Yankee Girl Survives First Year at Southern University

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by amIblue?

You need to leave Tennessee off that list. Nashville has the NFL and NHL. Memphis has the NBA.

You also need to leave Oklahoma off that list because they're in the Midwest.

I said...

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

Then you look at states like Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, etc. that don't have any professional teams across the entire state, or they have very few.

Basically, for example, if you live in the Memphis area and don't like basketball, you're SOL in terms of professional sports.

And I know Oklahoma isn't "in the south".. but I wasn't being picky about that.

[ASTalumna06]

Here ya go!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rts_franchises

[amIblue?]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

I said...



Basically, for example, if you live in the Memphis area and don't like basketball, you're SOL in terms of professional sports.

And I know Oklahoma isn't "in the south".. but I wasn't being picky about that.

Yep, Memphis is SOL just like the people in San Antonio and Shreveport and damn near every other city down here except for Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, and Houston.

If you're not going to be picky about the entire point of the thread, why don't you also include states that are franchise-free or with only a few franchises like the Dakotas, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Hawaii to make your point?

[naraht]

But by far the State with the most people and no Pro sports team is Virginia. 12th most populous with 8 million people. Least populous state with a pro sports team? That would be Utah at 34th with the Utah Jazz.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

But aren't those relatively recent additions?

That's what I was thinking. North Carolina has one NFL team and one NBA team -- both in Charlotte, which probably makes them somewhat irrelevant in the eastern and far western parts of the state -- and one NHL team in Raleigh, which makes it somewhat irrelevant for the western and far eastern parts of the state.

But they came along relatively recently. College sports -- especially basketball -- were very big long before the pro teams came along. Not everybody is a Panthers or Bobcats or Hurricanes fan. But most people have a college team they root for and often are rabid about.

[naraht]

I think prior to 1995 ish that the only culturally *southern* cities with any pro sports teams were Dallas, New Orleans and Atlanta (I'm not counting St. Louis, Houston, Tampa or Miami as culturally southern).

[APhiRattlerGal]

lol this is awesome

[amIblue?]

Interesting article about being "ethnically southern" from Outkick the Coverage. I've copied and quoted the pertinent text, which is in the middle of the post. Link to follow.

David R. writes:
"Slive and Skipper mentioned the 'SEC' chant at football games (specifically the BCS Championship Game in January) and how it highlighted the pride we take in our conference during the SEC Network press conference. While true, as an Arkansas fan, I have to ask how long is it acceptable for the non-Alabamas, Floridas, LSUs, and/or Georgias to do this chant when we play out of conference or bowl games? I love being in the SEC, but at some point the rest of us are sort of living on the accomplishments of other schools. The proper analogy is that Alabama, LSU, and Florida are the awesome life-of-the-party members of the good frat who get all the ladies while Vandy, Kentucky, and Mississippi State are the weird guys with no friends who got a bid because their dads were members. Oh, and Auburn is the guy who helps everyone cheat on their exams. Hey-oh!"
Yeah, this is a good and valid question that I get versions of all the time.
The sad truth is that all SEC programs aren't created equal. So there's definitely some reflected glory involved in the chant. But the bigger issue is that the SEC chant isn't really about sports at its core, it's cultural.
Let me explain.
First, let's begin with the simplest explanation I can give for why the SEC chant exists -- it's because the South is an ethnicity for many Southerners. In particular, no white person in the South thinks of themselves as part of a specific ethnic group. People aren't Irish or German or British or Italian or Polish or Russian or any other European background, we're just Southern, that's our ethnicity. (Many black people also feel this way as well, it's why I've argued for Pan-Southernism in the past. Pan-Southernism refers to the fact that many Southerners instinctively root for the Southern person or team if they have no other rooting interest).
I noticed this for the first time when I went away to college in Washington, D.C. and immediately felt a kinship with any person who was from the South. I was from Nashville, it's not like Nashville and Birmingham or Atlanta or New Orleans or Charlotte are next door geographical neighbors, but when I'd meet someone from these cities, I immediately felt like I knew them, like we had something in common. They felt the same way. Honestly, every person who lives outside the South right now and is reading this knows exactly what I mean. You crave meeting other Southerners. That's because we we were all ethnically Southern.
Then I married my wife, who is from Detroit, where most white people still identify themselves based on their European background. My wife is half German and half Italian. When we started dating and I visited her family up there they asked me where my family was from. I'd never been asked this before -- we'd been Southern as long as I could remember, that was our ethnicity.
So people from the South feel as if we share a kinship with other Southerners in a way that other regions of the country don't.
Being Southern is our ethnicity.
Second, the South was a perpetual underdog for much of our history. We lost a war, we had lots of poor people, the rest of the country looked down on us, as a group we were the castoffs who weren't given respect. This extended to sports too where we always felt our teams were looked over.
Then, what happened?
Air conditioning.
Air conditioning is the SEC's oil.
It changed everything.
Suddenly everyone wanted to move here, our cities boomed, our land values exploded, our populations soared.
We weren't the underdogs anymore, but we still felt like the underdogs.
At its root the SEC chant comes from two causes: 1. the fact that all Southerners feel we share something in common and 2. the underdog mentality.
You root for the Southern team, the one you feel a kinship for because Southern is your ethnicity.
When you think of the SEC chant as more rooted in the culture of the South than the sports of the South, winning is only a part of it.

http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/al...rk-edition.php

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by naraht

I think prior to 1995 ish that the only culturally *southern* cities with any pro sports teams were Dallas, New Orleans and Atlanta (I'm not counting St. Louis, Houston, Tampa or Miami as culturally southern).

The Charlotte Hornets (NBA) were established in 1988 and stayed in Charlotte until they relocated to New Orleans in 2002.

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by amIblue?

Second, the South was a perpetual underdog for much of our history. We lost a war, we had lots of poor people, the rest of the country looked down on us, as a group we were the castoffs who weren't given respect. This extended to sports too where we always felt our teams were looked over.

That's. It. Exactly.
And it's still true. Go over on another popular forum and do a search for any Southern state's name or even "Southern" and you'll find all kinds of disparaging remarks and our states held up for ridicule.

Another reason it's so hilarious to read those Q/A forums where potential new members ask, "I'm from the north and going to a big SEC school. Will I get a bid?"

[shirley1929]

Originally Posted by naraht

I think prior to 1995 ish that the only culturally *southern* cities with any pro sports teams were Dallas, New Orleans and Atlanta (I'm not counting St. Louis, Houston, Tampa or Miami as culturally southern).

What about San Antonio? Or is all of SOUTH Texas not "culturally southern"?

[GTAlphaPhi]

Does anyone else use the variation on "all y'all", "all a ya'll"? That is, "all of y'all".
I say both, but I've never actually seen it written out, so I guess it could be "all a y'all", "all'a y'all", or many other spellings.

[naraht]

Originally Posted by shirley1929

What about San Antonio? Or is all of SOUTH Texas not "culturally southern"?

Well, I'd say you have degrees of "cultural southernness" in Texas. I mean no one is going to consider Beaumont anything by culturally southern, and no one is going to consider El Paso culturally southern.

To give you an idea, I consider Dallas culturally southern, but not Ft. Worth. I tend to go off the descriptions in "Nine Nations of North America" which has Houston as a border town between "Dixie", "The Breadbasket" and Mex-america. Given the degree to which the borders of Dixie have shrunk in Florida and Virginia in the 30 years since NNoNA has been published and what I have read about Houston poltics, I presumed the border had moved enough in Texas to move Houston slightly outside the definition.

[SWTXBelle]

I would say that Houston as a whole is not southern, but there are very strong enclaves of southerness.

[OneHeartOneWay]

Originally Posted by amIblue?

Interesting article about being "ethnically southern" from Outkick the Coverage. I've copied and quoted the pertinent text, which is in the middle of the post. Link to follow.

http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/al...rk-edition.php

Random: I'm obsessed with Clay Travis and Outkick the Coverage. Have been following him from job to job for several years. If you like southernness (and can laugh at yourself if you are southern), particularly SEC football, you HAVE to read his book Dixieland Delight. And, you have to check his website fairly regularly, but definitely on Friday's when his "mailbag" comes out (where amiblue? pulled this).