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It was during the Minnesota/New Orleans NFC championship game a couple weeks ago that I looked up at our livingroom’s built-in shelves and saw a long-standing decorative touch of Susan’s that made me realize not only who was going to win that game, but who was going to win the big one they’ll be playing in later today:

Geaux Saints!

Well, no surprise: All the offerings to the Rose Bowl Fairy didn’t work and instead of magically being delivered tickets and watching Alabama battle Texas in person in Pasadena I was instead forced to listen to the first half of last night’s BCS Championship game at the Rose Bowl via the Sirius Satellite Radio app on my iPhone while biking home across town.

It was better than nothing, which I can’t say about the way Alabama started out.

I was leaving the office when Bama Coach Nick Saban inexplicably called for a 4th-and-long fake punt deep in their own territory that was entirely botched, and I was on Ballona Creek after Texas scored first blood only to have Bama’s kickoff receiving team somehow forget that you have to catch the ball when it’s booted to you.

Those first few miles I’m pretty sure I rode with my mouth hanging open and my eyes wide wondering who these imposters were and what had been done with the kickass football team that I so irrationally live and die for and defend against all haters and deniers, especially certain sportswriters at the institutionally anti-Bama biased Los Angeles Times such as Chris Dufresne — who spent the season chronically knocking and dismissing them. Even after Alabama so dominantly beat Florida for the SEC Championship Dufresne ridiculously cited Texas’ undefeated and historical record of 7-0-1 against Alabama as good reason why he thought the Longhorns would be triumphant. To him I say Ha! Ha. Haha. Hahahaha. HahahahahahaHAhaHA. And HA!

But back to me biking home in horror. In the midst of all my gaping apoplectica, Texas QB Colt McCoy sustained some sort of phantom arm injury that was enough to send him out of the game and I was forced into STFUing the chorus (one of whom will undoubtedly be Dufresne) who would no doubt qualify and excuse an Alabama victory by saying how there’s no way the Tide would have had a chance had McCoy not been so unceremoniously forced into early retirement.

“Yeah well, then Texas should think about building their programs around players who aren’t so easily bruised!”

I’m pretty sure I said that out loud somewhere in Culver City.

At the beginning of the second quarter when Heisman Trophy-winning Alabama Running Back Mark Ingram punched into the endzone to take the lead back from Texas, “Roooooolll Tiiiiiiiiiiiiide!” was another thing I said much louder (accompanied by some serious fist pumps) and much to the concern and confusion of the motorists and pedestrians in my immediate vicinity while stopped at the intersection of Venice and National.

I was equally if not more demonstrative as they just kept rolling to a score of 24-6 and in in the midst of halftime I arrived at home to then watch the rest of the game with the Alabama baseball cap that I’ve had since 1992– the last year my Tide won the national championship — firmly on my head (when I wasn’t waving it in the air).

Texas never said quit and came back to make it a game against a Tide that quit rolling and flattened out until finally rising back up to seal the victory.

And when the final seconds of the fourth quarter ticked away and game announcer Brent Musberger intoned “The Alabama Crimson Tide Are National Champions,” yeah… I got choked up.

And stayed up well past my bedtime reflecting on their perfect season.

UPDATE (3:43 p.m.): I brought my Bama hat to work today, carrying it attached to the outside of my backpack, and wearing it in the office. A coworker asked me if I’d have it on today if Alabama had lost.

“Without doubt,” I said. “Maybe not as proudly, but with equal reverence and greater determination.”

It doesn’t help when I don’t read the Sunday paper or turn on the TV beyond an episode of “Nip/Tuck.” I’m just now at this late date finding out that Alabama running back Mark Ingram won the Heisman Trophy Saturday night, becoming the first Crimson Tide player in the history of the storied program to attain the highest college football honor.

From the CNN.com report:

“Alabama has won outright or shared 10 national championships dating back to 1925, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association Web site, but before Saturday no Crimson Tide player had ever won the sport’s most prestigious individual award.”

What a remarkable year for my favorite college football team, and a marvelous achievement for one of its key players. I’m just blown away.

For the last two college football seasons I’ve endured LA Times sportwriter Chris Dufresne’s snide anti-Alabama bias. Throughout the 2008 season, even though the Crimson Tide amassed a 12-0 record, he veritably — and rightly — predicted an SEC Championship mauling at the hands of the Florida Gators. Bama went on to the Sugar Bowl to lose to Utah, a source of pain for me and a source of validation and hilarity for Dufresne.

It was the same again this year. Early on he predicted another perfect regular season — not out of respect for Alabama, but out of disrespect for their schedule. In his weekly rankings, the Tide crept up slowly never rising  higher than 4th, despite always being ranked 1,2, or 3 in various national polls. And in the end, he said,  Alabama would be Sugar Bowl-bound after meeting up with the Gators and going home the SEC Championship losers once again.

Well that vindicating end came yesterday and my Tide proved Dufresne dead wrong by swamping and drowning the Gators, 32-13.

And this morning in his report does Dufresne even come close to saying “Wow!” or admitting he didn’t see that coming?

Nah. He just wonders what all the noise is about.

So I grabbed a cuppa coffee and told him why:

You ask “What’s all the screaming about?”

Well if you heard any noise coming from the Silver Lake area Saturday afternoon it was me as a Bama fan exulting, not to mention turning out the lights on the last two years of your deathlessly dismissive snark.

Sure, you’ve been saying all along that the winner of the SEC was going to play in the national championship, but you were also saying all along that it would never be Alabama. That even if they kept winning, they’d eventually meet Florida and — last verse, same as the first — repeat last year’s defeat.

It would have sincerely surprised me this morning if I’d read any sort of apology — not to Alabama, oh hell no! But to your readers for leaving them so unprepared for what happened in Georgia last night.

But of course you didn’t. Instead, in the wake of such a definitive start-to-finish upset victory the best you could admit — and probably painfully — was that the Tide “soundly defeated” the Gators. Then to make yourself feel better you had to lamely cherrypick from Nick Saban’s post-game comments and giggle about its pro tone. Finally to justify the Longhorns’ tickets to Pasadena you had to go and weakly reference our 12-10 win over Tennessee as some sort of comparison to the victory Texas squeaked by with last night.

Yawn. Of course you did.

And of course you’ll be forced to move Alabama up in your rankings this week, but any higher than one spot to No. 3 (behind TCU and Texas no doubt) and I’ll be shocked!

-Will Campbell

UPDATED (9:45 a.m.): Dufresne digests my email and comes back with — surprise! — a characteristic self-servingly obtuse response:

I should apologize that my No. 4 team, Alabama, beat my No. 2 team?

Ok, then, Im [sic] sorry.

Chris Dufresne
chris.dufresne@latimes.com
@DufresneLATimes

Loser says what?

I’ve had this hat since 1993, the last time Alabama won  the national championship.

For the most part, growing up in Los Angeles college football is all about USC and UCLA. For me since I was 7 years it has aways been about Alabama.  The Crimson Tide.

My fantasy when I walked on the Beverly Hills High School football team at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school in the fall of 1979? It was to get a scholarship to play as starting tight end for Coach Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama.

My neglible skills on that junior varsity team relegated me mostly to the bench, but throughout that nonchampionship season spent mostly being a tackling dummy in practices and keeping the sidelines warm during games, I never let go of my dream, at least not until the end of the season when the most important thing to the coach wasn’t my growth as an athlete or my return next year, but rather my return of the uniform ,  failure of which would subject me to a $150 charge. Asshole. But hell, it was Beverly Hills in the early ’80s. Everyone was an asshole when I was in high school.

It was a good thing I eventually did loosen my grasp on the fantasy. Had I remained a football player and even if I’d somehow managed to rise above to a greater scholarship-worthy skill set, it would have all been for naught.  Because in my senior year of high school, Coach Bryant announced his retirement and then up and died a few months later.

Still I was heartbroken. I would never play for The Bear.

But I’ve always been the President of Alabama’s west coast fan club, the ranks of which include me. And my mom, who is an Alabama alum — which is the foundation of my rabidity for its football program. Having never known my abandoning father nor what school he might have rooted for, Paul Bryant became something of a surrogate for me. I’d watch whatever games were broadcast here in Los Angeles and I’d study images of him on the TV screens.

And I wanted him to be proud of me.

I’m writing all this because besides me and my mom most Southern Californians don’t give much of a shit for the fact that Alabama played the Florida Gators today for the SEC Championship. And though few people outside of that great state had any hopes that they’d upset the top-ranked team in the country led by holy-rolling quarterback Tim Tebow, ‘Bama ended up righteously kicking some motherfucking Gator ass: 32-13.

Holy shit, indeed.

Throughout the telecast, I yelled. I shouted. I cried. I cheered. I bitched. I moaned. I lost my voice. I stomped. I tromped. I got sideways glances from my wife and every creature in the house with my antics. But even I didn’t expect the victory to be so lopsided in a game I tweeted at various points from start to finish (after the jump, if that sorta thing interests you):

(more…)

I’ve been an L.A. City golf course reservationista pretty much for as long as I’ve been a bad golfer, which takes us on a trip via the wayback wagon to 2002.

In all that time, the city-issued cards have been pretty much the ugliest most utilitarian things I’ve ever carried in my wallet, compounded hilariously by the graphic which depicts a duffer whose crotch-level hand location allows one to easily mistake him to be fighting with his fly rather than putting to save par.

But not anymore! As evidenced via my expiring one up top and the new one that came in the mail yesterday below, clearly even in these troubled economic times someone in the Recreation & Parks Department either found the greens fees needed to hire a graphic artist or maybe had a cousin and an old version of Photoshop dress up the cards gratis.

Either way: huge improvement — unlike my golf game, which will be in evidence at the Los Feliz 3-par sometime this weekend, perhaps joined by my friend Joseph Mailander if things work out.

I got all hyped up about the Tour of California coming to town and with it the greatest field of professional cyclists ever gathered together in the United States and decided to volunteer as a course marshal. While I’d been hoping to be positioned somewhere around the Rose Bowl, instead I was assigned to marshal the section of street in front of 4318 Commonwealth Avenue in La Cañada-Flintridge, some four miles away from the stadium. This actually worked out better. Since there weren’t many other spectators other than a few residents and my fellow marshals, my duties consisted of me having to do not all that much but stand in my orange volunteer shirt and cheeer them on when they passed.

So I set up my spare cam on a mailbox across the street and captured just that as they whizzed past.

UPDATED (9:55 p.m.): After a meticulous frame-by-frame review of the footage I found what seems likely to be legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong looking over to say hey to me as he pedals past, and me totally ignoring him (annotated and clickable for your enjoyment):

Yesterday’s match-up against the Tigers at Louisiana State University was a much-anticipated and crucial game in Alabama’s quest for a national college football championship. They don’t call Tiger Stadium “Death Valley” for nothing as it’s one of the toughest places in the college football landscape for visiting teams to win.

Throughout the course of the game (which Susan wisely chose not to experience and instead ran errands) I watched, I yelled, I cursed, I sat, I stood, I flounced, I flailed, I cheered, I yelled, I cursed, I cheered, I paced, I threw my hat. But when all was said and done the Crimson Tide emerged with a 27-21 win in overtime and while not a dominating victory, nevertheless remains undefeated and will thus maintain (despite naysayers) its No. 1 Bowl Championship Series ranking.

Coming up, Alabama will host Mississippi State next week, and if they don’t get caught looking past that game to fierce rival Auburn the week after they very well could close out the season 12-0.  Then they’ll face their biggest challenge in Florida for the SEC championship. Emerging victorious from that, they’ll play whoever’s No. 2 for all the marbles.

Anyway, through the course of the game yesterday I couch-commented on Twitter via my iPhone. Here’s that stream of non-conscientiousness listed in first-to-last chronological order:

1. Bama/LSU gametime; had to get my hat!
2. Dammit! Bama’s first drive: denied
3. LSU, meet Bama defense! Hurt, don’t it?
4. LSU defense, now meet Bama’s o-line. Touchdown!
5. Ok, I’ll admit nice play LSU. 7-7
6. Dammit Bama fumble @&$”"&$0
7. LSU taking advantage of Bama FAILS 14-7
8. Enjoying the little victories: first down Bama!
9. &$/!?@@!!$ another Bama interception
10. Gah! Bama misses fieldgoal. I can haz sedativz?
11. Baaama pik taken to the house! 14-14
12. HA! LSU missed fieldgoal leaves us tied 14-14 at the half
13. Touchdown alabamaslammalamajamma
14. Bama DEFENSE gets the interception! Roooooll Tiiiiiiiide!
15. 3 quarters down, 1 to go. Bama up 21-14.
16. Well, LSU ain’t quitting. TD tigers 21-21.
    
17. Bama TC called back on holding call. Sadness
18. TC = TD; fack you iPhone
19. 2:58 on the clock and LSU’s ball; not where I want Bama to be. Hold ‘em Tide!!!!!
20. Bama gets ball back with 2:00 on the clock be great field position
21. Go get the win bama. It’s right there. Take it. It’s all yours!
22. Dammit to hell. LSU blocks game-winning FG. We’re going to OT
23. WE WIN! 27-21
24. BAMA takes it to LOSE-ee-anna!
25. We now return to our regularly scheduled human being.

Sorry. Gotta rave about college football for a moment — and rant once again about how the L.A. Times is always so quick to snarkily discount Alabama’s success. This morning columnist Chris Dufresne had this to say about Coach Nick Saban’s undefeated Crimson Tide being atop the national polls:

Saban sympathizers and [Texas Tech Coach Mike] Leach lovers should make copies of this week’s Bowl Championship Series standings, take them to print shops, and have T-shirts produced.

You might never see anything like this again.

You might not see anything like this next week.

Alabama is No. 1 in the BCS and Texas Tech is No. 2.

If the season ended today, according to rules originally scrawled out on a cocktail napkin, these schools would play Jan. 8 in South Florida for the BCS national title.

Is anyone ready for Mike Leach versus Nick Saban?

The Mad Scientist versus the coach who always looks mad?

The season didn’t end Sunday, though, so what you’re looking at is probably a BCS false front similar to that Western town, Rock Ridge, in Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles.”

The idea of a BCS title game showcasing Alabama versus Texas Tech is not repugnant, it’s just not promising.

In fairness, Dufresne points rightfully to the tough remaining schedule that remains for Alabama. But on the heels of the Times suggesting yesterday that previously No. 6 Texas Tech might take the No. 1 spot from No. 2-ranked ‘Bama, I had enough of the latest in a long line of ceaseless dissing and you know I let it all hang out in a letter to Dufresne:

I was particularly miffed yesterday to read that certain scribes there on Spring Street suggested that Texas Tech might leap over Alabama into the No. 1 BCS spot after its upset over Texas, despite the Tide’s impressive (if not marquee) shutout defeat of Arkansas State. And then today by way of getting that wishful prediction wrong you’re telling me I better head over to Hicksville T-Shirt Company and memorialize my favorite college football team’s rightful national position atop the standings because it’s bound to change.

As perhaps the only (or at least one very rare) Los Angeles native who’s an Alabama fan (mom was an alum before coming out to Hollywood with stars in her eyes), I’ve cringed and twinged and grrrrrr’d through the years at the institutional bias and snark from Jim Murray on down that the Los Angeles Times has always shown ‘Bama, which seems doomed to ever get no respect — or at best the begrudging kind — from the local sports writers.

And while I’m not so rabid to realize that who’s No. 1 today might be No. 7 next week, if for some shocking reason the Tide does manage to fortify its position at the summit with victories over LSU, Auburn and Florida, I’ll be ordering a crow sandwich for you and serving it up cold.

Will Campbell

UPDATE (06:45 a.m.): Dufresne turned around a quick response to my inbox. He writes, “I’ll take my sandwich with mustard and a pickle! Great response…”

Here in the city of anglez, membership has its privileges on all sorts of levels — one of them being preferred access to the variety of municipal pay tennis facilities (8) and golf courses (10). It doesn’t come free, of course. There’s an annual fee attached to each; $15 for swatters of the fuzzy ball and $25 for whackers of the dimpled one.

Nor does possession of the respective pieces of plastic grant you free passage onto those fields of play. It’s $8 an hour for tennis and a varying fee depending on what set of holes you want to play on. Basically all the cards do is allow the city to collect some personal information on you in exchange for being provided a member number with which to navigate through moderately clunky automated systems to schedule a court or a tee time, depending on availability.

Certainly walk-ups are welcome but without a reservation the risk of standing around and waiting is always a possibility.

Anyway, I had previously possessed both of these cards, but let my tennis one lapse when I decided to confine my on-court antics to the downtown YMCA’s rooftop courts. I failed to renew my golf one when I entered into that two-year period of not picking up my clubs (except to move them to the basement).

But after my round at Roosevelt last month with my friend Joseph Mailander, wherein I learned he’s also a player of tennis, I figured it was time to re-up to better enable and speed any future play dates. And now both have arrived, though sadly only after having to print out applications and employ stamps and envelopes and checks and photocopies of proof of residency like it’s 1995, not with the online ease one might otherwise expect to be the standard today.

PS. Speaking of archaic, someone with big enough golfballs in the Golf Division of the L.A Dept. of Recreation & Parks needs to march up to their boss who needs to march up to their boss and teach them two words: graphic artist. If there’s ever a card that needs some visual stimulation, it’s that one. And can somebody help that poor hunchbacked guy zip up his fly, dammit?

PSS. Yeah, you’re funny, but no the “D” on the golf card is not indicative — at least not intentionally — of the level of my game. It’s one of four rotating priority designations allowing early tee-time access on specific weekends throughout the year.