, then on Broadway, through the honky-tonk district downtown, to the bank of the Cumberland River. 

And then they dumped it in the Cumberland!

The videos, which went viral on social media, show that the boisterous marchers were in fact fronted by squad cars of the Nashville Metropolitan Police, with their sirens blaring and their blue roof lights flashing, clearing the way for the celebrants.

Two days later, the SEC announced Vanderbilt was being fined $100,000 because the students covered the field and tore down the goal post.

My reaction – and I’m sure that of most VU alumni – is, “Hah! That’s a bargain! Just tell us where to send our checks.”

All this current fun has shocked me back to a magic moment my classmate Steve Caviness, whom I mentioned above, and I had around the Alabama at Vanderbilt football game 59 years ago.

Caviness and I were among 12 Vanderbilt freshmen assigned to live in an old two-story brick house the university owned three blocks west of the heart of the campus.  VU had overbooked its dormitories that fall, and three housefuls of us were assigned to these old homes that were on the periphery.  Ours, newly-named “Landon House” after some early Vandy benefactor, was located right next to the Vanderbilt Athletics Office and the same football stadium used today.

It was a quiet Friday night, Oct. 8, at Landon House when Caviness and I noticed the big lights go on at the stadium.  Curious, we walked over, passed through an open gate and out to the edge of the field.  To our surprise, there were the players of the Alabama Crimson Tide, in shorts, T-shirts and helmets, limbering up in a light workout.

We stood at the waist-high fence on the sidelines and watched the famous Bama quarterbacks Steve Sloan and Ken Stabler take snaps from centers, drop back and throw quick passes to a fleet of receivers.  First they were throwing 10-yard passes, then 20, then 30.  They continued pushing the distance until Stabler, in my recollection, was throwing 70-yard rainbows that the receivers were running under and catching. 

That didn’t give Caviness and me much hope for our Commodores in the game to be played the next day.

But something even more remarkable happened. 

Probably 10 yards away from us, on the corner of the end zone, the legendary Bama head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant – yes, wearing his trademark houndstooth snap-brimmed hat – was being interviewed by some sports reporters.  The interview went on 10 minutes or so.  When it ended, here came Bear Bryant walking right to us at the fence.

“Hello, boys,” he said in the deep drawl you’ve never forgotten if you ever heard it. “Are you Vanderbilt students?”

When we told him we were, he said, “I’d have loved to go to school here, but I never could’ve gotten in.  It’s a great school, one that’s really important to all the South.  You all turn out a lot of our doctors, lawyers and business leaders.  So, work hard.”

Then he told us how, in 1940-’41, on his way into the military for World War II, he had been an assistant football coach at Vandy.  “Your school was very good to me as a young coach, and I’ve never forgotten it,” he said, as best I can recall.

Bryant coached military teams in his war years, and in 1945, post-war, he got his first head coaching position at Maryland.  That was for just a year, then he had seven years at Kentucky, three years at Texas A&M, and then took over the Alabama program from 1958 to ’82.   His incredible career record as a head coach: 323–85–17.

And he’d take time to talk to a pair of ordinary Vanderbilt students watching his team practice.  As you can probably guess, one of his victories came the next day, Oct. 9, 1965, over our Commodores, 22-7.

You know, we Vanderbilt alumni and fans spend a lot of time now pondering whether our university should still be in the rugged Southeastern Conference. 

But that long-ago Friday night when my pal Caviness and I got to meet “Bear” Bryant, I was sure glad we were.

This past Saturday evening, I was even happier.  Love the SEC!

And I love Vanderbilt and its students, the rascals, even more.

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