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The World's Largest Outdoor... Party
05/18/06
by Clay
Anyone who has ever been to any Southeastern Conference football game knows that alcohol is as abundant as exceedingly attractive coeds and use of the words y’all and fixin’. Personally I don’t even know if any students would have attended Vanderbilt University home football games for the last twenty years if alcohol had not served as lubrication for the pain of constant losses. Keeping alcohol out of the hands of southern football fans is about as effective as United States immigration policy. Well, now University of Georgia President Michael Adams wants to change all this by ending media references to the annual Georgia-Florida football grudge match in Jacksonville, Florida as The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. Clearly it’s the name of the event itself that is causing fans to imbibe.
This is despite the fact that I have yet to meet a Georgia or Florida fan who didn’t try and persuade me to attend the football game by beginning every argument with these words, “Man, it’s the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party.” Put plainly, it doesn’t matter what the media says something should be called if every fan on earth calls the game something else. I suppose on some level there is a concern because of the violence that has ensued at recent games. And while we here at Deadly Hippos have always believed that every fan should have the opportunity to attend a game and root for his team without fear of losing either his teeth or his life, changing the name of the Hatfield-McCoy feud to the Hatfield-McCoy hoedown wouldn’t have taken away the blood-feud. If 85,000 Florida and Georgia football fans sat down to watch Bambi while sharing tea and crumpets, I guarantee you there would still be brawls.
But why did President Adams stop with a mere request for a new name for the game? For instance alligators kill people in Florida. How in the world can the University of Florida allow a stuffed alligator to roam the sidelines? And how can Georgia be expected to countenance this. The very mascot of Florida itself is a killer. Even worse, a cold-blooded killer. There are plenty of non-killing animals that could have been chosen as a mascot. Why not the Florida Geckos or the Florida Garter Snakes? Or even better the Florida Manatees. After all, the manatee is a slow moving sea creature that has been called the cow of the ocean. And the manatee doesn’t wound, maim, or kill. What kind of image are we sending to the young people of Florida and Georgia? I’ll tell you, that it’s ok to be a cold-blooded reptilian assassin.
So, as with most politically correct suggestions, this initiative in the mind of Deadly Hippos boils down to a weak symbolic gesture that will ultimately change nothing. In fact Florida’s president, J. Bernard Machen, should call a press conference and endorse Adams’ call for ending all “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party,” references. President Machen should say something about how this phrase has been outdated by the continuing march of scientific knowledge and societal advancement. Then he should suggest a new name. “Universe’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.” Seriously, if President Machen did this he would immediately become the only Southeastern Conference President that your average SEC fan could name. It would become impossible to ever fire him or demand his resignation. Plus he would strike a blow for men named Bernard across the country.
But we here at Deadly Hippos are nothing if not sympathetic to the ravages that a phrase like the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party has reigned forth upon the young and impressionable minds in Athens and Gainesville. After all each university is a veritable temperance union on the other fifty-one weeks of campus life. So in the spirit of President Adams’ bold stand we decided to lend a hand to the marketing wizards at both schools and put forward our own Deadly Hippos ideas for what this annual grudge match could be renamed. I hope President Adams appreciates my suggestions.
1. World’s largest collection of people in jean shorts. (I’ve heard it suggested by Georgia fans that the jean short should be Florida’s state flag.)
2. The hottest gathering of women in world history.
3. World’s largest collection of people who believe that Jesus will decide the outcome of the game. Or alternatively: the Jesus Bowl.
4. The Mullet Bowl.
5. World’s largest group of men who can bench 250 pounds yet feel compelled to wear tight red pants. (My wife once said that she never realized how serious southerners took football until she went to Athens and saw the number of men who were willing to wear tight red pants to a game.)
6. The Florida is Going to Win bowl
7. World’s largest collection of men who still believe that “Who Let the Dogs Out,” is a cool song.
8. The Crying Game (Despite Deadly Hippos’s anti-crying stance, there are tears aplenty from grown men when this game is over).
9. The I Wish Steve Spurrier Were Still Coaching My Team Bowl.
10. The NRA Annual Convention.
11. The Teetotaler’s Tussle Over a Pigskin.
12. The MADD (Men Against Drinking o’Doul’s) Bowl
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