I have a print hanging on my wall by Steve R. Skipper called “Up Where We Belong.”  It depicts (of course) coach Gene Stallings in the triumphant moments just after Alabama’s dramatic win over Miami in the 1993 National Championship game.  All week, this painting has lived in my peripheral as I have read about the demise of yet another Alabama coach. 

Now, let me stop right here and provide a disclaimer of sorts.  I did not graduate from the University of Alabama.  In fact, I never attended school there.  Here’s one better.  I’ve never even been to a game in Tuscaloosa.  (Collective gasps from my fellow Roll Tide fans have just decreased the world’s oxygen levels.  Be on the lookout for another book by Al Gore.)

But I remain as I have always been, a member of the crimson guard when it comes to who I support each Fall.  The reason why this makes sense in spite of my lack of official ties to (T)he university will most likely not be clear to anyone outside the Southeastern Conference.  And that’s OK.  It’s not important that you understand why I have a tattoo of Big Al on my right butt cheek, just that you know I do.  (I really don’t.)

End disclaimer.

Now, I’m not what you might call a “serious” football fan.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it.  I watch a lot of it, much to the chagrin of my two daughters who would be perfectly happy watching “The Suite Life of Zach and Cody” for the rest of their lives.  But I couldn’t name the starting offensive lineup for Alabama or any other team for that matter.  But that’s the great part about football in the South.  It’s not so much about the plays and the statistics as it is about the legacy and the legends.

Unlike many of my friends, I’m kind of sad to see Mike Shula go.  I can’t say I agreed with every play he called.  I can’t even say I agreed with most plays he called.  But I loved the fact that he was a Bama boy.  How poetic would it have been for a guy like that to build his coaching legacy at his alma mater.  The problem, I suppose, is that it takes more than an alma mater to build a legacy.  You actually have to win a few games, especially against Auburn.

So why do I care?  I had absolutely nothing to do with the success of any Alabama team since the existence of the program.  Yet, because of the emotional stake I’ve invested in this team, I somehow feel the right to act as a shareholder, voting an unofficial “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” at every turn.  This gives a whole new meaning to “arm chair quarterback.”  The Crimson Tide owes me nothing, nada.  Yet, I need something great with which to identify.  I need that print glowing upon my wall reminding me of the time when “we” did it.

A few years ago, after a loss to Tennessee ended our current streak in the series, my pastor (who did actually attend the University of Alabama) commented from the pullpit that we shouldn’t worry.  It would not be long, he assured his congregation of mostly orange and white, before The Crimson Tide was back on top of the mountain.  Then he stopped as if to reconsider.  “What am I saying?” he asked with his hands turned up.  “We’re Alabama.  We ARE the mountain.”

So to the mountain, the trustees and button-pushers in Tuscaloosa, give us another legacy.  Give us another print to hang upon our walls. We are depending on you to provide us with the greatness we so earnestly seek, yet never seem to find in our own lives. How can we live vicariously through the successes of an organization to which we hold no real affiliation without a new legend, a new legacy?

There are thousands, dare I say millions, of us who long to return to that place where we ourselves have never actually been, that mountaintop way up high, up where “we” belong.