When You Really Make Them Mad

“Alabama, you’re next.” (via @JBeasleyWSMV) pic.twitter.com/Hmga4kIsdE
— Saturday Down South (@SDS) September 17, 2017

So I am sure by now, you have seen this clip. Probably a dozen times. This one particular clip has been viewed nearly a million times. There are others, edited down, that also got views in the six figures. It was an interview that Justin Beasley and I did back in 2017 when Vandy had just knocked off top 25 ranked, Kansas State.
We interviewed Nifae Lealao immediately after the game and he was fired up and rightfully so. We finish all the interviews after the game and head back to the TV station where Justin calls me over to where he was editing. “Hey, I am going to upload this to social media, what do you think?” Fine, I thought, and I was tired and wanted to go home.
Within an hour, Justin calls me and says, check your twitter. And lo and behold, our interview had gone viral. In a crazy way. Alabama fans picked up on it, websites, bloggers, and on and on and on. By Sunday night, it had made it’s way to ESPN and other national shows and even to Nick Saban’s weekly press conference. This clip and what Jalen Hurts had to say made me laugh out loud.

Fast forward to Saturday’s game and Alabama beats Vandy, 59-0. I think it might have been the best game, statistic wise, in the history of Alabama football.
Vandy sports information sent out an email that they were no longer allowing on the field interviews after games because of what we did. I get it, you are trying to protect your players but sometimes, that emotion on the field is amazing and rarely do we get to see it. A few Vandy fans were mad at me and Bama fans were loving every second of it.
But, this what made them REALLY mad. I was doing the sportscast that Saturday night and I did the highlights, and everything else and we went to the last break before the newscast is over. We come back from the break and have about :45 seconds left and on the screen, Paul Heggen, the great weatherman, has up a screen about the pollen count. It said the count was 7. I said, “Hey look everyone, pollen outscored Vandy today.”
And here come the emails. And the phone calls. Vandy fans were mad at me. Really mad. I laughed because it was funny and the first rule in comedy, yes, be funny. What made me realize that joke was a bullseye was on one of those phone calls. A gentleman said he was embarrassed by how Vandy played and what I said made him and his wife life out loud.
Thank you, kind sir, for having a sense of humor. As the great philosopher Jimmy Buffett eloquently said, “If we didn’t laugh, we would all go insane.” Amen!

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